Can I use the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro in Extreme3 Gen3 motherboard

[bofhlusr]

Will this heatsink and fan (Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler) work with the motherboard? Thank you.

[profJim]

I had a Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 cooler and it did a decent job cooling my lower mid-range dual core processor in my P35 system.
It's not adequate for quad core processors, especially when they're overclocked.
If you want to overclock your 2500K to ~ 4.5GHz, you'll need a high end air cooling setup or a mid-priced all in one water cooling unit.
Trying to get by with an inexpensive cpu cooler is as bad as using a cheap power supply; both are bad ideas.
See what others are using with their overclocked Sandy Bridge K cpu's.

**edit** You will be better off going with an Ivy Bridge motherboard now, even if you are buying a Sandy Bridge cpu.

[bofhlusr]

That may be, but my quad core processor, Q6600, overclocked to 3.4Ghz and using the Freezer 7 Pro, is running along fine going close to 4 years now. 10-20 years ago, I was told not to overclock the cpu. Bad idea! So it was a mystery to me why my Celeron 300a which I overclocked to 450 Mhz on an Abit BH6 board ran ok for almost 5 years straight (I used it to run a BBS on modems 24 x 7).

But going back to the question, will the said heatsink/fan work with the motherboard? Thanks.

[SwordOfWar]

Since you did not fully list the name of the motherboard, I'm going to assume you mean the Z68 Extreme3 Gen3.

The motherboard CPU socket type is LGA 1155.

The cooler's description says it is compatible with the LGA 1155 socket type.

The cooler requires a 4 pin fan power connector, so you will need to have one of those which should be standard on any motherboard.

So yeah, according to the information it should be compatible.

It would probably do just fine for a stock Sandy CPU. Personally though, I would not buy this if I intended on overclocking my CPU.

[bofhlusr]

Yes, it is the Z68 Extreme3 Gen3. I want to use this HAF (heatsink and fan) because I have 2 spare ones just gathering dust. The specs say the HAF is compatible to the socket but it does not say that it would fit in to this specific motherboard. I am concerned that the HAF will not fit with the motherboard's own heatsinks located around the cpu socket. I'm also wondering if this HAF will have issues if the 4 memory slots are used. This will be my first Asrock purchase. Thanks.

[profJim]

Check the manufacturer's website for a diagram of heatsink that shows the dimensions of the heatsink and how much clearance there is from the bottom of the cooling fins to the top of the cpu or the motherboard. Also check to see if the heatsink is compatible with 1155 motherboards. You'll also need to know how tall your memory modules are. Many standard height modules are 30 mm tall. You might have clearance problems if the top of the memory's heat spreaders is more than about 40mm.

Not including model numbers in your PC Specs makes it harder for us to help.

[bofhlusr]

Good ideas, will do.

Heatsink is: Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

Memory is: Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL

Motherboard I'm thinking of buying (this will be my first Asrock purchase): Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3

I'll check the manufacturer's website and report back here. I hope they'll have the measurements available. Thanks again.