It depends on your ambitions for stretching an overclock, your tolerance for failure points versus simplicity, if not your actual needs. You can cool i7 processors well enough with a CM 212+/EVO-whatever. You might even squeeze some clocks out of it, and one member says he pushed his 6700K to ~80-to-82C @ 4.5 Ghz with a 212.
Size usually compromises with effectiveness. If you find a cooler that breaks out of the mold in pushing forward in both dimensions, and you match your expectations against that cooler -- I say go for it.
Me? I had water-cooling plans for several months and switched them at the last minute to get a CLU-relidded-chip, an LG-Macho and accessory duct. If I can volt the processor to the safer maximum of 1.4V for 4.7Ghz, it will push 80C. 4.6 is ~70-to-73C under LinX with AVX. IntelBurnTest won't take it past 68C. I should re-bench for Prime95 to see how warm it gets, but as I recall, LinX offered up the highest temperatures.
I don't know what the limit is for Kaby Lake, but the Skylake begins to have heat-generated electrical noise and instability in the low-mid-80's.
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