The best air or aio CPU cooler for 9900k

Efour · 4 Mar 2019 at 06:13

As title.

Is it still Noctuas latest offer for air?

And AIO? Are they as good as the best air yet? Who takes the crown for them?

doyll · 4 Mar 2019 at 12:24

Noctua make good coolers but so do many other companies. AIOs are almost all CLCs and CLCs are the absolute cheapest built liquid cooling there is with no provision for repairs or maintenance .. meaning when something goes work (usually the pump) you have no cooling until new cooler is installed. Also CLCs cost as much or more than good air cooing, don't cool any better, don't last as long, can't be repaired, and with an air cooler if fan goes bad it's easy to replace and system still works with not fan or one held on with rubberband until new fan is in hand.

AIOs that are just AIO, not CLC are made by Swiftech and Aphacool. Alphacool has their own Eisbaer line and make Silent Loops series for be quiet! I'm using a Silent Loop 280 from when they first came out with no problems. I topped up coolant after about 6 months and changed coolant after about 15 months, then added a little coolant about 6 months after that. It's due for a flush and new coolant now.

Efour · 4 Mar 2019 at 13:11

Ok you know your stuff.

Ross Thomson · 4 Mar 2019 at 13:42

you can build yourself a nice little loop for the cost of an AIO these days. It would be quieter. Both an huge air cooler and an AIO will cool your system assuming you have good case air flow (for the air cooler). If you are going for max overclocks then you'll find an AIO will cool your chip better but at the expense of noise.

I use AIO's to cool my chips and I built a small loop for under £100 for cooling various graphics cards for HWbot overclocking tables.

doyll · 4 Mar 2019 at 16:51

Basically a 240mm radiator CLC with hi-peformance fans cools about the same as a top tier air cooler making significantly less noise. I've experimented with air coolers using hi-performance fans as loud as CLCs and lowered temps 7-8c lower than 240mm CLC at same noise levels .. also have to use similar case intake fans so case is flowing as much air as cooler needs. If case airflow is not increased to match cooler airflow the cooler has to use it's own heated exhaust air to get all the air it's using .. and whatever degrees warmer the air into cooler is translates into almost exactly the same degrees hotter CPU will be.

The higher overclock that creates the extreme heat is only giving maginal increases in performance. Running overclock a 5% lower usually lowers temps about 5-8c .. meaning a process that uses CPU at 100% that takes 1 hour to do at extreme overclock will take about 3 minutes long with lower overclock, but the difference in noise level means you can be in room with process happening and just barely hear the fans instead of having to yell to have a conversation .. noise level of about 34-34dB(A) vs 40-45dB(A)with higher overclock.

jonathan_phang · 9 Mar 2019 at 09:48

Nice info here - I'm also the look out for an AIO (although for a much older CPU). I'm already looking at fans and was heading towards Be Quiet Silent Wings, so interested to hear they have their own line of AIOs as well. Will check them out, as I was leaning towards a Kraken X72.

doyll · 9 Mar 2019 at 13:18

jonathan_phang said:
Nice info here - I'm also the look out for an AIO (although for a much older CPU). I'm already looking at fans and was heading towards Be Quiet Silent Wings, so interested to hear they have their own line of AIOs as well. Will check them out, as I was leaning towards a Kraken X72.

be quiet! Silent Loop AIO is made by Alphacool to be quiet! specs. Only complaints I've heard is sometimes coolant level needs to be topped up after 6 months or so to stop pump noise from air moving through system. Easy to do with an eye dropper.

Nzxt Kraken X72 is made by Asetek, meaning it's a CLC so basically everything is factory assembled and sealed so there is no way to service or replace components to repair them .. Fractal Design Kelvin 36, Corsair H150i, etc. are also Asetek OEM CLCs.

jonathan_phang · 9 Mar 2019 at 14:00

Cheers. I like the sound of the be quiet AIO and in truth I've only picked the Kraken for pump aesthetics (cooling appears okish).

