Trying to find good cooler that will fit mATX board

[dave2849]

I have an mATX case and I plan I getting the ASUS z97m-plus lga 1150 mATX motherboard. I will be pairing it with the intel g3258 processor and will need a decent cooler that will fit in my case and motherboard for overclocking.

I have measured how much space I have on my current motherboard for a cooler to get an idea of how space I will have for a cooler on the Asus z97 mATX board I want to get. Based on my measurements on only seem to have 100mm of room for the length and width and about 150mm for the height. Most of the best coolers on Newegg have larger dimensions and there are only seem to be so many options to fit an mATX board with my dimensions.

I was wondering, is it generally hard to fit a typical aftermarket cooler on an mATX board? Do my measurements sound reasonable for fitting an aftermarket cooler on an mATX board in an mATX case?

Any suggestions for a good low profile cooler for overclocking an intel g3258 processor?

 

[Charlie98]

What case do you have, specifically?

For low-profile needs, you would spec something like this Vortex...

 

[Carson Dyle]

Are you buying a retail version of the CPU? You might just wait until you get the motherboard, mount it and the CPU then get more exact dimensions. Run it with the stock cooler until you get a better one. One thing you can often do is use RAM with a lower profile heatsink, then you just need to worry about clearing the first PCIe slot. And if you use a CPU's IGPU and no video card, you don't need to worry about clearing that, either.

But I'd be willing to bet that many tower coolers with a 92mm fan would meet all of your dimensions, without being designed to be "low profile".

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103064

Physical Spec
Fan Dimensions 92 x 92 x 25mm
Heatsink Dimensions 90 x 51 x 139mm

So that works out to about 92mm x 76mm x 139mm.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I was wondering, is it generally hard to fit a typical aftermarket cooler on an mATX board? Do my measurements sound reasonable for fitting an aftermarket cooler on an mATX board in an mATX case?

Any suggestions for a good low profile cooler for overclocking an intel g3258 processor?

It is highly dependent on the dimensions of your case. Without knowing which case specifically you're using, I can't say reliably what your max cooler size is.

For low-profile, my usual first recommendation is the Scythe Big Shuriken. You could spend considerably more on, say, the Noctua NH-L12, but you'd be paying quite a premium, for maybe only modestly better performance.

The Big Shuriken should fit in just about any small case. It even fits in most small mITX cases.

 

[dave2849]

The case I'm using is a Gateway dx4710-07 case. The dimensions are 16.1 x 7.0 x 17.25-in (H x W x D). My motherboard is 9.6 x 9.6in and takes up the entire space where the motherboard sits so I guess I could say those are the dimensions of the interior of my case. Another problem with space is that the PSU in my case is very large and creates further restrictions for how big of a cooler I could get. Carson Dyle's suggestion to get the cpu and motherboard first probably makes the most sense. I could also always just buy an cheaper ATX case.

 

[Carson Dyle]

What are you trying to achieve with the aftermarket cooler? Overclocking, quieter operation, or ...?

You don't necessarily need to go ATX. I have a Fractal Design Define Mini mATX case and it handles a full sized tower cooler with 120mm fan. I have 158mm tall Scythe Mugen 3 Rev.B in my system.

This Fractal Design mATX case was just $25 with free shipping from Newegg about a week ago. Deals like that come up frequently.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352032

 

[BonzaiDuck]

What are you trying to achieve with the aftermarket cooler? Overclocking, quieter operation, or ...?

You don't necessarily need to go ATX. I have a Fractal Design Define Mini mATX case and it handles a full sized tower cooler with 120mm fan. I have 158mm tall Scythe Mugen 3 Rev.B in my system.

This Fractal Design mATX case was just $25 with free shipping from Newegg about a week ago. Deals like that come up frequently.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352032

First, the disclaimer that I haven't tried it yet. But there is absolutely no reason that one should be unable to safely use an NH-D14 on an mATX motherboard.

That being said, even Noctua produces single-tower coolers that perform nearly as well as the D14/D15. For instance, the NH-U14S uses the same number of heatpipes deployed in the NH-D15, but only a single set of fins equivalent to one of the two towers in the D15.

I would only think that one would purchase the "Pentium K" with an intention of overclocking the bejeezus out of it. And I would think that air cooling would be more than sufficient, or that you could squeeze a lot of megahertz out of a decent high-end heatpipe cooler.

With the Gateway case of only 7" wide, though -- best to examine the specs of any cooler before buying it -- against the distance between the motherboard and the case-side-panel.

 

[papapapapapapapababy]

here,

https://imgur.com/a/ZWlKH

all you need is 8 zip ties and a good pair of scissors, cut saw the stock fan of the heastink, "lasso" 4 ties, replace with a big fan at 5v , secure with the 4 other ties (caps) : quieter, cooler, low profile, cheap. i had to do this because i cant find this VX BTK II adapter in my 3r world country

http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-B...DFA1EAJ73CB6H9

btw previous cooler

https://imgur.com/Oaar7pb

 

[BonzaiDuck]

here,

https://imgur.com/a/ZWlKH [2]

all you need is 8 zip ties and a good pair of scissors, cut saw the stock fan of the heastink, "lasso" 4 ties, replace with a big fan at 5v , secure with the 4 other ties (caps) : quieter, cooler, low profile, cheap. i had to do this because i cant find this VX BTK II adapter in my 3r world country

http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-B...DFA1EAJ73CB6H9

btw previous cooler [1]

https://imgur.com/Oaar7pb

[1] ThermalRight? Not a bad choice.

[2] Only problem with that -- it's an aluminum heatsink, even with a copper core, doesn't use heatpipes, doesn't easily exhaust immediately out the rear of the case. But sensible way to adapt a bigger fan to it -- definitely.

I'd seen where one guy had used a kitchen rubber-glove cut to fit over a Zalman copper-flower cooler that is just a fancier version of the stock-Intel. IT was a "ducted" mod which forced a lot of air through the fins.

After finding more comparison reviews and improving my NH-D14 cooler strategy to get the most out of it, I had discovered recently -- this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835288004

It's smaller, in some tests 6C-degrees more effective than a d14. But there potentially could be an "availability" problem in some countries or regions -- I wouldn't know, couldn't say.