Air cooling on high(ish) end cpu experiences please

pastymuncher

pastymuncher

pastymuncher

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Hi all, I am considering going back to air cooling after over 15 years of watercooling. The reason I watercooled in the first place is because my computer room was a paif of cupboards knocked into one with no windows so I had to remove the heat from the room. I did this by putting my radiators in a box on the landing windowsill. I am now in the spare bedroom and still use outside air through the radiators by having them in a box on the windowsill. This does involve around 12m of 12mm copper pipe, 10/16mm Mayhems soft tubing, 12mm PETG hard tubing and a pair of D5 pumps. With overclocking giving only minimal gains these days I think my overclocking days are gone so apart from the silence and very low temps there isn't much point of watercooling anymore. With that in mind I am considering going back to air as it is much less hassle. My gpu already came with a excellent air cooler so I only have to worry about the gpu. The whole intention of my current build was to drop something like a 13700k in it a year or two down the line when they start popping up in the MM after people upgrade to the latest socket. What I would love to know is peoples experience of cooling high(ish) end cpu's (not just Intel so 12700k and up, AMD 5800 and up) on air, that's proper air cooling, not AIO's. So if you have the time could you possibly list the following please:-

1. Which CPU and stock or clocked?
2. Which cooler?
3. Peak load temps while gaming and if possible your rooms ambient temp?

I appreciate that not everyone will have the time to reply so a massive thank you to everyone that does.
 
pastymuncher said:
Does nobody use air cooling on high(ish) end cpu's anymore?
Click to expand...

AIO crazy round here :o

If it helps, I think you'll be fine with any high-end air cooler for games, but extended workstation use will need more planning (or tweaking volts/power limits).

Madgeek1450
2 December 2021

Here's what I've observed with my 12900k running a NH-D15:

CPU Temps:

Ambient Room Temp 22°c - Stock voltage & clock settings

- Idle = 30°c
- Cyberpunk 2077 = 55°c
- Looped 3DMark CPU Profile, "Max Threads" = 72°c
- Cinebench R23 (Unlimited Power Limit) = Thermal throttles after ~90 seconds.
- Cinebench R23 (200W Power Limit) = 78°c
- Cinebench R23 (240W Power Limit) = 90°c

So, based on this, I'd expect a 12700k to be fine with a NH-D15.
Click to expand...

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
 
@Tetras Many thanks for that and is exactly the sort of info I was looking for. The NH-D15 is on my list but those fans are hideous unless there is a black fan version. I have little restriction on cooler size up to 220mm tall and have excellent airflow straight across the motherboard with a pair of 200mm intake fans and a pair of 200mm exhaust fans.
 
pastymuncher said:
@Tetras Many thanks for that and is exactly the sort of info I was looking for. The NH-D15 is on my list but those fans are hideous unless there is a black fan version. I have little restriction on cooler size up to 220mm tall and have excellent airflow straight across the motherboard with a pair of 200mm intake fans and a pair of 200mm exhaust fans.
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NH-D15 chromax is all black including the fans.

I used to have the nh-d15 but downsized it slightly and went with the nh-u12a, few degrees between them on a 5900x.
 
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I've only ever used air.

Currently an NH-U12S on a 5700X (a 3600 before that) - those are low watt chips mind.

But yeah only ever air, on 1155 and 1366 before that.
 
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I've watercooled for almost 20 years and was starting to think that benefits of watercooling are almost lost these days though than looks if thats your thing. Though now with the next generation of hardware release I'm starting to have second thoughts as we've got 95c CPUs, 4 slot GPU coolers with upto 600w power draw on the horizon!
 
@SpudMaster Like yourself that was one of the things I was worried about by ditching what is a pretty high end watercooling setup and I am about 50/50 which direction to take. On the one hand I already have everything running as far as watercooling goes but on the other hand a high end air cooler is relatively inexpensive, especially if you pick a bargain up in the clearance section and is much simpler to change components out. I started this thread to help me decide based on other peoples experiences. I am genuinely concerned about the direction that AMD, Intel and Nvidia are taking with regards to power draw. They should be producing components that are more efficient not power hungry monsters. Looking back the GTX480 doesn't seem such a joke compared to the power draw these days.
 
You might like to take a look at this:
www.youtube.com

From 94 To 55 Degrees Celsius. Make your Ryzen 9 7950X the BEST!

Ryzen 9 7950X can run EXTREMELY COOL if you want it to! With minimal performance drop. This in my opinion is where these CPUs should be closer tuned to out ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

I think he's absolutely right that they're chasing benchmarks, because with a little bit of tuning and not much loss of performance, they're all (CPUs/GPUs) massively more efficient and easier to cool. There's zero need to have max boosts at silly volts to get great performance, especially in games, but applies to productivity too.
 
pastymuncher said:
@SpudMaster Like yourself that was one of the things I was worried about by ditching what is a pretty high end watercooling setup and I am about 50/50 which direction to take. On the one hand I already have everything running as far as watercooling goes but on the other hand a high end air cooler is relatively inexpensive, especially if you pick a bargain up in the clearance section and is much simpler to change components out. I started this thread to help me decide based on other peoples experiences. I am genuinely concerned about the direction that AMD, Intel and Nvidia are taking with regards to power draw. They should be producing components that are more efficient not power hungry monsters. Looking back the GTX480 doesn't seem such a joke compared to the power draw these days.
Click to expand...

