Air vs AIO cooling for noobie

TheAbbot

TheAbbot

TheAbbot

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Hello

I am looking at getting a gaming PC built by OCUK and would like some advice about cooling.

My current thoughts on a build are here https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/white-ish-pc-build-thoughts.18876282/

Does anyone have any experience with the Corsair AIO and could it be bettered by an air cooler such as the Alpenfon Brocked 3 White Edition:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpe...-cooler-dual-fan-edition-140mm-hs-05d-al.html

or the Alpenfohn Matterhorn White:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-matterhorn-white-cpu-cooler-120mm-hs-051-al.html

Both these air coolers keeping to my white theme.

Are there any compatability issues with any of these - will they fit in the case, will there be enough clearance room for the ram etc?

Many thanks for any input.
 
The aio is way overkill for a 3600.

Both air coolers should offer 100% compatability with ram and case clearance.

Out of the 2 I would go with the brocken 3.
 
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Lian-Li Lancool II support s air coolers up to 176mm tall so will fit any cooler made.

MSI B450 Tomahawk Max has about 90mm center CPU to near side of PCIe socket and 50.5mm to near side of RAM socket.
That is plenty of rooom for widest air coolers but RAM will be too close for most coolers to have front fan, even many that are offset back to clear RAM.

Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro is 51mm tall, some of the tallest RAM made and only leaves 130mm between top of RAM and case for front cooler fan over RAM.

Air cooling is just as good, lasts a lot longer and usually cost less than CLCs. The air coolers you have listed do not cool as well as top tier air cooling which cools about the same as AIOs/CLCs (CLCs are sub-group of AIOs and have no provision for maintenance or repair). AIOs that are not CLC have copper radiators, threaded fittings, fill port and higher flowrate pumps than CLCs. Both AIOs and CLCs cool about the same top tier air coolng in caes setup with good airflow, cost much less, are as quiet or quieter, last many times longer (only thing that can fail is fan which is easily replaced at low cost), require much less maintance, etc. While the air coolers you are looking at will not cool as well at top tier air or CLC, they will be fine for your build as long as you setup your case airflow properly. Below link is to basic guide of how I do it:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...-i-put-my-temp-sensor.18564223/#post-26159770

Alpenfohn Matterhorn (210w TDP) will not fit with fan in front but would work with fan in back.
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 (220w TDP) will fit with fan in front.

Other cooler to consider at but not all white.
Cryorig R1 Universal (front fan will fit behind RAM) £74.99 (white top with black/gray fans with 240w TDP)
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cryo...-heatsink-with-140mm-fan-white-hs-004-cy.html
Thermalright TRUE Spirit 140 Power for about fifty quid but not available from OcUK. (reated 360w TDP vs Brocken 3 220w TDP)
Thermalright Le Grand Macho for about eighty quid but not available from Ocuk. (300w TDP)
 
AIO only have a finite lifetime as they lose the liquid (through the low permeably hoses) or they gunk up, whereas air coolers can last forever.

I think that the AIO is overkill for a ryzen 3600 even if you are using all 12 threads 100% of the time ie. doing a handbrake conversion for a youtube video. If you are using your pc mostly for gaming then the AIO is even more overkill. In fact for gaming the matterhorn with its 7 heatpipes is overkill - but if you use that then you can get away with a slower cpu cooler fan speed and so less noise.
 
I have two pc's with ryzen 3600 are they are great. with mine for say gaming which tends to use only 4 threads, even to ryzen 3600 is vast overkill.
 
I agree, most coolers are overkill. But having more cooling ability than needed means it will cool at much lower noise levels. Examples are my old i7-920 @ 3.55GHz under PH-TC14PE encoding with handbrake or my i7 6700K under TRUE Spirit 140 rated 240w TDP with CPU at about 95% load running Handbrake (just enough unused CPU to surf web while encoding) has cooler and system fans running just fast enough I can barely hear them. This is only load that works system hard enough to know system is powered on. If I was using smaller coolers like 212 or H7 they would be much louder. ;)
 
Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

I will be getting OCUK to build the PC for me.

@doyll does the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard have similar spacing to the Tomahawk Max?

It looks like the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro are out of stock at the moment. How does the Team Group Night Hawk RGB compare height wise?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...al-channel-kit-rgb-white-tf2d4-my-08n-tg.html


I think I'll be going for the Brocken !
 
I think that the B450 pro carbon got some bad press about its vrm's. although they were probably comparing it unfairly and for normal non-Overclocked gaming use should be fine.
 
TheAbbot said:
Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

I will be getting OCUK to build the PC for me.

@doyll does the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC motherboard have similar spacing to the Tomahawk Max?

It looks like the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro are out of stock at the moment. How does the Team Group Night Hawk RGB compare height wise?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...al-channel-kit-rgb-white-tf2d4-my-08n-tg.html


I think I'll be going for the Brocken !
Click to expand...
Yes, the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC has same basic layout so same basic spacings.

Team Group Night Hawk RGB is 53mm tall, a couple mm taller than Corsair.

I don't like tall RAM because it blocks airflow over motherboard around CPU, but with cooler fan behind it and set lower than top of RAM and bottom of cooler fins will push some air over mobo below cooler.

Keep in mind reviewers rarely say a product is not good unless it is absolutely horrible. They depend on free samples from industry to do their reviews so are careful to not offend the hands that feed them the samples they test and often sell on to make a few quid. :p
 
Snake oil marketing has surely done its job when people start wanting to buy as expensive coolers as CPU...


Alan1969 said:
I may have got that wrong - cant quite remember - perhaps I am confusing with the x570 edge
Click to expand...
X570 MSIs below Unify are "substandard" aka turd for their price in VRM quality.
Which is copypasta from B450 and fully out of its depth in X570 territory, especially when covered by plasticky marketing excrements.
Here X570 Carbon is trying to start desoldering its VRM:
https://nl.hardware.info/artikel/94...den-review-op-de-proef-met-een-3900x#vrm-test
(that actually uses different, but equally wimpy VRM...)

After shining in VRM quality over basically scams of Asus and Gigabyte in B450 boards, MSI took the cheaped out crap torch carrier role in X570.
Like Buildzoid said it in one video, all motherboard makers suck... And if you keep buying brand you'll get shafted to rear fast.
 
If your looking at an aio then consider the arctic freezer II. It’s well priced, quiet and cools exceptionally well. As for it being overkill sorry but that’s just ******.
 
Get whatever you like. They might be overkill, but you're working to a colour theme as well as performance, so since the latter is taken care of you might as well focus on the former.
Consider also from the perspective of reusing the cooler, if you ever decide to upgrade or change your build....
 
To complement the point above, you could go air cooler then AIO and keep the air cooler as a backup in case of emergency (e.g. if the AIO ever needs to be RMA'd).
 
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