Cpu cooler problem! Ghost s1

[DragonDrayce]

Good day to you all!
i am in trouble with the compatibility of the cpu cooler and the Asus rog strix z390-i gaming motherboard. i am building a ghost s1 with rtx 2080 super and intel I7-9700k. everything seems fine, however, the only cooler that was the best on the market is the noctua nh-l12, but it went out of production!!! which is terrible!!! and the only choice that is left from noctua is the new noctua nh-l12s! but! there is a giant issue, it is not compatable with the asus z390! since the motherboard has a vrm heatsink and mechanically doesnt fit. Which leaves me with nh-l9x64, but it is terrible when it comes to such cpu (I7-9700k) the temps are around 79-89 degrees!
So there is no cooler from noctua, i searched for different ones, all cpu coolers that loque sugests for ghost, are either not available or from a no-name brand, which i dont trust too much. There was also a German cpu cooler The black ridge, but it has the same situation as the noctua l12s.
on different forums, people just either remove the vrm heatsink or cut down the cooler so it would fit, but any ofthese suggestions are not cool) i dont really want to diy this system as i want it to be perfect. Need HELP! suggestions, anything will help!

 

[rfarmer]

Good day to you all!
i am in trouble with the compatibility of the cpu cooler and the Asus rog strix z390-i gaming motherboard. i am building a ghost s1 with rtx 2080 super and intel I7-9700k. everything seems fine, however, the only cooler that was the best on the market is the noctua nh-l12, but it went out of production!!! which is terrible!!! and the only choice that is left from noctua is the new noctua nh-l12s! but! there is a giant issue, it is not compatable with the asus z390! since the motherboard has a vrm heatsink and mechanically doesnt fit. Which leaves me with nh-l9x64, but it is terrible when it comes to such cpu (I7-9700k) the temps are around 79-89 degrees!
So there is no cooler from noctua, i searched for different ones, all cpu coolers that loque sugests for ghost, are either not available or from a no-name brand, which i dont trust too much. There was also a German cpu cooler The black ridge, but it has the same situation as the noctua l12s.
on different forums, people just either remove the vrm heatsink or cut down the cooler so it would fit, but any ofthese suggestions are not cool) i dont really want to diy this system as i want it to be perfect. Need HELP! suggestions, anything will help!

Unfortunately top down coolers don't play well with the Asus z390, so the choices are down to modifying the Asus or get a top hat and run a 240mm AIO.

 

[DragonDrayce]

Unfortunately top down coolers don't play well with the Asus z390, so the choices are down to modifying the Asus or get a top hat and run a 240mm AIO.

Any suggestion to change the motherboard, but leave the i7-9700k? And fitting a noctua nh-l12s?

 

[rfarmer]

Any suggestion to change the motherboard, but leave the i7-9700k? And fitting a noctua nh-l12s?

Changing the mother board is one option, I know that the Asrock Phantom Gaming has the same issues with the NH-L12S. That leaves the Gigabyte and the MSI, I don't know a lot about the MSI but I have seen people say the Gigabyte doesn't have the best VRM. I have a Gigabyte z370 and run my 8700k at 5.0 GHz with no problem.

I will say that I have a Ghost S1 with a large top hat and can understand why someone would not want to add one, they just look so much better without.

 

[DragonDrayce]

What would you suggest? Just swapping out for an asrock z390 and installing the l12 cooler, or go with asus z390 and buying a nh-l9x65? With the i7-9700k?

 

[rfarmer]

What would you suggest? Just swapping out for an asrock z390 and installing the l12 cooler, or go with asus z390 and buying a nh-l9x65? With the i7-9700k?

Take a look at this video, Josh from NFC tests out a bunch of different coolers using the Strix z390. He does show that the Big Shuriken 3 fits on the Strix with no problems. I know people have used these in the Ghost after a fan swap and different screws for mounting the fan.

 

[CottonTexas]

The Noctua NH-L12 has a total height of 66mm which is exactly the recommended heat sink height of the Ghost S1. The Raijintek Pallas 120 is 68mm w/ a 13mm fan, but might be slimmed down to 65mm if you use a 10mm fan instead, as it has similar measurements to the NH-L12.

The specs are pretty close: Noctua vs. Raijintek When I looked at the weight difference, I noticed that the Noctua weighs in at 415g, whereas the Raijintek weights in at about 452g (550g [combined] - 98g [120mm RGB fan] = 452g). Considering that copper and nickel are both more dense (and thus heavier) than aluminum, I'm considering that perhaps Raijintek didn't necessarily skimp on materials despite the discounted price-tag.

I was looking into this for my ROG STRIX B360-i, which doesn't seem to have the same VRM heatsinks as the Z390-i, but I didn't see the VRM heatsinks on the Z390-i in the vid above like I've seen in the stock pics either, however he did say that he removed some or all at different points during testing, but from what I've been able to find (on PCPartPicker), the Alpenfohn Black Ridge works well in the S1 with the ASRock Z390, but I haven't seen anyone get it on the Asus ROG STRIX without modification (despite the specs measuring pretty close to the other two). Hopefully this is not the case with the Raijintek Pallas 120 (that is currently tempting me with a special on NewEgg) since I haven't found any positive information as of yet.

EDIT: This guy seems to be pretty happy with the ROG STRIX Z390-i & NH-L9x65.

 

[Desertf0x9]

You can easily remove the VRM heatsink for the asus z390 and put on some smaller copper heatsinks on VRM. That's what I did.

 

[CaptainBigleux]

I had a l9x65 on x570i aorus and 3700x.
Performance was good enough, but noise level was terrible due to fan too close to the side panel of the louqe.

I finaly managed to mount a L12S. But need some work.
First, you need to bend it slightly and carefuly.
Second, due to motherboard very loaded like yours, the fan of the l12S would not fit. So i installed the smaller fan of the L9x65 instead.
Works great and now silent. Kinda building my own non S L12 out of 2 other kits. Lol