I didn't want to go cheap custom loop for a while but at £180 I'm sure I could get enough for a CPU loop. So many choices right now

doyll · 9 Mar 2019 at 14:38

Honestly, air cooling is always going to be the best price option and when setup properly will usually cool better with less noise than any CLC .. even many AIOs and custom loops. Even custom loops have a little pump noise and/or water flow noise at idle .. air cooling has none.

A good example of air vs CLC is a test done by PC-Cooling.TV did on Silver Arrow SB-E, H100i and Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme (w/ TY-143 high performance fans).

Silver Arrow SB-E, Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme vs H100
I7 [email protected] Temperature in Delta
Cooler . . . . . . . . . Delta . RPM . . . . . . dB(A) . . Fans
H100 . . . . . . . . . . 41c . . 2500. . . . . . 55 . . . . 2x
SA SB-E. . . . . . . . 42c . . 1000 & 1300. 38 . . . . TY-150 & TY-141
SA SB-E Extreme . 34c . . 2500 . . . . . . 56 . . . . 2x TY-143
H100 is 1c cooler than Silver Arrow SB-e but makes more than 3 times the noise doing it
Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme is 7c cooler with fans making similar amount of noise as H100 does.
PC-Cooling video review above data came from:

It shows just how well air coolers perform when cooling with same temp air as CLCs an at similar noise levels.

Keep in mind if using hi-performance cooler fans we also need to use hi-performance case fans so case is flowing the almost twice as much air the hi-performance cooler fans are using .. if case airflow is not increased then the cooler ends up re-using it's own heated air .. and every degree warmer the air into cooler is translates almost exactly to same degrees hotter CPU will be. This is why most reviews you see of coolers with hi-performance fans being tested in case test stations show little to no improvement in cooling .. the airflow into cooler ends up being 10c, 15c even 20c higher than room ambient.

Ross Thomson · 9 Mar 2019 at 14:50

jonathan_phang said:
I didn't want to go cheap custom loop for a while but at £180 I'm sure I could get enough for a CPU loop. So many choices right now

could do a GPU and CPU block depending on the graphics card.

jonathan_phang · 9 Mar 2019 at 14:59

Ross Thomson said:
could do a GPU and CPU block depending on the graphics card.

Its a 1080Ti FTW, so not a standard PCB, but I'd be happy with decent CPU setup that I could extend later really. If you want to take this off thread - would be interested in terms of what sorts of places would be best to get something decent in that price range.

Ross Thomson · 9 Mar 2019 at 20:15

have a look at BYKSKI blocks

HellDiverUK · 11 Mar 2019 at 15:21

I run a H100i v2 with a pair of ML120 Pro fans. The fans and pump speed are controlled by the motherboard, so it's basically silent idling, but can cool well when it needs to. At lower temps the pump runs about 800rpm, double that when the temps go up.

The AIO keeps the 9900K at 86C maximum and is still quite quiet - it's certainly not loud even when running full speed. The AIO is top mounted, which isn't ideal, but it's the best I can do in that case in it's current configuration.

Ross Thomson · 11 Mar 2019 at 18:37

intake or exhaust? if its exhaust change to intake which would reduce the temps more.

doyll · 11 Mar 2019 at 19:07

Running a radiator as intake means it's pre-heated the air that is used to cool everything but what CLC is cooling .. hardly a good idea considering that air cooling has basically a 1:1 ratio of air temp into cooler vs them of component .. as in raise air temp 5c to a hot component and it's temps also goes up 5c.

Water cooling isn't that 1:1 ratio, so air temp into radiator is not as critical

Ross Thomson · 12 Mar 2019 at 08:31

doyll said:
Running a radiator as intake means it's pre-heated the air that is used to cool everything but what CLC is cooling .. hardly a good idea considering that air cooling has basically a 1:1 ratio of air temp into cooler vs them of component .. as in raise air temp 5c to a hot component and it's temps also goes up 5c.

