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I could easily buy a liquid cooler and call it a day, but unfortunately this is going into a 4U rack server chassis. it has a double 120mm fan but its covered by drive bays. the only other fan is 80mm, and i dont know any liquid coolers with a radiator that small. I am thinking air cooler. It is a i7-7800X so im concerned about temps. Ideas for cooling?

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— short reality check and a path forward.

The i7‑7800X is an LGA2066 X‑series part with a 140 W TDP and Intel does not ship a boxed cooler for X‑series chips, so you’ll need a deliberate cooling plan for sustained loads. (intel.com)

If chassis height and drive cages are the hard limits, the realistic consumer choices are low‑profile top‑flow units such as the Noctua NH‑L9x65 (65 mm) or the Scythe Big Shuriken 3 (≈69 mm). They’ll physically fit many 4U racks, are quiet, and work well for light to moderate loads — but manufacturers explicitly warn these small coolers aren’t intended for continuous 140 W class heat. Use them only if your workload is intermittent or you can drastically improve chassis airflow. (noctua.at)

If the box will see sustained heavy CPU use (build servers, VM hosts, compiles, rendering) move to a rack/server‑oriented cooler: Noctua’s NH‑U9DX i4 (≈125 mm) or purpose‑built rack coolers (Dynatron R24, Arctic Freezer 4U variants, etc.) are designed for forced‑air 2U/3U/4U environments and higher sustained thermal loads — but check each cooler’s mounting (square vs narrow ILM) before buying because some rack coolers target server backplates only. (noctua.at)

Practical checklist: measure CPU‑to‑lid clearance; confirm your board’s ILM/mounting pattern; consider removing or relocating drive cages or using blanking panels/ducting to unblock the 120 mm intake; swap obstructed fans for high static‑pressure 120 mm units and set a conservative fan curve; monitor package temps under real workloads and pick a server cooler if temps climb under sustained load. Front‑to‑back directed airflow is critical in 4U builds. (yifuproducts.com)

If ’s original suggestion was to “try the stock HSF,” note the 7800X didn’t ship with one — so treat “stock” as not available and choose a low‑profile consumer cooler only as a stopgap test, not a long‑term solution under heavy use. (intel.com)

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