ASUS Sabertooth Z77 CPU Cooler Suggestions

[Gary2MBz]

Good evening from Los Angeles everyone! I've been lost in classwork and looking for work but thankfully doing some IT favors here and there has made me some money. Coming from a socket 754 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ I needed an upgrade and opted for Ivy Bridge. So I've been saving and purchasing bits as money came in and my new beastly rig is done except for one small detail: I need a CPU Cooler! >.<

Here are my specs:

Cooler Master Storm Scout Mid-Tower (I opted for the Black/Red theme vs. Blue which was in my last rig and the top ports I love!)

ASUS Sabertooth Z77 BIOS 1403

G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3-2133 F3-17000CL11Q-16GBXL

Intel Core i7 3770k (Until I get a stable job and get a car, I don't mind pushing limits because I want to keep this rig for well around four years)

Crucial M4 128GB SSD 000F firmware

2x Seagate Barracuda STD2000DM001 2TB 7200RPM in RAID 1

Intel HD 4000 (Planning on getting next gen Nvidia when I'll have some money saved, its not the biggest thing though at the moment)

Originally I had hoped for a Cooler Master V6 GT on this board but the "thermal armor" wouldn't allow for it to fit properly without being in the air on one half. After trying so many ways to mount it, I just had to call it quits. Worst thing above all, I'm using the stock cooler that came with the processor and being at stock, it EASILY goes between 65 - 90 degrees Celcius. I wiped the crap that it came with and used Arctic Silver 5 in between mind you.

I need some suggestions on coolers, I've seen a lot of people recommending water cooling such as the Corsair H80/H100 but I can't justify anything more than $55. I want to be able to buy it from Frys as I want to put this beast to use after waiting months. So far the Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM has caught my attention but I want to see others' opinions. I wanna push the CPU between 4.8GHz - 5.0GHz with the RAM as well. Synthetic benchmarks aside, I will be using this rig mostly for editing 1080p videos and as soon as I begin learning Adobe Premiere in the near future I wanna be able to squeeze all ounces of power out of this thing.

Any ideas on the Cooler Master V8 fitting or not? I'm willing to go $60 tops + California sales tax. Thanks everyone!

Edit: If its not possible to hit the 4.8-5.0GHz mark, I won't mind being at 4.5GHz since that's where I see a lot of peoples' stability marks on air cooling.

[+PeterUK MVC]

Originally I had hoped for a Cooler Master V6 GT on this board but the "thermal armor" wouldn't allow for it to fit properly without being in the air on one half. After trying so many ways to mount it, I just had to call it quits.

What part of the cooler stopped it for fitting? What way round was the cooler fans pointing in the case up or across?

[Tekkerson]

Forgive me for being off-topic but why do you have a MAC as your avatar when you're buidling a PC?

[Gary2MBz]

What part of the cooler stopped it for fitting? What way round was the cooler fans pointing in the case up or across?

The CM V6GT has a heatpipe that is spread a bit too far and the thermal armor is in the way of it. I couldn't even mount it otherwise it would be crooked and the top side is in the air. It only mounts in two directions with the button either on top or bottom but both ends have that one lengthy heatpipe which doesn't allow me to fit it in.

Forgive me for being off-topic but why do you have a MAC as your avatar when you're buidling a PC?

I have a love for the display panels in the Mac and the body albeit clunkier compared to the new Vizio All-in-Ones still looks amazing from the front. :)

[mr.r9]

Without hesitation, This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709002. Nah just kidding.

For 20 $, and if you keep the Vcore below 1.3 volts, the 212+ is more than enough and honestly you cannot beat it for the price unless you go 60$ or more: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835103065

Thermal grease (don't use the OEM crap CM is supplying): http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835608008 or http://www.newegg.co...Tpk=shin%20etsu

Regarding closed loop water coolers, I'd stay away from them because of their problems and so so performance, look here: http://www.overclock...orsair-response

Personally a friend of mine experienced the grinding noise twice, and he did not want to through a 3rd RMA and asked for a full refund. Now he's happy with his 212+.

[Gary2MBz]

Without hesitation, This: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709002. Nah just kidding.

