Aftermarket cooling on the Gigiabyte Z77N wifi mobo

Doc Holliday · 15 Mar 2013 at 07:38

Hi,

Looking at a SFF budget gaming build using a CM Elite 120 case.
I'm thinking of the CPU i3 3220 with a Gigabyte z77n wifi board with a thermalright APX 100 cooler and a dedicated graphics card.

After looking more closely at board layout I think the socket might be a bit too close to the pcie x16 slot and obsruct the video card.

I didn't go for the ASrock boards as I heard they have this problem too.

What other options are there?

I'm interested in a board that will take a cpu upgrade when possible and with some OC capacity. I'm planning on using some samsung green RAM.

cheers

Doomedspeed · 17 Mar 2013 at 11:22

A different board may be best: this asus can even fit a D14 on: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-530-AS

I'm not sure what other coolers there are for that board..

ZXSpectrum · 17 Mar 2013 at 11:54

I went for a water cooler as I thought I would have the same problem. I have a different case though and not sure if you can fit it in the cm chassis.

dacads · 17 Mar 2013 at 13:12

The PSU goes above CPU socket so you will want something low profile

Doc Holliday · 17 Mar 2013 at 14:01

Cheers for the replies folks

I eventually went for upgraded board and cpu (the Asus z77 i deluxe + 3570k) which has a better socket position and will not need upgrading. I chose the Noctua LH9i as it should fit without impacting on anything else. We'll see how well it cools.

Ref AIO water cooling options. It's an option but I'm not focussing all my plans on it. I do have a 120mm AIO watercooler which I might play with too but I'm not keen on the "radiator as intake airflow" setups I've seen with this case and AIO's.

Anyone tried venting a 120mm rad out of the side grill under the 5.252 drive tray? I suspect the grill (which has big holes but plenty of metal surface area too) will impede heat dissipation from the rad somewhat, but you never know till you try.

I'm sticking the big yellow 140 mm Viper that fits in a 120mm mount in the front for max air flow and have an apache silent 120mm high performance fan for inside the case and have a couple of slim 40mm noise blockers to fit in the sides. Plenty to play with. It'll be like my own private mini windtunnel in there

A few more fans and the thing will probably be airbourne