2 new air coolers needed

currob

currob

currob

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2 of my PC's have aging AIO coolers (NZXT Kraken X60 & Corsair H100i). The PC's run 24/7 with continuous loads of around 70 to 80% on the cpu's. Both cpu's are 4790k's at 4.4GHz with temps of 62c on the corsair and 55c on the Kraken.

After reading posts about pump failures / leaks over the years, I have decided to go back to air cooling, both PC's have the Corsair Air 540 cases so space isn't an issue and air flow is really good.

I'm totally out of touch with cooling, which of the current air coolers would be the best option and cool the cpu's best? I like the look of the big Phanteks cooler but is the Noctua still king? Also been looking at the Prolimatech Genesis CPU cooler, I like the look of it but not sure how good it is, also read a review where the 1st pcie slot was obstructed by it and mine is in use with vga, what draws me to it is the high airflow over the dimm slots.
 
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Noctua are still king, but in reality all of the "top end" air coolers will be within 1-2 degrees of each other - your air flow/case setup will likely affect temperatures more than buying one "top" cooler over another.

By "top end", I mean things like (I'm sure others will add more):

NH-D14/D15
Silver Arrow SB-E
PH-TC14PE
 
I'm leaning towards the PH-TC14PE, only 2 left in stock so will probably buy one today and see how it goes in 1st PC then decide on the next one afterwards.

kaku said:
your air flow/case setup will likely affect temperatures more than buying one "top" cooler over another.
Click to expand...

Case airflow is superb, only the mobo, vga and ram in the main compartment with 3x120mm 2x140mm intakes and 2x120mm 1x140mm exhaust. These Air 540 cases have been a dream to work with and keep cool :)
 
I have ordered the Cryorig R1 ultimate, It's better than the Noctua NH D15 but the noctua is a little quieter, Would have had it today except UPS thinks 15MPH wind is extreme weather and my package needs a delay because of it..

Looks a lot better than the Noctua + Phanteks imo, You can buy covers for it to match your build colouring.
 
I honestly cant hear the pump, its the fans, I know I could replace them but it irritates me that you pay your money and get crap fans and have to fork out more for better ones so I'm considering getting rid and going back to air cooling

Same with the case the fans were shockingly bad
 
Ok, installed and running, the temps are around 5c higher than with the kraken aio but as you'll see in the pics, the heatsink is like 2mm off the gpu backplate and the gpu is running at 100% 24/7

Before:

IrRadqZ.jpg

After:

DvviMnG.jpg

In the case, you see how close to the gpu it is:

xopAO4R.jpg

And a close up to show the height and clearance in the Air 540 case:

ChzuC8S.jpg

It is nice and quiet though, even with the fans at 100%. I think I'll move the gpu to a lower pcie slot, there's 2 pciex16 iirc, i'm sure the temps will be significantly lower then.

The bottom PC is next and there's much more space between the cpu socket and the pciex16 slot on that one.
 
Damn its huge!

I'm still considering one of these but OCUK don't have stock of the black ones

Just so you know, I noticed lower CPU temps on my old air cooler in my 540 with no fan in the ceiling closer to the intakes and just the one in the ceiling toward the rear

Its almost like it exhausts the air from the upper 120mm intake before it has chance to get to the CPU cooler
 
Moved the gpu, cpu temps are now pretty much the same as they were with the 280mm aio.

TdFjQNN.jpg
gpu is now in a x8 slot rather than x16 but from what i've read there won't be any noticeable difference when gaming.
 
currob said:
Just noticed my vrm temps have dropped by 14c now there's a load more airflow over them.
Click to expand...

From the new cooler?

Can you double check and confirm this please as its yet another reason to go back to air cooling

Try disabling that fan I mentioned and see if your CPU temps drop, I know it sounds crazy but i'm pretty sure it affected mine

I think my RAM might be a problem though, any chance you could measure the gap between motherboard and the lowest art of the cooler nearest the board?
 
Relentless81 said:
From the new cooler?

Can you double check and confirm this please as its yet another reason to go back to air cooling

Try disabling that fan I mentioned and see if your CPU temps drop, I know it sounds crazy but i'm pretty sure it affected mine

I think my RAM might be a problem though, any chance you could measure the gap between motherboard and the lowest art of the cooler nearest the board?
Click to expand...

I have a probe in the vrm heatsink that usually displays around 45 to 49c and since installing the air cooler it is displaying 30 to 31c so definite and vast improvement.

Those fans are intake rather than exhaust but i'll give it a try.

Give or take a mm the underneath of the heatsink is 56mm from the motherboard, the fans are larger than the heatsink but you can move them up and down as much as you like really.
 
I have a probe in the same place, hits 45C in BF4 so sounds similar

If they are intake don't bother mate, mine are exhaust, how do you keep the dust out if they are intake?

Thanks for measuring I'll take a look at mine now
 
Relentless81 said:
how do you keep the dust out if they are intake?
Click to expand...

The aio 280mm rad was in the top so that collected the dust and I would drop it out with 2 screws and hoover it on the 1st of each month.

As I have the 2 cases stacked i have the top case intakes on the front and top with exhaust at the back and bottom directly into the top of the lower case. The lower case draws air in from the bottom of the top case and exhausts at the back and has intake fans at the front. It works really well but the dust now has a way in at the top so I must think of a way around it.
 
Interesting way of putting two chassis working together

There is that Demciflex kit but its really expensive

My RAM is about 42mm tall, only had a tape measure to hand, can you believe I managed to clear my CMOS whilst I was measuring them, thankfully I found an option to load the last known BIOS settings
 
currob said:
Ok, installed and running, the temps are around 5c higher than with the kraken aio but as you'll see in the pics, the heatsink is like 2mm off the gpu backplate and the gpu is running at 100% 24/7

Before:

IrRadqZ.jpg

After:

DvviMnG.jpg

In the case, you see how close to the gpu it is:

xopAO4R.jpg

And a close up to show the height and clearance in the Air 540 case:

ChzuC8S.jpg

It is nice and quiet though, even with the fans at 100%. I think I'll move the gpu to a lower pcie slot, there's 2 pciex16 iirc, i'm sure the temps will be significantly lower then.

The bottom PC is next and there's much more space between the cpu socket and the pciex16 slot on that one.
Click to expand...

Damn that's close I just got my R1 Ultimate installed I had put a 3rd fan on it and it's like 2mm from my exhaust fan aswell! Things are massive.
 
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