Thanks for your reply TRs and t33. All go information. The picture of the back of the motherboard is helpful. I seem to remember posts in this thread talking about the metal back plate and how it would be impossible to remove.
I watched some YouTube videos of a guy replacing
@bjay77
This CM cooler, the i70c with copper core, gives you a PWM fan (120mm) and speeds down to 650 RPM. It also has a blue LED for those with a glass side panel that want some bling. Overall a nice cooler but cost is double to either of the above fans. With a Noctua PWM controller you could sync the speed with other case fans. So running all the fans at around 800 RPM would be very quiet indeed. 4 pin splitter cable and 5 to 4 pin adapter needed of course. Using this with the
CM NR400 case would be the way to go. Would have the very best airflow/cooling you could get for an OptiMac system.
https://www.newegg.com/cooler-master-air-cooler-series-i70c/p/13C-000X-002T8
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Thanks Trs (as always) for the great information, the picture of the back of the motherboard is particularly helpful. I had been looking at the CM i70c as a cooler (pun intended) option.
Regarding the CM 212x again though, this tower cooler has a different attachment system to others I have looked at and I'm wondering if it could work
with the stock dell back plate. To install the 212x, you screw 4 standoffs in on the processor side, these look like standard m3 screw threads (think ssd mounting screws) that i think would screw directly into the dell backplate. (On a normal motherboard these screw into nuts on the CM backplate).
Once the 4 standoffs are in place, the X shaped bracket (that can be set to the standard 1150 dimensions) screws into the standoffs. I have attached the downloaded instruction 'manual' for the CM 212x that might explain better what i'm talking about. The other unknown is height in terms of where the coolers thermal plate would rest reference the top of the cpu, however if the standoffs can be screwed all the way in to the dell backplate, it should work fine....ie it should screw in just the same as the i70c and the others you mentioned.
The only thing I can't research is the strength of the dell backplate and whether it can handle the 212x's weight hanging off it...looks beefy enough though!
I'm tempted to get one and test fit it without the thermal paste etc...could always return it if its a fail. What do you think?