Will this fit? (cpu cooler in matx case)
 

I have an APEVIA (ASPIRE) X-QPACK, which i really like and don't wish to part with. I was reading reviews and compiling a mobo/cpu/ram upgrade and decided on the Thermalright MUX-120 for an i5-750 or i7-860. will this fit? Any other recommendations if i go amd with a x4 965? will any of these cpu coolers fit in a matx case?

Why not stick with the stock cooler???

^ werd.

stock coolers are quite efficient nowaday under mild overclocking.

i was just curious, it's not a big priority. This seems like one of those things where u have to do a ton of research to find one that fits. 9/10 threads = get a atx case. duh, but there must be a good solution.

why not measure your clearances and then try to find a sink based on that?

There is no way any tower style HSF will fit into your case. It's obvious without taking any measurements.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...s/heatsink.jpg
The case you already have.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-09-10/124b.jpg
The heatsink you want to fit into the case.

John, why must you lie? :)


I have the same case and put a giant heatsink in there. Just had to do some mods...

Heres my build (jan. 2008)

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1260681

pasted my build here so you don't have to click the link:

:)

Hey guys,

In an effort to build a portable gaming rig this time around (old machine is in a giant Thermaltake Xaser case and weights about 50 lbs) I scored the following during christmas/boxing day sales:

Case: X-QPack gen. 2
Power Supply: Antec NeoPower HE 500 (from old PC - selling old PC w/ qpack PS)
Motherboard: Gigabyte DSR2
CPU: Q6600 G0
Cooling: ThermalRight Ultima-90 (thx to MaximumOverKill's thread in the gallery!)
RAM: 2 x 2GB Patriot 4-4-4-12
Video: Galaxy 8800 GTS 512MB
Optical: Black DVD SATA
HDD: Maxtor 200 GB (from old PC - SATA 150 only)
HDD Case: Antec MX-1
Keyboard: Logitech G15 gen. 2
Mouse: Logitech G9
Monitor: Dell 2005FPW (from old PC)
Headset: Icemat Siberia (from old PC)

So my story begins without the Ultima-90... Using stock cooling I put the machine together and started running some tests...

Idle temps around high 40's
4 instances of Prime95, 100% cpu usage bought the temp. upto 77 degrees within about 15 minutes or so.

Too hot!!

So poking around, I found Max.OverKills microfly gallery and how he got the Ultima-90 to fit. I decided to go down the same road... Back to NCIX I go! (Sure is nice to live within 10 minutes of the place!)

1/2 hour later, armed with a hacksaw and some masking tape, i was all set to chop up my shiny new case - much to my wife's dismay!
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1050026.jpg

VICTORY IS MINE!

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1050027.jpg

Some additional metal work was required to fit the cooler on this Giga-byte board however... One of the brackets wouldn't fit as it was to close to the NorthBridge? heatsink... so I had to show it who's boss...

This was a bit of a pain in the ass... I was used to cutting the buttery soft aluminum of the qpack case... This was MUCH stronger and took probably 10-15 minutes of hacksawing... I was damn close to calling my friend and scoring a dremel to finish it off!!

Basically I just had to file/cut off the rounded edge so it was flush with the threaded hole. It fit just perfect after that!

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1050077.jpg
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1050075.jpg

Once this was done, it was smooth sailing!! Well, aside from the countless ways of trying to tuck wiring away to make the best of air flow :)

The only other mod I did was to mount another 80mm intake fan on the right-hand side of the front panel. The qpack comes with just a single intake fan on the left side and i felt that the case needed more airflow! Thankfully there are lots of perforated holes already in the case so a few zipties later, i had a new fan!

So 1 intake fan drawing air in on both sides... 1 for the cpu side, 1 for the gpu side! Things should be flowing nicely!

Button everything up and run the same tests...

Idle's around 42 and full prime loading around 62. So about 8 degrees drop in temp! And i'm still not done! As you can in the pictures, the Ultima-90 draws air in from the side, and my case has solid window'd walls! So no doubt its starving for air... I plan on replacing the window with some sort of mesh opening to allow it to get direct cool air.

Also, i placed both of the qpack's thermal probes along each side in the air flow path. The case seems to be staying really nice and cool @ around 25 degrees or so.

The one other thing to note in my build is that i don't have the harddrive in the qpack case. I bought an actively cooled Antec MX-1 E-SATA enclosure that you can see on top of the case. I did this with the idea of keeping the extra heat generated by the HDD out of the case. No idea if it was required, but I liked the idea :)

Some additional pictures:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1050083.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1060090.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1060109.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1060104.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1060100.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...k/P1060097.jpg