Hey all, I'm a first time PC builder, and am looking for some advice. I'm searching for an aftermarket cooler for an e8500 chip (I hear that the stock heatsink sucks majorly). I don't want to have to wrestle to get it in there, nor have it butting up against other components and possibly damaging something. I have no intention to overclock, and want to keep it at decent temps when I game.

My case is an Antec 900, the motherboard is an ASUS P5Q deluxe, GPU is a diamond Radeon 4870 HD (I hear it's a monster for size, and am worried about it getting in the way of the heatsink, or the heatsink preventing me from running crossfire with another 4870 if I choose to in the future). My RAM is OCZ Flex XLC, as I hear some people have problems with this RAM set getting in the way of heatsinks.

Stick with the stock one.

Definitely do not stick with the stock one. Get one with a back plate, no push pins. No HS should interfere with your video cards. The RAM you will have to verify. Here is a comparison list of heatsinks. I like the Ultra 120 Ex. but you probably don't need it. There are some more choices here. Remember only heatsinks with a backplate.

Xigmatek with separate bolt-on back plate is a good one.

Top 5 heatsinks:

http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 67-12.html

Top 5 Low Profile Heatsinks on Frostytech

http://www.frostytech.com/top5_low [...] tsinks.cfm