We all have too many choices to make on a daily basis, and it seems that far too many involve the need to sacrifice one area to satisfy another. Many times this is unavoidable, but more often than not there is little or no need for the sacrifice at all. One of the biggest co-existence quandaries in computers has been enthusiast CPU cooling and tall RAM. Does one actually preclude the other? Well, it shouldn't but, many times, manufacturers have made this the case.

While the large heatspreaders on RAM have been largely ornamental rather than functional for quite some time, it is often difficult to find high performance RAM without them (there, of course, is a marketing reason behind this?..but I won't go into that rant right now). This has left many needing to choose between faster RAM, or proper CPU cooling. Sure, you could go to a CLC (hmmm?.CLC, tall RAM, marketing ploy?..), but as we have seen in test after test after test, you're asking for a huge noise increase for similar (or decreased) performance, and you can expect to pay a premium for that privilege. Recently, we have seen cooling manufacturers react and new designs have been brought to the forefront with increased compatibility for tall RAM.