For 20 $, and if you keep the Vcore below 1.3 volts, the 212+ is more than enough and honestly you cannot beat it for the price unless you go 60$ or more: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835103065

Thermal grease (don't use the OEM crap CM is supplying): http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835608008 or http://www.newegg.co...Tpk=shin%20etsu

Regarding closed loop water coolers, I'd stay away from them because of their problems and so so performance, look here: http://www.overclock...orsair-response

Personally a friend of mine experienced the grinding noise twice, and he did not a 3rd RMA and asked for a full refund. Now he's happy with his 212+.

Thanks for the input on the water coolers, I was of mixed thoughts because on one hand its water cooling aka better than air cooling. But on the other hand, I don't wanna refill coolants because I'm not always home and god forbid the thing fries itself because I forgot to refill the coolant you know? I don't mind a little noise because at this point the only noisy component is the stock cooler that comes with the i7 but we all know that ain't anything for overclocking let alone in this case just installing an OS.

As for the 212, I see the EVO at Frys as well, any difference there aside from a different looking fan? I also see the 612 which I've read on some reviews on Amazon and others' forum posts that this and the 212 use the same mounting kit. Is this true? I've seen success with the 612 on my board as well but wouldn't the 612 benefit me more than the 212 in terms of overclock temperatures under load?

Hyper 612 Frys: http://www.frys.com/product/7054561?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Hyper 212 EVO: http://www.frys.com/product/6799935;jsessionid=0RhL8ZH-rmq-XbJF4a8Nlw__.node2?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Hyper 212+: http://www.frys.com/product/5971334?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

I swear by Arctic Silver 5 but I'll consider those as well if for any reason they are out of stock on those. Thanks, mr.r9!

[mr.r9]

According to http://benchmarkrevi...=1&limitstart=4 the 612 is very good, and if the 612 is selling for 29$ then go for it!

Regarding 212Evo vs 212+, the fans are said to be better and other than that no. They are the same heat sink.

Btw, I almost bought the Sabertooth but instead I went for this sexy thing:

edit: 500 posts!

[Gary2MBz]

I was originally going for the Maximus V Gene but seeing as how the Sabertooth has the Thunderbolt header as well as a 3rd USB 2.0 header which I needed and didn't want an addon card, I was sold. Plus overclocking on this board is AMAZING from what I've seen. Sadly this stock cooler won't give me that until tomorrow when I get the 612 from Frys. The other reason I opted for the Sabertooth as well was because my last build had Blue LEDs and blue theme but I got sick of it. I wanted a change and seeing as how Red LEDs don't always look good because they're pink/orange it was an even more interesting feat: Black/Red Combo! :D

[mr.r9]

Yeah the Sabertooth is a monster of a motherboard, but to be honest this whole generation with Uefi is fantastic. You can save profiles, editing settings is a breeze...etc.

If your into binging your system Maybe some

, a friend bought the red kit for his CM HAF and personally I found it to look nice, but white will match your build better!

[Gary2MBz]

I've been so far behind. Up until now, the most I've been able to push is a Core 2 Duo P8600 with a WD Scorpio Black in my laptop. I wanna get a 64GB Crucial m4 SSD since I don't even use too much space. I got a 2TB RAID1 on me now with this new build and copying about 1TB of data from a My Book with USB 3, it took well about 2 hours but it is much better than USB 2.0 so no complaints :D

I added one of the fans from my V6 GT to the Hyper 612 PWM I got today and on stock clocks it idles at 28C - 31C in a 75 degree F room (it gets steamy in here no pun intended haha). I'm just impressed so far! As for the lighting, aside from the fans that came with the case, I got 3 of these LED light bars: http://www.xoxide.co...orlightred.html

My next build in the future will maintain Black/White but I'm not gonna lie I'm now facing the fact that I want to go for my schooling and get a job so I can get a BMW M5 E60 or 550i used simply because I love the handling (side issue). I wanna basically get the car with white interior LEDs.

