CPU Cooler for EVGA X299 Dark Motherboard and Intel 9900X Processor, Help Please

[Shiruxriu]

Hello Tech Tips Forum, 

 

As the Title Suggests I am needing some assistance finding a new CPU Cooler for my Intel 9900X CPU socketed on my EVGA x299 Dark Motherboard, this motherboard is what makes things complicated because it's VRM Cooling solution eliminates my ability to Select Coolers like the Noctua NH-D15 or BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4.

So with that said, I'm needing some Suggestions to help with purchasing a new CPU Cooler until I can inevitably make the upgrade to AMD, the reason I need a new cooler is mostly because I suspect my 3-4 year old EVGA CLC 360 is beginning to head on it's way out.

So as such I need help with suggestions for a new cooler, I do have some brands I intend to avoid, one such brand is NZXT. Preferably I'd like to get an Air Cooler, but I am open to Liquid Coolers, that being said, Air Coolers are the priority. Any and All suggestions are helpful but I really need help with finding compatible coolers.

Thanks.

[tdkid]

it wouldnt be an i9 9900x would it?

[CommanderAlex]

I've considered trying to get my hands on that IceGiant ProSiphon Elite for my own X299 and 10980XE as I'm hesitant with going the route of water cooling. You'll probably need a 360mm AIO from Corsair or another reputable AIO maker. 

[Shiruxriu]

Thank you for the reply, Yes it would indeed be an Intel i9-9900X 10 Core Processor.

[Shiruxriu]

Just now, SpiderMan said:

I've considered trying to get my hands on that IceGiant ProSiphon Elite for my own X299 and 10980XE as I'm hesitant with going the route of water cooling. You'll probably need a 360mm AIO from Corsair or another reputable AIO maker. 

I currently have an EVGA CLC 360 AIO in the rig, but I'd ideally like to move away from AIO Liquid coolers. That being said, Failing that, I'd want to downsize in which case, for stable temps, a 240mm rad is the smallest I'd be able to go.

[Shiruxriu]

Also, taking a quick look, due to space constraints in the system I don't believe the Ice Giant ProSiphon will work for my system, could be wrong though.

[tdkid]

12 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

Thank you for the reply, Yes it would indeed be an Intel i9-9900X 10 Core Processor.

nevermind on my comment. i was thinking the i9 9900x was going to use a different socket than the x299 would have been becausie i know the 299 doesnt use an LGA115x socket but the 2066 socket so i was thinking it wasnt going to work at all. 

 

if you are looking to switch to AMD you are going to need to get a new motherboard too but i bet you already knew this. as for a CPU cooler it would depend more on what your case can handle.

 

is there a budget for the cooler?

[CommanderAlex]

8 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

I currently have an EVGA CLC 360 AIO in the rig, but I'd ideally like to move away from AIO Liquid coolers. That being said, Failing that, I'd want to downsize in which case, for stable temps, a 240mm rad is the smallest I'd be able to go.

Here is a list of coolers from Noctua that are compatible with your motherboard. https://ncc.noctua.at/motherboards/model/EVGA-X299-Dark-3741

 

AIOs/custom-water cooling, are probably your only best options to go considering the VRM heatsinks that are right above the CPU socket are too big. 

[Shiruxriu]

2 minutes ago, tdkid said:

nevermind on my comment. i was thinking the i9 9900x was going to use a different socket than the x299 would have been becausie i know the 299 doesnt use an LGA115x socket but the 2066 socket so i was thinking it wasnt going to work at all. 

 

if you are looking to switch to AMD you are going to need to get a new motherboard too but i bet you already knew this. as for a CPU cooler it would depend more on what your case can handle.

 

is there a budget for the cooler?

No there is not a budget for the Cooler but I'd like to avoid Custom Loop Liquid Cooling, it's not something I have time to dedicate to since I work almost all week normally and only get a day between workdays normally. 

1 minute ago, SpiderMan said:

Here is a list of coolers from Noctua that are compatible with your motherboard. https://ncc.noctua.at/motherboards/model/EVGA-X299-Dark-3741

 

AIOs/custom-water cooling, are probably your only best options to go considering the VRM heatsinks that are right above the CPU socket are too big. 

I had checked with noctua however their cooling performance given my processor and motherboard combo is minimal, I do know noctua coolers that work with my board exist but they would be less desirable than something designed for the thermal output of my 10 core monstrosity. I agree I may be condemned to an AIO or Custom Loop, that being said, an AIO is undesirable if an Air Cooler is possible, and Custom Loop is a no go as I usually don't have time to build and validate for custom loop cooling. I do remember Arctic and Their Liquid Freezer 2 Cooler being a good bet, but it's an AIO and again I am trying to avoid those.

[tdkid]

13 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

No there is not a budget for the Cooler but I'd like to avoid Custom Loop Liquid Cooling, it's not something I have time to dedicate to since I work almost all week normally and only get a day between workdays normally. 

