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Question

What cooler do I need for and i7 4790 processor?

Apr 11, 2018 8:55AM PDT

I have been piecing together a computer over the past few weeks. I am using it as a work station (autocad and such) not a gaming station.

Here is what I have:

HP Z230 mini tower with an i7 4790 (I "think" it is a LGA-1150 socket) processor ($200)

32 GB ram ($144)

MSI GTX 1060 AERO ITX 6 GB (... just won it last night $220)

In one of the posts, it was suggested that upgrade the cooler. Several examples were given.

Two questions:

1) do I really need to upgrade the cooler? I have never done this and just assumed the one that comes with the computer is good enough. Just don't want to take the computer apart for the fun of it.

2) I looked at the examples given and some others. They range form $10.99 to $369.99! There is no use spending more then I need to on a cooler. How will I know if a $10.99 cooler is better then my stock cooler? Rather then just a list of all that are available, is there a list of one that are better and ones that are worse then the stock cooler?

Thanks so much .... Mike

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Most of the time no.
Apr 11, 2018 9:03AM PDT

I would however check if the fan is good as new and if over a few years old replace the heatsink compound.

Why so much RAM? It won't do much for gaming. From 16 to 32GB some noted below 1 FPS gain.

Post was last edited on April 11, 2018 9:34 AM PDT

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How can I check fan? Went nuts on ram
Apr 11, 2018 9:21AM PDT

I don't game so I am sure 32 gb is a waste ... just got a decent buy and since I only get a computer every 4 or 5 years, I just went for it ... this computer is actually replacing my last used computer that just died ... it had a 2008 build stick in it.

So before replacing the fan so I just put some kind of monitoring program on the computer and watch what the temperature does or ???

It spins and seems fine but I got worried when a post suggested that I "needed" to upgrade the fan.

Thanks .... Mike

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If it spins without trouble or noise
Apr 11, 2018 9:37AM PDT

It's likely just fine.

But let me get this straight. I get the feeling you want a PC that will run for 4 or 5 years without the usual small repair? I consider fans, BIOS batteries, even a HDD loss to be "the usual" repairs over the years. I do not recommend monitoring apps. Many came with adverts or some from some places malware so I use the usual SPECCY read https://www.piriform.com/docs/speccy/using-speccy/publishing-a-speccy-profile-to-the-web if I need a health report.

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Been lucky?
Apr 11, 2018 3:23PM PDT

Hmmm .... Honestly, the fan in my 2008 computer is original.

I did replace the battery myself once. I got an error when it booted so just popped in a new battery (it was in a socket not soldered in).

Hard drive ... learned a long long time ago to back up everything! I was in the middle of building a house when I lost my drive and all the plans! I paid $750 back then to have the hard drive rebuilt and the data recovered ... never again.

I now have dual 1 Tb external drives to back up everything on. Both drives are identical ... two back ups of everything.

Thanks ... Mike

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I have a very old desktop too.
Apr 11, 2018 3:54PM PDT

The fan is one of those original ball bearing units and the few times it gets used it's to install a special PCI card for some diagnostic work or for data recovery. Fans, if they are good ball bearing units and kept clean can last far beyond the PC.

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Cooler
Apr 11, 2018 2:09PM PDT

If you don't overclock the stock cooler should be fine.

Install a copy of speccy and run it as a background task.

Run your normal stuff and occasionally flip over to speccy to check the temps.

Depending on how dirty the environment is once a year it might be necessary to give the innards a cleaning with some compressed air.

Should not take long to figure out if there is a temp problem.