Best Z77 for OC?

4.5 may be a stretch for a mATX case + an H80 unless it has some really good air flow. I would see if someone puts out some cooler reviews specifically using IB as a test case.

Janus67 said:

4.5 may be a stretch for a mATX case + an H80 unless it has some really good air flow. I would see if someone puts out some cooler reviews specifically using IB as a test case.

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As long as airflow is constant, mATX is no warmer than a full case. I use +ive pressure for my builds, H80 would push air in, and front intake pushes in as well, and they both feed the GPU. My current case temps with my p180mini are just 1 or 2C above ambient idle, and maybe around 5-10C during full load.

Now with Ivy bridge, the power output is not that much even at 4.5Ghz. The heat at the core is high, but the power dissipation isn't very high. Just inneficient heat transfer from chip to cooling solution, whether architecture/process or ISH contact based. This won't cause much of a rise in case temps..

I don't think Ivy will be a good showcase for air coolers, since I think the mounting will turn out to be more important then how efficient the cooler is.. Since the CPU is putting out less power, this means the cooler doesn't need to dissipate as much to keep temps low. So the temperature delta cause by the pressure of the contact vs heat transfer efficiency should have more effect than the heat transfer of the cooler to the air. In this case it is more about how efficiently heat can be traded for cool right at the ISH, like a WC setup. A fast pump speed with slower fan speeds on rad should perform better than a regular pump speed with fast fans on the rad. Of course I could be wrong, but still it is interesting to see this chip and how this temp problem arised.

True, I keep forgetting that despite posting that same information

I wouldn't ignore the GB Z77 boards, they might give you one heck of a surprise under LN2, in a good way.