Water cooling isn't that 1:1 ratio, so air temp into radiator is not as critical

air that goes through an AIO radiator cooling a CPU isn't heated up that much and is better than trying to use the much hotter air from inside a case to cool the rad.

Running an AIO rad as an intake is better than an exhaust. The only rad I run as an exhaust in my systems is the one attached to the kraken G12 cooling my RX480 because I don't want that hot air coming into the case.

doyll · 12 Mar 2019 at 13:21

That is your opinion, one I and many others do not agree with.

Could you please explain why it is better to pre-heat all air in the case with a raidator as intake rather than using coolest possible airflow to air cooled components when only 1 component is being cooled by CLC (or other water cooling system).

Raising the air temp into a radiator by 2-3c will only raise a hard working component temp about a 1c .. raising the air temp into an air cooler by 2-3c will raise same component it is cooling by similar 2-3c.

I (and many others) what coolest air (air at room ambient temp) going to our air cooled components and have found liquid cooling (at least a half-decent liquid cooling) is more than capable of cooling very well mountyed as exhaust and using air a few degrees warmer than intake air. I'm guessing your supposition / hypothsis has no accurate testing on of system setup both ways to see which actually cools best.

Unseul · 12 Mar 2019 at 16:26

Ross Thomson said:
air that goes through an AIO radiator cooling a CPU isn't heated up that much and is better than trying to use the much hotter air from inside a case to cool the rad.

Running an AIO rad as an intake is better than an exhaust. The only rad I run as an exhaust in my systems is the one attached to the kraken G12 cooling my RX480 because I don't want that hot air coming into the case.

An individual millilitre of air will be cooler coming through a large radiator, than a small one. But the overall amount of warming has to be the same, it's just spread over a large volume of air. But then if it's all inside your case, it's still going to warm it up by the same amount overall.

Your CPU will be cooler, because you're effectively using room temp to cool it, which is great. But then, you'll be helping to cook your GPU, and perhaps worse, your VRMs, which will potentially throttle/burnout your CPU anyway.

If you setup decent airflow into the case in the first place, then exhausting through the rad may add a small amount to your CPU temps (which would be well within safe levels anyway), whilst also allowing the rest of the vital components to stay cooler too.

Ross Thomson · 12 Mar 2019 at 17:53

only heat up the GPU if you don't have any other intake. current ryzen 2600 is cooled by top mounted intake rad and the GPU cooled by front inlet. No difference in gpu temp if it is run as in take or exhaust.

doyll · 12 Mar 2019 at 19:11

Unseul said:
An individual millilitre of air will be cooler coming through a large radiator, than a small one. But the overall amount of warming has to be the same, it's just spread over a large volume of air. But then if it's all inside your case, it's still going to warm it up by the same amount overall.

Your CPU will be cooler, because you're effectively using room temp to cool it, which is great. But then, you'll be helping to cook your GPU, and perhaps worse, your VRMs, which will potentially throttle/burnout your CPU anyway.

If you setup decent airflow into the case in the first place, then exhausting through the rad may add a small amount to your CPU temps (which would be well within safe levels anyway), whilst also allowing the rest of the vital components to stay cooler too.

Better explanation than mine.

Combine your explanation with mine about air temp to component temp differences between air cooling and water cooling and it even makes more sense to vent radiator as exhaust out of case rather than intake.

Ross Thomson said:
only heat up the GPU if you don't have any other intake. current ryzen 2600 is cooled by top mounted intake rad and the GPU cooled by front inlet. No difference in gpu temp if it is run as in take or exhaust.

So you have top and front intakes .. say 2x 140mm top an 2x 140mm front intakes means you need 4x 140mm exhaust vents ideally with fans like your intakes to be moving air out of case at same rate as intake fans push it in. If you don't have at lest as much exhaust flow as intakes are capable of your case's maximum flow will be limited by the smaller exaust airflow rate.