What sort of case/CPU cooling for a mini-itx setup?

[iloveATech]

First off, thank you all for your time as always, every computer in my house was made by consulting this forum first, and I am very thankful for the input and direction!

I had a friend who wanted to get rid of his 'rig, he took whatever parts out he wanted, and I inherited the PC with specs as below. It had a 500 w PSU which was way overkill I thought, so I bought the 360W gold certified (haswell approved) to replace it. I have not yet turned it on, and the anticipation is killing me!

The PSU came in the mail today on my day off, superfast from newegg, and then it hit me: there is no case cooling except the power supply! Doh! Now, I remember having the 5x 120mm fans in my Pentium 2.3ghz back in the day, but as you see, i have done my best to be as power efficient as possible. In fact, I don't have graphics card plugged it, and I plan to put it in once a month to make sure that don't spend too much time gaming (otherwise I would never leave the house), and at idle it uses like 50 watts which is unacceptable I reckon. Also, no optical media, 2nd HDD, etc.

I know that my processor runs hot by looking at reviews online, so my question is: (1) what sort (if any) case cooling should I have (in addition to the 120mm fan built into the PSU)? And (2), would you recommend a specific CPU cooler to extend the life of my build? I'm looking to go for silence, but not at the price of longevity, so I dare not turn it on yet (!!!!!)

Many thanks as always. You all seemed to like my cat last time, so here's a new cat that the mrs and I adopted, his name is Scrappy (as in Scrappy Doo from Scooby Doo)

ASRock H97M-ITX/ac LGA 1150 Intel H97 HDMI SAT
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDR
SeaSonic SSR-360GP 360W ATX12V v2.31 80 PLUS GOLD
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TL
GeForce GTX 750 Ti (only present once a month for gaming)
Intel Core i5-4670k
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit

all in COOLER MASTER Elite 110 RC-110-KKN2

 

[monkeydelmagico]

COOLER MASTER Elite 110 should have come with a 120mm fan in front.

 

[iloveATech]

COOLER MASTER Elite 110 should have come with a 120mm fan in front.

**Slaps forehead**

I am quire embarrassed.

Yes. Now that I look, there is obviously a fan in the front. It's wire was all folded neatly, but still...wow. Missed that completely. Thank you

Any thoughts on the stock CPU cooler? Will it be sufficient? Do you recommend another?

Thank you as always

 

[Essence_of_War]

I assume you won't be OC'ing since you're using the H-series chipset?

The intel stock cooler is pretty reasonable if you're not under heavy load (like gaming). If you're doing mostly NOT gaming, and not heavy other activity (encoding video, etc) you're probably OK with the stock cooler if you run it off PWM and make sure your bios is using a reasonable fan control settings.

If you'd like a little more than that, you could upgrade to a heatpipe air cooler, I've recommended the CM Gemini and Scythe Big Shuriken before. They'll be cooler and quieter than the stock, and they're quite compact.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I thought that I read somewhere that the 750ti only takes 5-7W at idle. No reason to remove it monthly. If anything, that will wear out the slot pre-maturely.

 

[mistersprinkles]

A PCIE slot is not like the slot on an N64, you can wear it out, so once you put the card in, leave it in, don't put it in and out.

 

[mfenn]

A PCIE slot is not like the slot on an N64, you can wear it out, so once you put the card in, leave it in, don't put it in and out.

While yes, a PCIe slot can wear out over time, it's not something that I'd worry about. It's not particularly different than the type of connectors that old cartridge-based consoles used.