Dimensions assistance - will this CPU cooler fit?

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Hi everyone,

Looking to replace the stock cooler on my Athlon x4 860k, with something that'll lower my overall temperatures, and perhaps allow some overclocking of the CPU (although I'm unconvinced my board will allow anything significant, and my PSU needs to be replaced also).

My build:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K 3.7GHz Quad-Core Processor ($91.98 @ NCIX)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI Mini ITX FM2+ Motherboard ($118.00 @ Vuugo)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($104.99 @ NCIX)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.75 @ shopRBC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($65.97 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($57.98 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: HIS Radeon R9 280 3GB IceQ X² Video Card ($259.99 @ Memory Express)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($75.59 @ DirectCanada)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ NCIX)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($122.00 @ shopRBC)
Total: $1131.24
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-02 11:53 EDT-0400

The PSU is wrong though, as it only seems to find a semi-modular PSU via PCPartPicker. Mine is fully modular if I remember correctly. http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX44969


Anyway, I know the PSU is questionable at best, and it will be getting replaced with a Tier 1 PSU pretty soon.

Thermal margins are good at the moment, around 50-60 on idle, and 20's on load.

Right now, my question solely relates to a new CPU cooler.
I'm struggling to visualize the dimensions, and hoping there's someone with experience with this case/mobo size/CPU cooler (wishful thinking!) or somebody smart enough to visualize this for me.


I'd like to replace the stock CPU cooler with the Hyper 212 Evo http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX36377

It's a small board, and I'm unsure of RAM clearance. Plus, my GPU is quite sizeable in my case, so I don't know if I have enough room left to fit the cooler?


Does anybody have any suggestions/thoughts?
 
Wish you did not have these parts already, you are spending more money for less performance.

First off that 860k is going to bottleneck a 280 pretty good.
Extra money for an itx board in a matx case is just wasted money
750w PSU is massive overkill, and the cx series are not good PSUs anyway. They are known to have capacitor failure on gaming PCs
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator


Not strictly true, as some of those prices are much more than I paid - although there's definitely wasted money there, as I'll never utilize anywhere close to the full potential of the build.

The 280 is miles beyond what I actually need (I play Football Manager 2011 - it's GPU requirements are a Radeon 9800/R350 (from 2003 I think that card was?!) but I managed to pick that specific card up, selling for $260 today, for $150(CAD) I think it was. Wasted money, for sure. But I couldn't pass up that deal - plus I should get a good few years out of it!

The mITX board wasn't thought through well, I totally admit that. It had inbuilt WiFI so I jumped on it (I think I got it for $78 though, not the $108 it supposedly goes for today)

16GB RAM was total overkill, but I think I got it for $80 - so at least that should last me a good few years (unless I need to go DDR4 for whatever reason).

The PSU was a huge mistake. It wasn't the one I originally picked out (and researched). I had one picked out (an EVGA SuperNOVA G2 600W I think it was).
Stupidly, I took the tech @ Memory Express' opinion on PSU W. The HIS R9 280 actually lists 750W as a requirement http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX55671 - and I was recommended the CX.

I hadn't done a bunch of research on PSUs, other than identify the one I wanted. The fact it was a CX part didn't even resonate at the time. I should've taken a step back & done some research, but I went with it. The first one was even DOA!

Luckily, I don't put too much strain on the PSU (as the requirements for anything I do are pretty low) so it's held up for the first 4months or so since I built this. But I will be replacing that on Black Friday or Xmas sales (unless something catastrophic happens in the meantime).
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator


I know. I've done my research since then (wish I'd done it before) and I'm aware of the issues/potential issues - hence it's the next to go.

I was a bit surprised HIS themselves list 750W as a requirement. I know manufacturers used to overshoot the PSU W requirements due to the volume of crappy PSUs on the market incapable of providing the listed/branded wattage, but wasn't sure if that's still the case?