Question Need advice for a new cooler

legendairyjoe

Honorable
Nov 20, 2018
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10,530
So, I am looking to upgrade to the i9-9900K (don't want AMD) for both gaming and streaming but am in need of a new cooler to go with it

Current specs:
NZXT H510 Case
Cooler Master Hyper 212
MSI Gaming H370 Motherboard
i7-8700
NVIDIA GTX 3060ti
Corsair 32GB Ram (4x8GB)
Samsung 870 EVO 500GB
WD 1TB HDD

Also want to note that I'm not into water cooling, but need something that can fit into my current case,
Thank you!
 
Your case allows coolers up to 165mm tall.
Noctua maintains a list of suitable coolers.
Here is the list for the i9-9900k:
https://ncc.noctua.at/cpus/model/Intel-Core-i9-9900K-307
The strongest would be the NH-D15 with a nspr cooling rating of 183.
It is 165mm tall.
If you think that is cutting it too close, the next best would be the NH-D15s at 160mm and a nspr rating of 167.
The NH-U12A would be similar.
There are other good twin tower coolers such as the scythe mentioned above or the be quiet DRP4.
One thing to watch out for with these big coolers is ram clearance.
If you are using low profile 32mm ram, you are ok with the NH-D15.
But, if you have fancy heat spreaders then check your dimensions carefully.
NH-D15s or NH-U12A would be ok.

For reference, the hyper212 is not quite as good as the noctua NH-U12s at nspr 129.

One last thing...
For best cooling use a pair of 140mm front intakes; they will supply more cooling air than 120mm fans and do it more quietly.