CPU Cooler

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Hate to break it to you, but the best bang-for-the-buck CPU air coolers all interfere with tall Ram heat-spreaders like what you are using. You could try a Cooler Master Hyper 212+ (normally $30 or less) with a single fan pulling air through the cooler, as opposed to pushing it through, as the fan would interfere with the heat-spreaders in the push position. Be warned though, not having a shroud to direct all the air over the HSF fins means that not all the air being pulled through will be put to use, and it will perform at a lower level than those of us that have that cooler in push, or push/pull config.

yeah, thats the bad thing, it cant interfere with the RAM like all good 120 mm HSF's would. however, considering the amd stock cooler fits with a few mm left, and its a 92 mm fan, i was figuring i could get a decent 92 mm hsf. better than stock, but of course not as good as the better ones, like the hyper 212. i have a list, but have any decent 92 mm hsf recommendations?

Newegg has recently jacked their prices on the 212+ to $50. For that price, you can order the GT V6
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
It is a shrouded heatsink, so the pull configuration would be more effective than on an open tower design like the 212+.

Well, another option is a bit of a hack job, but running dual fans in Push Pull configuration with a 212+ (find elsewhere for $30 or less) by clipping the Push (ram side) fan higher up on the HSF. you will loose efficiency compared to it blowing entirely into the fins, but it would undoubtedly still outperfrom a lone Pull configuration.

care to explain that a bit more?  

Sure, give me a minute to mock up what I mean on my rig, I'll be back with some pictures in a few minutes.

First up is my 212+ the day it was installed with both Push and Pull fans, both 90cfm CM LED fans, the blademaster is not my rear exhaust fan for my case, heh. You can see in the picture that the push fan is barely clearing the normal profile OCZ sticks. In reality is it about a quarter of an inch of total clearance with the push fan in normal clip on position.


And here is the same HSF and fans, but I clipped the Push fan as high up on the tower as the top clip would go. Using Zipties etc, you could go farther, I just wanted to demonstrate how it can me moved away from the memory. My apologies for the crappy picture (old crappy camera) but I tried to demonstrate the shift with the yellow lines comparing both fans, and the green lines to show the extra space to the memory. It's been a few weeks since I cleaned the heatsink, with 2 smokers and 2 cats in the home, it gets dirty fast  
Warning: Doing this any more than 1cm increases the clearance needed for the HSF in your case, as the max height of the 212+ is at the heatpipe caps, which are about 1cm long above the last fan.


Another option that just occurred to me is to create a bracket to which you can attach a 92cm fan and while fitting onto the 120mmbracket supplied with the 212+. Out of something stiff and thing, something like this I think would work.



EDIT: Added quick mspaint draft of a 92mm to 120mm bracket.

but they actual heatsink part does clear the ram, it would just be the fans blocking it?

On my motherboard, yes, the Heatsink itself is not close to the ram, in this picture you can see that its only the very end of the 25mm thick fan that is over the last memory slot.

hmmmm, what mobo is that? and any other good heatsinks that will fit besides the 212?

The motherboard in the pictures I took today is a Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H with DDR3 Gskill memory. The first picture was on a Gigabyte MA789G-UD3H with DDR2 OCZ memory. I have used the same 965BE on both boards.

I haven't owned many aftermarket heatsinks, but I have noticed that most tower design HSF share this same issue.