Question RAM clearance ?

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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Brand new to building a PC, just learning as I’m going. It was brought to my attention that my RAM could potentially get in the way of the CPU cooler.

I’m considering a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO on a B550M Pro-VDH Wifi Micro ATX board with G skills ripsaws V 2x16 GB. Considering the optimal RAM placement for this board is the second and fourth slot, does anyone know if this would be a fit problem? I could consider getting the V2 version of the hyper as it’s supposed to be slanted to accommodate?
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Gotta say, that's a pretty witty user name. Single malt scotch tape. I like it. LOL.

I'll be honest, the Hyper 212 coolers are neither the best option nor the least expensive nor the best bang for the buck anymore and I'd avoid it if the other options I'm thinking of are available in your region. Assuming you intend to buy new of course.

Where are you located and where are you able to purchase from?
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Or moved to the opposite side of the heatsink, with literally no or extremely minimal difference in thermal results.

But if you are somewhere where this is available, it would be a FAR better option.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X 120 Refined SE 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($19.89 @ Amazon)
Total: $19.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-15 16:14 EST-0500


Or, if you want rainbow puke.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Assassin X Refined SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler ($22.90 @ Amazon)
Total: $22.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-15 16:15 EST-0500
 
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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Darkbreeze said:
This is probably about the best air cooler out there right now for less than fifty bucks.

https://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-Peerless-SE-Aluminium-Technology/dp/B09LGY38L4/ref=sr_1_3?crid=11KOUSFVI0QJ4&keywords=peerless+assassin+120+se&qid=1668581630&sprefix=peerless+assassin+120+se,aps,116&sr=8-3
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Thank you for the suggestion. The one thing that stands out to me is the size, given that it's a dual tower and dual fan. I watched an installation video and I see that you simply clip the fan to the side of the tower. Like you or someone else said about the 212 sliding the fan a little higher, is that also the case here? There's one fan that goes between the towers that can clip like normal, but the other fan, can I clip it a little higher, just right above my RAM? (I'm assuming it's recommended that I install my RAM first)
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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When necessary, those fan clips can generally be clipped anywhere in the notches on the sides of most heatsinks that they are designed to be clipped to, up or down, within reason of course. Assume adjustability of half inch either direction so long as there was room and nothing was obstructing it.

Keep in mind though that when you move a fan up you generally tend to negate some of the cooler capability because part of the surface area/airflow of the fan is no longer going to be directed THROUGH the heatsink, but over it instead. Generally that is not a deal breaker but if possible you want to avoid doing it.

In this case the installed height of the Ripjaws V is 42mm while the PA SE has a memory clearance spec of 46mm, which means there should not be any problems with memory clearance. Also, if there is for any reason, you should easily be able to move the front fan to the rear of the heatsink with no appreciable drop in cooling performance. Push or pull has never been shown to have a tremendous difference, and in fact having a center mounted fan with a rear pull fan has actually been shown to have marginally better performance on most heatsinks where it's been tested and compared.

But either way, it should be fine, and keep in mind this is only a 120mm fan heatsink, not a 140mm type cooler so we are not even beginning to push the envelope in terms of heatsink size like we sometimes are with the larger 140mm twin finstack coolers.
 
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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Darkbreeze said:
When necessary, those fan clips can generally be clipped anywhere in the notches on the sides of most heatsinks that they are designed to be clipped to, up or down, within reason of course. Assume adjustability of half inch either direction so long as there was room and nothing was obstructing it.

Keep in mind though that when you move a fan up you generally tend to negate some of the cooler capability because part of the surface area/airflow of the fan is no longer going to be directed THROUGH the heatsink, but over it instead. Generally that is not a deal breaker but if possible you want to avoid doing it.

In this case the installed height of the Ripjaws V is 42mm while the PA SE has a memory clearance spec of 46mm, which means there should not be any problems with memory clearance. Also, if there is for any reason, you should easily be able to move the front fan to the rear of the heatsink with no appreciable drop in cooling performance. Push or pull has never been shown to have a tremendous difference, and in fact having a center mounted fan with a rear pull fan has actually been shown to have marginally better performance on most heatsinks where it's been tested and compared.

But either way, it should be fine, and keep in mind this is only a 120mm fan heatsink, not a 140mm type cooler so we are not even beginning to push the envelope in terms of heatsink size like we sometimes are with the larger 140mm twin finstack coolers.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the detailed response!