If you already have all the components you need for watercooling I would stick with it. Swapping out components can be for of a faff but unless your always testing components it should happen too often. One reason I've always stayed with soft tubing is that it makes component changes or other adjustments so much easier.

Problem with the power draw is if one company goes for crazy power usage to get the gains then others kinda have to if they want to compete at the high end unless they have a super efficient design. Wish they were concentrating on more efficient designs personally!
 
pastymuncher said:
Hi all, I am considering going back to air cooling after over 15 years of watercooling. The reason I watercooled in the first place is because my computer room was a paif of cupboards knocked into one with no windows so I had to remove the heat from the room. I did this by putting my radiators in a box on the landing windowsill. I am now in the spare bedroom and still use outside air through the radiators by having them in a box on the windowsill. This does involve around 12m of 12mm copper pipe, 10/16mm Mayhems soft tubing, 12mm PETG hard tubing and a pair of D5 pumps. With overclocking giving only minimal gains these days I think my overclocking days are gone so apart from the silence and very low temps there isn't much point of watercooling anymore. With that in mind I am considering going back to air as it is much less hassle. My gpu already came with a excellent air cooler so I only have to worry about the gpu. The whole intention of my current build was to drop something like a 13700k in it a year or two down the line when they start popping up in the MM after people upgrade to the latest socket. What I would love to know is peoples experience of cooling high(ish) end cpu's (not just Intel so 12700k and up, AMD 5800 and up) on air, that's proper air cooling, not AIO's. So if you have the time could you possibly list the following please:-

1. Which CPU and stock or clocked?
2. Which cooler?
3. Peak load temps while gaming and if possible your rooms ambient temp?

I appreciate that not everyone will have the time to reply so a massive thank you to everyone that does.
Click to expand...
A good air cooler is as effective as a water cooler.

Noctuas high end range easily will cool a high end cpu. You might need a water cooler setup with a 12900 KS but even then, a good high end air cooler is great

AIO coolers have gotten better than the ones on this list but not by a huge margin


6313_29_noctua_nh_d15_cpu_cooler_review.png
 
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What I might do is try air cooling over the Winter and see how I get on with regards to noise/temps. I already know the GPU's stock cooler is very cool running and dead quiet, probably even more now that it's undervolted and I can't imagine that my 12600 is going to be a problem.
 
I have a 5950x and a nd15 cooler.
With a OL11 XL case and 6 fans temps are fine even during prolonged high load.

Noise is perfectly fine for me when just the CPU is under load. Gaming is a bit louder (due to 3080ti) but I always wear headphones when gaming.

I'm probably dropping a small amount of performance in comparison to water but air is just so much easier.

I'm not overclocking.

I can't remember Temps precisely but I didn't lose any noticeable performance in cinebench when it was 30*c ambient.
 
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pastymuncher said:
What I might do is try air cooling over the Winter and see how I get on with regards to noise/temps. I already know the GPU's stock cooler is very cool running and dead quiet, probably even more now that it's undervolted and I can't imagine that my 12600 is going to be a problem.
Click to expand...

It's the spinning up and down though. Plus the fan drone from the graphics. That's what irritated me.
 
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My gpu's cooler didn't ramp up and down or have any drone when I tried it for several days before the block arrived. A lot of the time the fans were in zero rpm mode. Then again, I didn't have any heat being dumped into the case from the cpu either so the case internals are very cool, currently 19 degrees C.
 
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V F said:
It's the spinning up and down though. Plus the fan drone from the graphics. That's what irritated me.
Click to expand...
You can mitigate this with fan curves for the most part.

My case fans all run via the case air temperature sensor, so there is no sudden changes.

CPU fans have a big delay for ramp up and down to smooth things out.
I also found that I only really need the fans to hit higher speeds once the temperature gets above 85*c and that only happens when ambient is very high.

Nd15 with two fans at 600 - 800rpm will keep the 5950x under 85 with normal ambient temperatures.

Setting up the fan curves did take quite a long time to keep noise to a minimum.
 
It wasn't sudden blips as if you were pressing on an accelerator going up and down. Spinning up to load and back down when not gaming or such, was still irritating even with good fan curves. The loud pressure of air in change of faster frequency also became annoying with all the fan air pressure drone it generates.

When you become very susceptible to tone frequencies always changing with air pressure, you become more aware of it which seems to get louder and louder the more you focus on it. Plus the fact I was using open back headphones when I was once on air.

Or hot days where it took forever for the fans to slow back down.
 
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