Air cooling a 5800X3d

Zarax

Zarax

Zarax

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Hello,
what is a good air cooler for a Ryzen 5800X3d?

Am I going to need one of the big ones (DH15, Dark Rock Pro 4) or can I use something a little more compact without loosing performance?

Thanks!
 
Depends how much you want to spend, Noctua nh-u12a can cool it as per their chart if you want higher end, sort it by NSPR https://ncc.noctua.at/cpus/model/Ryzen-7-5800X3D-cpu-1597

If you want a budget friendlier option either of these:

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £258.86 (includes delivery: £9.90)​



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be quiet! Shadow Rock 3 High Performance CPU Cooler
HS-01H-BQ
£50 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
Noctua NH-U12A High Performance CPU Cooler - 120mm
HS-03K-NC
£110 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
be quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX Black ARGB CPU Cooler - 120mm
HS-023-BQ
£45 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
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Zarax said:
What about a Deepcool Assassin III?
Click to expand...
Lol thought you wanted smaller,
Smaller heatsinks need faster fans hence more noise.

The arctic e34 sports is a 200w cooler that punches well above its price point.

If you want vslue for money and font mind big take a look at the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120
 
I have the Alpenfohn Dolomit Premium with the one fan, it's no DH-15 but no slouch either I think. Should hopefully get to see if it can handle the X3D on Friday or Saturday.
 
I'm using the single-fan version of the D-15 and it still throttles while looping R23. (My worst-case testing) I really wish AMD would allow a BIOS to be released where we can lower the max temp target. I don't use this PC for all-core loads but it bothers me that I *can't* do so without any thermal safety margin.

That being said, in gaming, it rarely goes over 70C with this cooler.

It's not a matter of wattage so much as heat density. My 280mm aio couldn't keep it off the limit either when I tried it in the other rig. (It just took longer to throttle)
 
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My use case is mostly gaming with the occasional machine learning workload.
I'm seeing conflicting reports, with some saying you don't need a big cooler for the TDP while others saying it will eat up all cooling you can give.
 
The TDP rating doesn't account for heat *density*.

My 280mm aio can handle my 16 core 5950X running at ~200w but cant keep the 5800X3D off its thermal limit. (And I don't think it even pulls 130w at full load)

The 5950X has the heat spread out over two chiplets and neither of the chiplets in the 5950X is blanketed under a huge Vcache die.

I'm not complaining. The X3D does a better job gaming than the 5950X and it doesn’t take much to keep it cool while gaming. -but all-core loads are a big challenge for cooling.
 
Ok, let me rephrase it a bit:
Does an high end cooler help in terms of sustained clocks for the X3D or is the main benefit just a quiet cooler?
 
Zarax said:
Ok, let me rephrase it a bit:
Does an high end cooler help in terms of sustained clocks for the X3D or is the main benefit just a quiet cooler?
Click to expand...
It doesn't really help much in terms of sustained clocks I believe (as long it's sufficient). The main advantage is the cache not the clockspeed. As long as you are not throttling in games you should be fine.

The NH-U12A is as good as an NH-D15S according to Noctua and is much smaller.
 
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I have a Shadow Rock 3 on a regular 5800X and it's around 50C idle and about 70ish while playing games.

I've just bought some Silent Wings 4's to swap the default fan on both the heatsink and 500DX case so hopefully should see those temps come down even further and make it a little quieter at the same time.
 
Zarax said:
Ok, let me rephrase it a bit:
Does an high end cooler help in terms of sustained clocks for the X3D or is the main benefit just a quiet cooler?
Click to expand...
The zen 3, and especially the 5800x non 3d, are hard to cool but don't require huge coolers at the same time. Because of the small chiplets the problem with cooling the zen 3 cpus is the heat density, the heat struggles to transfer from the CPU to the ihs and then into your cooler.


If you want a value for money but also top notch high end cooler, fuma 2 / ak620 / thermalright FC 140 is the go to. The last one is probably the best air cooler period, but it's huge. The first two are a little bit more compact. If money is no object, the u12a is equal in performance to fuma 2 and ak 620, but it is much smaller. But honestly with your CPU I think any cooler above 35-40€ should easily do the job. Some examples are u12s / shadow rock 3 / arctic duo 34
 
EsaT said:
Well, that' ain't budget friendly at that price.
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 is cheaper even at normal price. And now...

Alpenfohn Brocken 3 CPU Cooler - 140mm (SKU: HS-05A-AL) = £32.99
Click to expand...

I have the Brocken 2 with dual 140mm fans that I picked up a while ago from OCUK for £27. Good cooler for the money.

This Brocken 3 looks very similar (except the radiator fins in the two are split in two rather than the single design of the three).

I also have a 5800X3D.

I posted this in the 5800X3D thread but temps with Brocken 2:

Cinebench: 83c
Prime (Small FFT's): Was hitting the thermal limit of 90c
Gaming: Didn't check as knew there's no way it would be stressing all cores to 100% like above

I would have been happy with that as the Prime test is such an extreme use case that I would never encounter that with my typical usage.

I then used -30 on all cores with PBO2 Tuner and knocked 10c of those temps, so much more comfortable. Cinebench at 73c and Prime at 83c (so think Prime must have just breached the max thermal level at default voltage).

As has already been mentioned, the issue with the 5800X (standard and 3D version) is the single chiplet density and trying to dissipate all that heat from it. The 3D version adds a layer of cache on top of that.

I'd also check out the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120, which you can get for £45: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-se

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It really depends on the size of your case and the amount of airflow you need. If you have a larger case and need more airflow, then you may want to consider one of the larger air coolers such as the DH15 or Dark Rock Pro 4. However, if you have a smaller case and don't need as much airflow, then you can opt for a more compact air cooler
 
Twinz said:
The TDP rating doesn't account for heat *density*.

My 280mm aio can handle my 16 core 5950X running at ~200w but cant keep the 5800X3D off its thermal limit. (And I don't think it even pulls 130w at full load)

The 5950X has the heat spread out over two chiplets and neither of the chiplets in the 5950X is blanketed under a huge Vcache die.

I'm not complaining. The X3D does a better job gaming than the 5950X and it doesn’t take much to keep it cool while gaming. -but all-core loads are a big challenge for cooling.
Click to expand...

I want to update this a bit because I just discovered something that may be helpful for others.

It seems there is an ambient temperature "tipping point" of sorts.

I live in Florida and my room temp is usually around 24C +/- 2C, but today I woke up to 19C temps in the house (finally feels a little like winter) and decided to play with benchmarks a bit before breakfast. I noticed that my CPU stayed much cooler than the 5C ambient temp difference.

Out of curiosity, I fired up CB R23 and my CPU stabilized in the high 70's (3 full loops with no increase in temps). When my room temp is just ~5C higher, my CPU will get to 90C before it finishes just two full runs, and it steadily increases, from the start, over that short time period.

I don't know if it's just temperature or if humidity also plays a role, (42% this morning when normally 50-60%) but there's more going on than simply a fixed number "over ambient".

Once ambient gets over a certain point the CPU, at full load, will just continue getting hotter while the cooler struggles until it reaches the 90C limit.
 
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