If you don't mind, since you've been so helpful, I'd like your opinion on this. For a few days I've been thinking things over and I'm wondering if the build I'm hypothesizing is overkill. I'm aiming for the ryzen 7 5800x and RX 6800 XT. And realistically, I'll mostly be using it for gaming; no streaming or video editing. Sure I'll have discord on and a few YouTube videos but I was really just aiming for a good gaming experience. Games I plan to play or try out are Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Assassin's Creed, DOTA, Genshin Impact, and whatever else is out there. So is it overkill? Then, I go and see a deal like this from Costco and people are raving about it and yet a few are trashing it, which is another thing, it's difficult for me, who's new, to parse out the comments and know which ones to trust.

https://slickdeals.net/f/16183546-h...-xt-win-11-799-99-shipping-costco#commentsBox

Here's the kicker and boy am I pissed at myself for this. I've already bought the CPU and GPU from Newegg and it's been delivered. Individual boxes are not opened, only the big box that housed the two. I did it because I was afraid of a good deal slipping away, and I saw that Newegg had a 30-day no-hassle return policy to which I thought "ok if I can't find a good deal around black friday, I'll just return it." Well <Mod Edit>, these two items are listed as non-refundable. So now 1) given that they're unopen and were bought super recently, what are the chances that I can contact them and they'll let me return for a refund? OR 2) can I justify keeping these?
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Don't stress, you are MUCH better off doing this yourself than buying one of those prebuilt systems. To begin with the majority of them use some kind of proprietary hardware, either motherboards or power supplies or cases, that are not standard, and which create tremendous difficulty when it comes to being able to replace or upgrade parts as time goes on. Stick with parts that can either be used mostly indefinitely or replaced with a standard component with a standard form factor.

Furthermore, dealing with those kinds of companies is USUALLY a bigger hassle than dealing directly with the manufacturer if you have a component failure.

So, as far as being overkill, what resolution and settings are you expecting or willing to live with, or would like to see? What kind of refresh rate is your monitor going to have?
 
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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Darkbreeze said:
Don't stress, you are MUCH better off doing this yourself than buying one of those prebuilt systems. To begin with the majority of them use some kind of proprietary hardware, either motherboards or power supplies or cases, that are not standard, and which create tremendous difficulty when it comes to being able to replace or upgrade parts as time goes on. Stick with parts that can either be used mostly indefinitely or replaced with a standard component with a standard form factor.

Furthermore, dealing with those kinds of companies is USUALLY a bigger hassle than dealing directly with the manufacturer if you have a component failure.

So, as far as being overkill, what resolution and settings are you expecting or willing to live with, or would like to see? What kind of refresh rate is your monitor going to have?
Click to expand...
Thanks for the insight! That's reassuring.

I basically came into this whole process with the mindset of whatever the average is, go one step up. Seems like 1080p is the most common so I'm aiming for 1440p which seems to be what's recommended with my GPU and CPU. I'll most likely aim for 144hz.

Also quick question about SSD and HDD. I've heard varying things about the following: do most people have their operating software and such on their SSD and most of their games on their HDD? Though I'm guessing it depends on the game. Like AAA games should go on SSD, others on HDD? So depending on the game how much slower is the HDD load time are we talking about here? Seconds? Minutes? Dozens of minutes?
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Most people, IF money is a critical factor, DO have the OS and applications installed on an SSD these days, and use a HDD to store games and various backups. That's because large HDDs are much cheaper than large SSDs. If a person can afford to have a large enough SSD to house their games and backups, personal files, etc., then obviously that's beneficial since they are much faster. But aside from loading maps, levels, textures, etc., which isn't happening all the time, drive speed is almost negligible for gaming as there is usually no need for the game to access data on a frequent or ongoing basis to read or write to the drive. But, for saving, loading, maps, levels, textures, etc., when those things DO need to be loaded, they go much faster and seamlessly with an SSD.

The amount of time different obviously will depend on the complexity of the game and it's design. Generally speaking we're talking about a difference of anywhere between ten and thirty seconds extra (Maybe more in some cases, less in others) by comparison.
 
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USAFRet

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singlemaltscotchtape said:
Also quick question about SSD and HDD. I've heard varying things about the following: do most people have their operating software and such on their SSD and most of their games on their HDD? Though I'm guessing it depends on the game. Like AAA games should go on SSD, others on HDD? So depending on the game how much slower is the HDD load time are we talking about here? Seconds? Minutes? Dozens of minutes?
Click to expand...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9LyNXpsOo
 
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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Darkbreeze said:
Most people, IF money is a critical factor, DO have the OS and applications installed on an SSD these days, and use a HDD to store games and various backups. That's because large HDDs are much cheaper than large SSDs. If a person can afford to have a large enough SSD to house their games and backups, personal files, etc., then obviously that's beneficial since they are much faster. But aside from loading maps, levels, textures, etc., which isn't happening all the time, drive speed is almost negligible for gaming as there is usually no need for the game to access data on a frequent or ongoing basis to read or write to the drive. But, for saving, loading, maps, levels, textures, etc., when those things DO need to be loaded, they go much faster and seamlessly with an SSD.

The amount of time different obviously will depend on the complexity of the game and it's design. Generally speaking we're talking about a difference of anywhere between ten and thirty seconds extra (Maybe more in some cases, less in others) by comparison.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for being so succinct and helpful! I really appreciate it! And I'm learning so much in the process
 
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singlemaltscotchtape

Nov 15, 2022
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Darkbreeze said:
👍
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ThermalTake Toughpower GF1 850W 80+gold $80
I was planning on getting the Corsair RM750x (2021) 750 W 80+ Gold for $100
For reference Corsair RM850 850 W 80+ Gold Certified is $110-$115
Corsair RM850x (2021) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified is $132
Is there any reason I shouldn’t go with the ThermalTake for cheaper and higher wattage even though I probably don’t need it?
 
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