Question CPU Cooler 0.5mm Too Tall ?

[Sarscarix041]

I am fed up with trying to find a case that meets my criteria. [2x5.25", 4x3.5", window, for the curious. (...And no vertical HDD mounting. ...And I don't want to pay $250 when $100 will do the same job.)]

I have already bought a CPU cooler -- ThermalTake ToughAir 310. It is 159.5mm high. I am eyeing off the [case] Cooler Master CM 590 III. It has a CPU cooler clearance of 159mm. (That's 0.5mm short.)

Please... The question is... can I pull off the strip of plastic on the top of the cooler, that appears to be there just to show the logo? (...With apologies to ThermalTake, of course.) Would it matter if it was touching the glass? ...Or might it magically work anyway [he asks hopefully]?

 

[tennis2]

Please... The question is... can I pull off the strip of plastic on the top of the cooler, that appears to be there just to show the logo? (...With apologies to ThermalTake, of course.) Would it matter if it was touching the glass? ...Or might it magically work anyway [he asks hopefully]?

In my experience** the advertised cooler clearance typically leaves a couple mm of open space. So it will probably fit.

The plastic cover just hides the "unsighly" tips of the heatpipes. It's purely aesthetic and will probably gain you a couple mm when removed.

 

[tennis2]

I am eyeing off the [case] Cooler Master CM 590 III.

What country are you shopping in? What's your case budget?
Asking because the CM 590 3 is an old-ish case. Not available in the USA anymore anyway. And it absolutely shouldn't cost 100 USD.

4x 3.5" drives?!?! What capacity is each?
What do you need 2 optical drives for?

 

[Sarscarix041]

What country are you shopping in? What's your case budget?
Asking because the CM 590 3 is an old-ish case. Not available in the USA anymore anyway. And it absolutely shouldn't cost 100 USD.

4x 3.5" drives?!?! What capacity is each?
What do you need 2 optical drives for?

I am in Australia; the 590 III is AUD$90-$100. It is AUD$100 for the Corsair Carbide 100R (150mm), or AUD$150 for the [drool] be quiet! Dark Base 600 (5 HDD spaces, but only 3 cages (!!!)), or AUD$160 for the Cooler Master Silencio S600 (I can accept 1x5.25", but I am drawing the line at mounting a HDD vertically).
I do not have a hard budget, but I am not rich enough to spend an extra $100-$150 without some justification.
Most of the cases with a decent drive capacity are EOL, it seems... even out here.
I want multiple drives because it is a triple-boot hackintosh (with archives of setting up, and a Time Machine backup, and... I'm a hoarder type; what can I say?!). [My 10(ish)-year-old machine is going fine, and my 5(ish)-year-old machine is losing HDDs at a disturbing rate. [Toshiba, WD.]] [Sorry, Apple; not everyone wants a $1000 24" screen.]
As for the 2x5.25"... I developed a principle years ago, that the whole point was that someone might invent an entirely new technology after one bought a case... but the main reason is that it was supposed to be trivially easy to have the extra one.

At this stage, I am tempted to get the Dark Base 600, and dream of just sitting a third-party HDD cage on the floor of the case, or making one out of wood, or something.

 

[tennis2]

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/products/case/#J=4,20&sort=price&page=1
^ filtered for cases having 4+ 3.5" bays.

I'd wager that your 5.25" bay requirement is by far the most restrictive. Especially requiring two. Optical drives are the way of the dodo (I just keep a $20 USB ODD in the closet when I need to use it once every 3 years), and I can't really think of what else we'd need those bays for as tech progresses. If that time comes, meh... buy a new case for 100 AUD.
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/products/case/#J=4,20&sort=price&page=1&G=2,12

 

[Joakim Agren]

Why do you not want to mount HDD's vertically? I have them vertically in my Cooler Master SL600M case and experiencing no problem because of it.

 

[geofelt]

You are good.

I think the odds are very good that your cooler will install as is.
There is no problem if it touches the side of the case.
And, even if it does, a case side will usually have a little bend to it.

Lastly, I see no reason why a decorative cover could not be removed.

What is the cpu?
There are many good coolers that will fit in 155mm if you really need to change.

 

[Sarscarix041]

Thank you everyone for your help.

[I tried quoting and nothing happened.]

@ Joakin Agren: I am having problems with various HDDs that are not so old (as opposed to my other machine that is still going strong after over 10 years)… which has resulted in me rearranging the content of the drives… and I have heard that one should not change the orientation of a drive once it has been formatted. [For the record… both the older, good ones and the newer, bad ones are [both] a mix of Toshiba and WD. (I can not bring myself to buy Seagate, after… long story.)]

@ geofelt: I have ended up with an extra motherboard from my last/incumbent build [Z170X-UD5 TH versus Z170X-UD5; vendor just ignored me]… so I have bought a second-hand i5-6600 to go with that. My intent is that, if the motherboard or CPU are bad or fail quickly, everything else should work if I buy a current motherboard and CPU. The point is that I bought a CPU cooler that is (also) compatible with 1200 and 1700 (and AMD) (and I think it was about the cheapest of those). [The TDP for the newer CPUs is much higher than for the 6600.]

@ tennis2, geofelt [and anyone else I might have missed]: Thank you for your advice about the cooler touching the case. It is not this simple, but I guess one decisive element is that I imagined the case wall amplifying some droning sound made by the fan (or the HDDs or the other fans or whatever). I guess I also (subjectively) do not like the idea of ripping bits off my expensive cooler, even if it does not actually matter. (I want a window [e.g. TG] on the side; my personality is that I very much like to be able to see stuff, under such conditions.) I guess in the end I did not want to run the risk of some problem emerging, when I had the whole thing assembled and the case was now “second-hand”. I know the advice has been uniformly that it should be fine, but… I dunno, I’m just too much of a perfectionist, I guess. (I do still appreciate the advice. It is nice to have a clear picture, even if I do end up balking at the hurdle.)

I ended up buying the “be quiet!” Pure Base 600 [orange; the colour is a bit drab compared with the photos] [I erroneously said “Dark Base” earlier], and being annoyed that they do not include as many HDD cages as there are positions. (One can buy extra cages — if one lives in Europe or NZ — but then you could just buy a better case for the same total money.)

Anyway, thanks again everyone.