Air cooling on high(ish) end cpu experiences please

pastymuncher · 27 Sep 2022 at 12:54

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 · 28 Sep 2022 at 19:12

Does nobody use air cooling on high(ish) end cpu's anymore?

pastymuncher · 29 Sep 2022 at 14:26

@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 · 29 Sep 2022 at 20:48

@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.

pastymuncher · 30 Sep 2022 at 19:54

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.

pastymuncher · 1 Oct 2022 at 14:43

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.

pastymuncher · 4 Oct 2022 at 11:26

I think I am going to stick with water cooling and re-evaluate things on my next build although with these ridiculous power draw's and temps from new components I can see me sticking with it.

pastymuncher · 2 Nov 2022 at 14:13

So, I went ahead and did it. I got a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120SE ARGB for just over £43. This is a fantastic twin tower cooler and for the price is hard to beat. Stripping the loop down and flushing/cleaning everything took just over two days to complete. While I had the blocks and pipework out I took the case 200mm fans and filters out and cleaned them as well as the top deck of the case. The cooler has a pair of brackets that you fit to a backplate and then you fit the cooler and secure it with two screws just like most other large coolers. I expected it to swivel a little but it is fixed solid. Due to my tall DDR4 I had to raise the front fan a little so it sat above the sticks. The cooler itself has cutouts for the memory but it's the front fan that is the problem. I am glad I went for a 120mm cooler and not a 140mm like I was going to as my motherboard is very cramped around the cpu socket and compatability would more than likely have been a problem. I put the GPU's stock cooler back on but changed the pads to Gelid Extreme pads for maximum cooling. The cpu and gpu both have Thermal Grizzly Hydronaut on them. One thing I am not happy with is the cables for the fans. I have both fans plugged into a Y-splitter (came with the cooler) which is plugged into the CPU Fan 1 header. The ARGB wires are plugged one into the other and then to one of the ARG headers on the motherboard. I have tucked a lot of the cables under the motherboard but there is still a lot on view so I am going to cut a new cable management hole (round grommet) inline with the end of the memory slots at the top of the board which should hide most of the wiring.

The first thing I noticed was that my gpu now idles at what used to be it's gaming load temp (34 degrees C) but I guess that was to be expected. Power draw has dropped from 128 to 78w at idle so that's a good thing. Last night I was gaming for a couple of hours and with a ambient temp of 21 degrees C the cpu topped out at 61 degrees C and the gpu at 63 degrees C which is pretty impressive seeing as neither the cpu or gpu coolers ramped up and remained very quiet. With temps that good it's highly likely that I will be sticking with this setup and selling my watercooling stuff although I will need to play some other games to get some further data. I also need to take into account a future upgrade to the cpu although the 13000 series is a pretty poor upgrade from a 12000 series so my next upgrade will most likely be to a different socket.

pastymuncher · 3 Nov 2022 at 19:31

2x 200x30mm Bitfenix Spectre Pro fans at the front as intake. 2x 200x25mm Aerocool Lightning at the rear as exhaust. All fans are running at a silent 480rpm. The psu is in the bottom deck along with the wiring and my pumps used to live down there as well. I built myself a modular desk and the PC module is the corner unit (it's a L shaped desk).