Xigmatek Dark knight night hawk or the Noctua NH-U12S

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1

Hi Logan, Wendel, Pistol (and others?)

 

I just built a new haswell rig with a 4770k on a sabertooth Z87 board and a xigmatek Dark knight night hawk (the one you reviewed) using Arctic silver 5 Thermal paste. I had plans to overclock however, after running Prime95 (stock settings) for about 7-9 mins my cpu reached 84 Celcius leading me to kill the program. I had intended to make a 4.3-4.5GHz overclock however now I'm worried about the temps, I even reaplied the thermal paste with a thinner layer and this only decreased the temps by about 2-3 degres. I later rendered a video putting all of the cores at 100% load for about 20 mins, when I came back the hottest core had reached 81 degrees celcius.

 

So here are my questions:

-Should I be worried about these temps?

-Would the noctua heatsink offer more cooling, significant enough to make overclocking "safer"? (as in 5-10 degrees celcius)

-Or maybe there is another variable I didn't take into account?

 

Thanks, spirolknight

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I know from personal experience (my friend has it) that the Dark Knight II with a Noctua NF-F12 works incredibly boss and quiet on a 3770K clocked at 4.4GHz.  So that is another option.

I also don't personally have a 4770K, but I do have a 3770K, but you maybe should try tweaking the voltages of your overclock to try and lower temps.  I know the new Haswell bits are supposed to run hotter when pushed but that seems a bit high to me.