i7 4790k with Noctua NH-D14to overclock it to 4.4ghz

[Benchmarck]

Hi guys

As the title already says or what CPU cooler should i choose to overclock my i7 4790k to high end?
I have a good air flow in my case in which the hot air are being pushed upwards and behind.

 

[ChumP]

Yes , the Noctua NH-D14 is still a great CPU Cooler.
You should be able to push your I7-4790k to ~4.5 GHz with it.

 

[geofelt]

I have become a bit jaded on the subject of haswell cooling for overclocking.
How high you can OC is firstly determined by your luck in the bin lottery.
I had high expectations from the Devil's canyon parts and their better thermals.
I found out that the thermals really do not matter unless, perhaps, you are a competitive overclocker.
Haswell runs quite cool, that is, until you raise the voltage past 1.25v or so.
Once you go past 1.3v, then you really do need very good cooling to keep stress loads under say 85c.
But, the consensus is that voltages higher than 1.30 are not a good thing for 24/7 usage.
I have been unable to find any official Intel recommendation on what is a safe vcore limit.

Even if you can handle the heat, how much do you really need that extra multiplier from say 4.4 to 4.6?

The Noctua NH-D14 is about as good as it gets for a cooler.
But... it is quite large.
I might use a NH-U12s which gives better clearance and will still cool very well.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Simple answer is YES. You have what you need to take that chip to its limits. The big question is 'how good is your chip'? Half of all chips are below average; it's a fact of math. An average chip should get to 4.5Ghz, at under 1.300V (which shows how 'pushed' the i7 4790 is. TurboBoost is 4.4Ghz.)

I would hope for 4.6, and be happy with 4.7. Thanks to refinements in the manufacturing process, we seem to see more 4.8s than we used to. although that may just be reporting bias.

Intel does not publish it's statistics, so we are all guessing. I prefer to run under 1.300V, but would go a little over to get a 'step' provided the temperatures were low enough. The combination of temperature and voltage degrades CPUs; the higher, the faster.