[SOLVED] What CPU air cooling will fit MSI X99S SLI PLUS directly

[tsmith154]

I have water cooling for everything. I am taking that out and just putting air cooling in. I don't want to have to take the motherboard out of the case. The mother board has 4 places to screw into to connect a cooling system. I would like to keep the best cooling I can with air that directly mounts to this mother board. My mother board is MSI X99S SLI PLUS

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/X99S-SLI-PLUS/Gallery

https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/X99S-SLI-PLUS/Specification

The socket is 2011-3 But when I looked for coolers on Amazon I'm sure they won't fit. Those only have two screws in the center and none on four corners.

In the images you can see the four places to screw something into. My case is 7 inch deep from the top of the cpu itself. I am safe to use 6" if needed.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Most newer air coolers should probably fit. They'll include a backplate, a mounting bracket and the cooler. You'll have to put the back plate on, followed by the mounting bracket. The cooler will attach to the mounting bracket not the motherboard itself. Which is why several may only have 2 screws.

Do you want the best air cooler? Grab a noctua d15 or a dark rock pro 4. On the budget side you have the hyper 212, but I'm guessing that wont be enough cooler for that platform.

 

[tsmith154]

Most newer air coolers should probably fit. They'll include a backplate, a mounting bracket and the cooler. You'll have to put the back plate on, followed by the mounting bracket. The cooler will attach to the mounting bracket not the motherboard itself. Which is why several may only have 2 screws.

Do you want the best air cooler? Grab a noctua d15 or a dark rock pro 4. On the budget side you have the hyper 212, but I'm guessing that wont be enough cooler for that platform.

Most newer air coolers should probably fit. They'll include a backplate, a mounting bracket and the cooler. You'll have to put the back plate on, followed by the mounting bracket. The cooler will attach to the mounting bracket not the motherboard itself. Which is why several may only have 2 screws.

Do you want the best air cooler? Grab a noctua d15 or a dark rock pro 4. On the budget side you have the hyper 212, but I'm guessing that wont be enough cooler for that platform.

There very inexpensive. If you were building your rig which one do you think you would buy.

LOL! They are so large. I am so use to water blocks. I have 3 gpu's and cpu all with water blocks and fans blowing on the front and back side of the mother board. I though that was a lot of stuff. These air coolers are the definition of huge! I purchased the Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022, 250W TDP, CPU . Only because it has 7 heat pipes vs. 6 heat pipes on the other cooler you recommended.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Gmoney06ss]

Good choice! Both coolers are very comparable, and will perform near equally. Both are great, but I'd probably choose the noctua. Just for the fans, noctua makes some of the best fans available. But the bequite fans are very good to.

I prefer custom loop cooling, but if I had to choose, it'd be a toss up between those 2. And since noctua has the chromax d15, which is black also, I'd honestly go with the cheaper one.

 

[tsmith154]

Good choice! Both coolers are very comparable, and will perform near equally. Both are great, but I'd probably choose the noctua. Just for the fans, noctua makes some of the best fans available. But the bequite fans are very good to.

I prefer custom loop cooling, but if I had to choose, it'd be a toss up between those 2. And since noctua has the chromax d15, which is black also, I'd honestly go with the cheaper one.

I have been reading about the Dark Rock pro 4 and I am learning that it probably won't fit my ram. I have 4 ram sticks and I have only seen photos with the ram on the one side and read that customers were forced to use only two ram sticks. One person owns both coolers and couldn't fit the Dark Rock for the ram fitting reason. I'm looking to find a place that will sell the one you like more, the noctua. Iv'e read about that one and people have no problems fitting ram. Amazon can deliver the Dark Rock this Sat but the Noctua not for almost a month. That's a long time to wait because I was impatient and removed all my water cooling and replaced my three R9 290x gpus with one Geforce RTX 2070 Super. My computer case missing it's cpu cooling system. sadly I fear I will have to wait for that month delivery so I can fit the 4 ram sticks.