I had checked with noctua however their cooling performance given my processor and motherboard combo is minimal, I do know noctua coolers that work with my board exist but they would be less desirable than something designed for the thermal output of my 10 core monstrosity. I agree I may be condemned to an AIO or Custom Loop, that being said, an AIO is undesirable if an Air Cooler is possible, and Custom Loop is a no go as I usually don't have time to build and validate for custom loop cooling. I do remember Arctic and Their Liquid Freezer 2 Cooler being a good bet, but it's an AIO and again I am trying to avoid those.

noctua is one of the better companies out there. if you are seeing that their coolers arent up to the performance then your either looking at the wrong info or your options for a cooler are very limited. 

 

using pcpartpicker i am down to 432 coolers. currently sorted by highest price first. Choose A CPU Cooler - PCPartPicker

[Shiruxriu]

Yeah, Noctua gave the list of the NH-D9, NH-D9DX, and NH-L9, the NH-L9 is likely not gonna cut it but the rest of them are rated by Noctua's list as the lowest performers, that being said that's still pretty good, I just worry about what if situations, and I can't trust part picker as it doesn't account for the VRM clearance issue.

[tdkid]

well you can and cant. its true some of them dont give you a lot to go on but if you find one you like that you think will work, you can look it up by the manufacturers website. like the noctua NH-D15S NH-D15S (noctua.at)

 

 

[CommanderAlex]

14 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

Yeah, Noctua gave the list of the NH-D9, NH-D9DX, and NH-L9, the NH-L9 is likely not gonna cut it but the rest of them are rated by Noctua's list as the lowest performers, that being said that's still pretty good, I just worry about what if situations, and I can't trust part picker as it doesn't account for the VRM clearance issue.

 

4 minutes ago, tdkid said:

well you can and cant. its true some of them dont give you a lot to go on but if you find one you like that you think will work, you can look it up by the manufacturers website. like the noctua NH-D15S NH-D15S (noctua.at)

 

 

That is the thing here. PC Part Picker is not always 100% accurate. NH-D15(S) will absolutely not fit with this motherboard due to the bigger dimensions of the VRM heatsink. A decent 240mm AIO will suffice. 

 

On a side note, I always thought that the EVGA X299 Dark was always meant for serious overclocking on LN2. 

[Shiruxriu]

1 minute ago, SpiderMan said:

 

That is the thing here. PC Part Picker is not always 100% accurate. NH-D15(S) will absolutely not fit with this motherboard due to the bigger dimensions of the VRM heatsink. A decent 240mm AIO will suffice. 

 

On a side note, I always thought that the EVGA X299 Dark was always meant for serious overclocking on LN2. 

Not exactly I initially bought that motherboard because of some of it's overclocking features which were mostly nice to haves as a technician such as the Post Code, Dual Bios, and better VRM Support for overclocking, my processor was able to maintain 4.8Ghz all core in it's earlier life but after about 3 years, the processor has begun to age due to long term use. So at this point I'm now running at base clock whenever Intel's Turbo Boost is unavailable to preserve my processor lifetime. To that End I agree that the 240 AIO will likely be alright, though if investing in another AIO, I'd want to make sure that it'll be inter-compatible with the other motherboards and processor options I'm looking into for other projects.

[CommanderAlex]

2 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

Not exactly I initially bought that motherboard because of some of it's overclocking features which were mostly nice to haves as a technician such as the Post Code, Dual Bios, and better VRM Support for overclocking, my processor was able to maintain 4.8Ghz all core in it's earlier life but after about 3 years, the processor has begun to age due to long term use. So at this point I'm now running at base clock whenever Intel's Turbo Boost is unavailable to preserve my processor lifetime. To that End I agree that the 240 AIO will likely be alright, though if investing in another AIO, I'd want to make sure that it'll be inter-compatible with the other motherboards and processor options I'm looking into for other projects.

Hmm interesting. I'd think excessive voltage was degrading the silicon, so that's why you're not able to achieve that overclock anymore. Usually, the AIOs comes with other socket mounting hardware. 

[tdkid]

12 minutes ago, SpiderMan said:

 

That is the thing here. PC Part Picker is not always 100% accurate. NH-D15(S) will absolutely not fit with this motherboard due to the bigger dimensions of the VRM heatsink. A decent 240mm AIO will suffice. 

 

On a side note, I always thought that the EVGA X299 Dark was always meant for serious overclocking on LN2. 

if you place the fans facing top and bottom i can see it not fitting but it has the cut outs ffor the RAM which means its supposed to go in there front to back. and will be next to the VRM not conflicting with it. 

[Shiruxriu]

19 hours ago, SpiderMan said:

Hmm interesting. I'd think excessive voltage was degrading the silicon, so that's why you're not able to achieve that overclock anymore. Usually, the AIOs comes with other socket mounting hardware. 

I thought so too but I'd more likely say silicone quality was barely good enough to begin with, especially since I had dropped the voltage to below 1.23v but that will quickly become a discussion that belongs elsewhere.

