Cryorig H7 Tower Cooler

The H7 is the heatsink I purchased for my first build, with the CPU in question being a 7600K on an MSI Z270 SLI Plus. Given that I was in the market for an air cooler, it was basically between this, the 212 Evo or a Noctua cooler. I ultimately went with the H7 since the price-to-performance (as per multiple reviews) seemed like the perfect fit. Now that I've messed with it, I have to say the performance it provides has been...confusing. With the plastic removed and thermal material applied, my 7600K runs in the mid to high 30's while idle and, depending on the game, runs the gamut between the 50's and 70's. This is with default CPU settings (4.2 GHz and around 1.3V). I tested it with a manual overclock of 4.5 GHz on 1.2-1.25V and a somewhat aggressive custom fan curve (85-90% at 70 degrees), and idle temperatures were usually between the high 30's and mid 40's. Gaming with these settings sees temperatures hit the 70's with greater frequency, sometimes even crossing into the 80's. Benchmarks are even less assuring; OCCT for example brought would see the CPU hit 85 or even higher at infrequent intervals over the course of an hour-long test. This is with 6 case fans (two front intakes, one bottom intake, two top exhausts and one back exhaust). These numbers definitely don't line up with what the vast majority of reviews report, and while one potential factor is the thermal material inside my CPU, I still feel my H7 isn't performing up to snuff for whatever reason. The vast majority of reviews also mention that installing the H7 is easy, yet it was anything but on my end. I am ready to chock this up to user error, however, since I had a friend help me put my computer together, and he admitted that he was rusty (he even thought the only way to install the heatsink was the completely wrong way--with the fan facing the PSU), and we ended up installing the heatsink after installing the motherboard into my case. While some people do seem to go about installing heatsinks that way, most of the time I see them install the heatsink before the motherboard is in the case, which I definitely recommend for this cooler due to the nature of its mounting bracket. One nice thing about the H7 is that you can adjust where the screws line up, but the issue there (especially if you made the mistake my friend and I did) is that the adjustment doesn't "click" with each adjustment. Rather, it's flimsy and easy to nudge off-center, which isn't exactly aided by the less-than-tight mounting bracket that needs to be held in place from the back of the motherboard. Maybe this is a walk in the park for more experienced users, but for first-time builders, I'd be wary. All things considered, the H7 is technically doing what it needs to; from what I've read, as long as CPU temperatures stay below 80 C then you should be fine; this almost never happens while gaming so in that sense I can't complain. But I do feel like I would've been better off looking into a different cooler, possible a Noctua heatsink. My experience seems to be in the minority, however, so feel free to take my review with a generous grain of salt.