Best Air Cooler for a 4770k

[Caveman]

Thinking NH-D14 after reading Anand's review... Need thermal paste recommendation also... Usually use Arctic silver but if there's something better, I'll try...

 

[tviceman]

The overriding consensus is that there are plenty of better pastes than AS5. Noctua's paste that comes with the NH-D14 is pretty good. MX-4, TX-2m and PK-1 are all other popular choices. If you don't mind lapping your heatsink, the absolute best thermal paste you can use is Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra but, like I said, you would have to get some wet/dry sandpaper and get the aluminum off the NH-D14 base.

 

[LagunaX]

Repost of this thread, please read:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2323635

 

[JEDIYoda]

the absolute best thermal paste you can use is Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra

First of all you are wrong!! It is NOT a thermal paste! It is a liquid...it is highly corrosive if you by accident get it on your mobo...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616-2.html -- excellent article

Asked whether the 1.5 °C ΔT, which the Liquid Ultra holds over Gelid's GC-Extreme with a closed-loop cooler, or the 2.7 °C ΔT, which it does in the boxed cooler test, are worth extra effort and cost, my personal answer is no. But of course, some enthusiasts swear by the liquid metal. Most folks don't need the stuff; it's really for the overclockers functioning at the very top of their game.