Air cooling or liquid cooling?

[DSPhat]

Hi, I'm looking to overclock my Ivy Bridge CPU to around 4.5GHz with my current motherboard.

However, I'm using the stock Intel heat sink which... sucks.

I have noticed that the Noctua NH-U14S is a great cooler, and it competes with the Corsair H100i, too.

However, in New Zealand (where I am currently living), the PC parts industry is a lot smaller than, say, Canada, so prices are a lot higher.

So, would you guys recommend I spend the extra $80 and buy the H100i or should I just get the NH-U14S?

[Tmh85]

Well how much you can overclock depends on the Silicon lottery, but I would recommend the H220

[whatthe_fuzz]

I'll put it this way,

My 3570K hit 4.5Ghz with a Hyper 121 EVO.

I can get up to 4.7 with my H220 but it starts to heatup.

Test it for now. See what you can get stable then look for a cooler

[cxz]

Well either top tier cooler will work great.  Only thing that would make a difference is custom water cooling.  So I would just look around for benchmarks and see which is best bang for the buck.

[Ryan Leech]

Do you have an i7-3770 or i7-3770K?

[WoodenMarker]

The U14s should be plenty for 4.5 ghz.

[UnderADyingSun]

No, No you don't. Unless you want better aesthetics