19 hours ago, tdkid said:

if you place the fans facing top and bottom i can see it not fitting but it has the cut outs ffor the RAM which means its supposed to go in there front to back. and will be next to the VRM not conflicting with it. 

So the problem isn't the fans, it's that there isn't 140mm of clearance between the bottom of the vrm heatsink and fan assembly and the top pcie bracket, the board has some very strange clearance limitations, I suspect initially it was mostly designed for ln2 pots and water cooling blocks. More and more though I suspect a 240mm AIO like the Arctic Liquid Freezer II will be a good fit to eventually move into a different system later down the road.

[tdkid]

9 minutes ago, Shiruxriu said:

I thought so too but I'd more likely say silicone quality was barely good enough to begin with, especially since I had dropped the voltage to below 1.23v but that will quickly become a discussion that belongs elsewhere.

So the problem isn't the fans, it's that there isn't 140mm of clearance between the bottom of the vrm heatsink and fan assembly and the top pcie bracket, the board has some very strange clearance limitations, I suspect initially it was mostly designed for ln2 pots and water cooling blocks. More and more though I suspect a 240mm AIO like the Arctic Liquid Freezer II will be a good fit to eventually move into a different system later down the road.

well if you want a direct answer EVGA does a livestream on twitch on Tues. Thurs. and Fri. in where they do answer some questions if they see it. and if not you can ask again. TEAMEVGA - Twitch

[Shiruxriu]

Just now, tdkid said:

well if you want a direct answer EVGA does a livestream on twitch on Tues. Thurs. and Fri. in where they do answer some questions if they see it. and if not you can ask again. TEAMEVGA - Twitch

Do you know what time the livestream takes place, I'm about to leave for work this morning and I worry I won't be able to catch the livestream.

[tdkid]

1 minute ago, Shiruxriu said:

Do you know what time the livestream takes place, I'm about to leave for work this morning and I worry I won't be able to catch the livestream.

well its not today as today is monday. the Tues stream is about this time being at 8am california time. the Thurs. stream is at 1pm CA time and the Fri stream is at 3pm CA time. there is also this stream by jacob who is one of the guys in the EVGA stream and he usually streams around 9pm CA time on Mondays i think but i dont watch his streams as they are very late for me and i have to work early in the mornings. jfreeZr - Twitch

[Tan3l6]

TBH I did not read all the posts in this topic, but I'd go with Scythe Fuma 2 or Noctua NH-D15s or for liquid cooling - AC Liquid Freezer II 240 or bigger radiator size...

[Shiruxriu]

28 minutes ago, tdkid said:

well its not today as today is monday. the Tues stream is about this time being at 8am california time. the Thurs. stream is at 1pm CA time and the Fri stream is at 3pm CA time. there is also this stream by jacob who is one of the guys in the EVGA stream and he usually streams around 9pm CA time on Mondays i think but i dont watch his streams as they are very late for me and i have to work early in the mornings. jfreeZr - Twitch

I'll check out the streams around 8am if I can, but the 9pm stream, I'd likely be more able to catch later tonight.

27 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

TBH I did not read all the posts in this topic, but I'd go with Scythe Fuma 2 or Noctua NH-D15s or for liquid cooling - AC Liquid Freezer II 240 or bigger radiator size...

I would recommend reading the posts, but if you'd rather not, I'll shorthand this, I had looked into the Scythe Fuma 2 but Scythe and Deepcool both do not have any compatibility information save for socket compatibility. Noctua on the other hand and their NH-D15, and NH-D15S are not compatible with my motherboard due to a VRM clearance issue, so Noctua is mostly a no fly zone, though they remain on my list for a different build I'm working on. The Arctic liquid freezer II 240 seems to be the angle I'm leaning towards at this rate, but I'm still looking for suggestions for coolers to look into, AIO recommendations are not needed as in the AIO realm I'll pick Arctic over say NZXT and Corsair purely because the current system is a no RGB System.

[tdkid]

1 minute ago, Shiruxriu said:

I'll check out the streams around 8am if I can, but the 9pm stream, I'd likely be more able to catch later tonight.

well its roughly 9pm california time as they are on the southeast side of LA. he streams about the same time on Mon. Weds. and Fri according to his schedule. 

[Shiruxriu]

33 minutes ago, tdkid said:

well its roughly 9pm california time as they are on the southeast side of LA. he streams about the same time on Mon. Weds. and Fri according to his schedule. 

Sounds good, I'll look into that, any other Coolers you might recommend I throw into the ring when I do inevitably ask the question in stream?

[tdkid]

1 minute ago, Shiruxriu said:

Sounds good, I'll look into that, any other Coolers you might recommend I throw into the ring when I do inevitably ask the question in stream?

if you are looking for air cooling i am not sure you can get much better than noctua but you say the VRM is causing blockage issues limited the type of cooler you could have. you might be right in that you will have to get a CLC or AIO (same thing just different names). if that is the case i would look into the corsair series of AIOs like one of these. CPU Cooler | RGB & Liquid CPU Coolers | CORSAIR