Which cooler?

I quickly realised that the first cooler I posted isn't suitable and I'll probably go for either the NH-U12S or the NH-U14S. I haven't made any plans to OC, that's why I didn't mention it, and my days of building water cooled rigs are far gone now. I'll probably go for the Avexir Core memory modules too so thanks for the suggestion. As I stated if I wanted advice on case fans then I would have asked and I believe I understand all about negative and positive air pressure inside a case. My present system rums ok temps with it's current case so I think I'll be fine with my choice...
 
I'm not quite sure why you're so intent on those Noctuas though. They are expensive and there are better alternatives for cheaper, more so if you're not overclocking.
 
Prolimatech Megahalems ftw :D
Add 2 quiet pwm fans on push/pull and you will never hear it, unless in turbo mode then maybe some whisper. As for performance, you can ask 8 Pack.
 
No I will take any suggestion as long as it is something I do need as apposed to something I do not. What fans would you recommend and would that cooler block the first gfx card socket on my motherboard?
 
I've been trying to figure out whether I can comfortably fit one of these dual towers in a Silverstone SG10 and from what I've read, 140mm is pretty much the max width before it's touching or is very close to whatever is in the first PCI slot (will be the graphics card in my case).

I've been using the Noctua NH-D14 which is 140mm wide as a reference as plenty of people have them installed in the Silverstone SG10, not without issues though.

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=faqs&step=2&lng=en&products_id=34#18
 
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I also prefer my fans to blow out the rear of the case, not suck hot air up over the gfx card so is the orientation front to back with the fans?
 
It depends on the case I suppose but yeah, generally you should have the CPU fan(s) blowing air in the direction of the exhaust at the rear of the case, with the airflow being parallel to the graphics card.
 
Hi, sorry Zenf, I meant to say can the Prolimatech be fitted with front to rear fans and will it still clear my first gfx card slot with a AMD 7900 series card?
 
Thanks for that, it does look like it'll fit ok, but then, with the cost of fans on top of the cost of the heatsink, it surely becomes more expensive than the coolers I was looking at...
 
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Indeed, and I'm not sure about how the fans just clip onto the heatsink, I imagine the fans could vibrate and be fairly loud compared to some of the competition.

Currently looking at the be quiet! Shadow Rock 2, might be able to just squeeze it into the SG10.. Annoying that most of these dual towers are just very, very slightly too big for it.

Edit: scratch that, looks like the NH-U12S would be better. The Shadow Rock Slim might have potential though but can't find much about it... Or maybe the Dark Rock 3.

Edit again: looks like I'm going to go with the be quiet! Dark Rock 3. It's 137mm wide so should have a little bit of space between it and my graphics card in the first PCI slot, 160mm height so will fit in the 165mm limitation of the SG10 and can install an extra 120mm fan at the back in addition to the 135mm on the front it comes with. It looks rather nice too and should be dead quiet, and the bigger size should hopefully mean it'll perform a bit better than the NH-U12S.
 
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Can't say I know much about your case or mobo really but it should be fine, you could probably go for the Pro version but I think you'd need low profile RAM either way, not sure. The Pro is a bit too tall for my case unfortunately.

It looks like your mobo has a similar layout to what I'll be getting though so if the top PCI slot is for a graphics card, it's likely something like the K2 Mount Doom will interfere with it as it's 146mm wide. The Dark Rock Pro 3 is only 137mm wide so should fit nicely and be much quieter too.

Edit: actually, the Pro 3 is only 163mm height... It might fit in the SG10! :p

Of course, near silence means nothing in an enthusiast class cooler if the performance isn’t there along with it, and the Dark Rock Pro 3 does not disappoint. At stock clocks the Dark Rock Pro 3 was evenly matched with the best air and closed loop coolers available, and was able to achieve this performance with significantly less noise. However, one does not typically drop $80+ on an enthusiast class cooler to put on a stock clocked CPU. When the speed, voltage and heat were turned up, the Dark Rock Pro 3 did not whither like most low-noise coolers. It hung in there just a couple of degrees higher than the best out of the box performers around….but did so at sound levels that were worlds apart. It was noticeably quieter than the 14PE, and approximately 30 dB quieter than the H100i. That is not a typo or a misprint, let me say it again, the Dark Rock Pro 3 was 30+ dB quieter than the H100i while sacrificing only three degrees under load while overclocked. That is approximately the difference between rustling leaves and a small vacuum cleaner.
Click to expand...

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews...rock-pro-3-cpu-cooler-review?showall=&start=3

Want!
 
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Having put my system together now using the Dark Rock 3 Plus cooler I can say it is as quiet as the my old rig which used the Noctua NH-C12P SE14 CPU Cooler. The Dark Rock was one of the easiest CPU heatsinks to fit, I had to do this before I mounted the motherboard as the Lian-Li case I've got doesn't have a removable tray. The memory sticks were a bit of a faff to get into position but not terribly difficult and the gfx card does, just, clear the heatsink. At the moment it is running at 20c at idle, so that is lower than my original setup, but I yet to do some load tests to see if the system is stable but so far so good.
With the 250gb SSD I'd fitted the bootup is incredibly fast and impressive.

Cheers all for your input and help, especially to you zenf...
 
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