Back to topic, these next few days I want to use AIDA to test for stability and heat. How can I go on about to getting a stable overclock? Some of these options are new to me because my previous board (ECS 755-A2) didn't have any overclocking whatsoever! I'm a total n00b in this case and I want to push this CPU and save a profile for when I actually go heavy duty in the future. I'm gonna call it a night for now, I'll get screenshots of what the BIOS tells me because I just have the X.M.P. profile set up so the RAM is apparently reporting to be at 2133MHz. This is the RAM I have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231473

In the meantime, here's a few shots of my build. I got some pictures of just testing the LEDs and exploring my wiring options. I'll get some more pictures in the meantime also. The orangish picture was just from me rushing and I didn't let it focus but ehh lol.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sxe5p08zxn4r7tc/F70HA0KlxS

[Gary2MBz]

I fooled around a bit and did some reading on others' overclocks. So far I've managed to keep Windows up and stable by overclocking to 4.5GHz (100x45) on 1.275 voltage. I do plan on stressing it for 4 hours later tonight using AIDA64 but here is my current status:

[streetw0lf]

I have an ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe with a 3770K. Also have Corsair 2133Mhz RAM which I'm running at 2400. My cooler is a Corsair H100 liquid. I run my CPU at 4.6 which requires a Vcore of around 1.33. When I start going to 4.7 and up I need to increase the voltage to the point where core temps get over 100c when the CPU is running full bore as in Prime95.

[Gary2MBz]

I kinda got scared because it kept being unstable so I dragged it down to stock speeds for now. I had it stable at 4.5GHz at one point running for 90 minutes stable not breaking 70C (according to AISuite, I'm kind of suspicious because AIDA gives me different temps here too) I've tried every possible combo and with the help of my RAM's XMP Profile it gets clock to 4.2GHz but then again I noticed at one point more voltage than it should be getting. I reset every timing setting to stock in the meantime.

Anybody with a Sabertooth Z77 and Core i7 3770k on air manage to pull off 4.5GHz successfully and stay stable?

[Dan~]

I'm getting the same board soon and buying the Noctua Nh-D14.

I'm only getting "normal" size RAM, but it does fit

http://cdn.overclock.net/1/15/1586c119_P1000613.jpeg

btw, not my picture, so only going by that and other forums saying it fits.

From what I gather the Noctua NH-D14 is very very good too!

[Gary2MBz]

I've got G.Skill Ripjaws X in mine and with a Hyper 612 PWM the RAM is free. I added a 2nd fan and while it does cover it, it is easily detached if needed.

But just recently I've hit a landmine. My new machine just went off with a BSOD and I couldn't note it down in time it just went off then I couldn't get a picture although the board makes the POST beep. I look for the troubleshooting LEDs and it points to the uppermost PCI-E slot. I haven't a graphics card, I use the HD 4000 included on the chip itself, and after trying 2 USB BIOS Flashbacks, I think the board is a lemon. I get NO picture whatsoever through HDMI.

Without a doubt the Noctua should fit even on pointed-type RAM. My ram is 40mm high and there is small but more than enough room for the RAM to breathe if needed in my setup. I'm just peeved that after 3 days my board was a lemon! :cry: Right after the BSOD restart, the BIOS just kept popping up and I could not boot! I went to the boot tab at the top and tried loading from my SSD and nothing! I can't go lower to select the boot device. I'm afraid of my RAID and the countless BSODs even while stock on the board. I didn't push the RAM voltages past 1.6 which is what the XMP Profile sets. This is just a nightmare right now, but thankfully it was before my RMA period with J&R was up.

[Dan~]

That's okay then. I never OC for increased failure rate. Plus whatever I buy does me good enough as standard :)

[Gary2MBz]

I'm only gonna stick to stable and proven overclocks i.e. XMP Profiles or others' stable overclocks using my setup because I'm just too afraid of frying my chip. :o

I'm gonna RMA the board tomorrow. I miss the new system already, I have never witnessed SSD performance upfront until now and I honestly crabbed my pants at how fast it was!

[Legend_one]

I know this is reeeaaal late on this topic, but I am currently doing a build with the sabertooth z77 mobo and looking for a proper CPU heatsink that wont cover Mem slots and will fit properly. I just wanted to notify you that it is most likely your RAM that is affecting the whole system. The RAM you have selected is NOT compatible with MoBo or the CPU, here are some links. http://processors.findthebest.com/l/813/Intel-i7-3770K and http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/SABERTOOTH_Z77/SABERTOOTH-Z77-Memory-QVL.pdf

As this shows that the CPU can only use 1333 RAM and 1600 RAM, and your RAM just is not compatible with the MoBo.

Also if you look at your graphic above with the system build, your mem clock is only 1066 MHz.... on 2133 RAM, not to mention it is bad RAM in the first place I would recommend http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416 times 2 if you want 16GB.

I almost made this mistake too, but did some research.

On my way to order the Hyper 612