Choosing correct cooler.

[Mr Bungle]

Hi, I'm new to PC building and I've just built my first PC. My CPU is a Ryzen 5600x and I noticed while playing Warzone the temperature was 90/92° with the stock fan. This seems quite high to me, so looking at an after market cpu cooler and just looking for recommendations? My budget is £100 and was looking at
"NOCTUA NH-D15 CHROMAX PURE BLACK CPU COOLER WITH DUAL 140M FANS"

And

"ARCTIC LIQUID FREEZER II HIGH PERFORMANCE CPU WATER COOLER - 360MM".

Any advice or suggestions appreciated

 

[Mr Bungle]

Personally, I prefer air coolers rather than water. Water have more parts to fail, can cause catastrophic damage when they fail, and have always failed more often for me. A good air cooler can be just as good, unless you are hitting over 200W, which you aren't. I think you could get a significant improvement with a slightly less expensive cooler too, but I will let others make suggestions from OKUK stock. Maybe a Scythe.

The The Scythe Mugen 5 ARGB Plus CPU cooler does also look good. Just want to choose from OC stock as I have bought most of my stuff from there, and won't have customs tax when shipping haha. Thank you both for answers.

 

[Mr Bungle]

Thanks for all your replies everyone, I'm gonna throw 1 more cooler into the mix with the other ones I've mentioned and see what you think. The Arctic Freezer 50? I think it looks very smart. How would performance be compared to the Scythe one I mentioned earlier? A post above says the Scytge would bring temps way down which is exactly what im after.

 

[Mr Bungle]

certainly got the bling! suspect the Mugen you like cools a bit better?

Thanks. Looks like I'll be ordering the Mugen. Cheers everyone.

 

[Mr Bungle]

Have a read through this thread before deciding on a Scythe cooler:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/foru...-matching-or-beating-scythe-mugen-5.18902588/

Well thats put me off slightly. As a novice I was hoping just to fit a cooler and get better temps haha

 

[Mr Bungle]

While weight of Freezer 50 look impressive, three fans and all that plastic crud make quite a lots of it:
Single Arctic P12 fan itself weights 140 grams.
So with all the extra crud it's safe to assume half+ kilogram of the weight is other than actual heatsink.
And suddenly we have less heatsink weight than in best single towers.
(though obviously airflow over fins is going to be very good)
Also with that huge size DIMM clearance is going suck.


With shape of AMD's heatspreaders being toward convex would recommend flat based heatsink for best cooling per money.
Igor's lab has done accurate heatspreader shape measurements using very high end equipment:
https://www.igorslab.de/en/cpu-heat...measures-now-at-amd-and-intel-rethink-basics/
https://www.igorslab.de/en/amd-heatspreader-as-time-changes-measure-data-radiation-and-surface/

So Intel optimized convex base heatsink has risk of "rocking" on top of CPU with only small area of good contact.
Because of manufacturing process direct touch heatpipe coolers have flat base making better fit.
Possibly because of that in one Youtube video Arctic Freezer 34 achieved nearly as good results with 5600X as quite big Scythe Fuma 2.

Though if you're willing to spend some effort and time in grinding/lapping base of the heatsink flat, best contact can also be achieved with Intel optimized coolers.


From in stock cooler Alpenfohn Brocken Eco Advanced would certainly be good for frugal 5600X.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-brocken-eco-advanced-cpu-cooler-120-mm-hs-05j-al.html
(high temps are caused by stock cooler being sized for playing MS Word)

Brocken 3 would be then example of quite high end cooler... If your case can fit it.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/alpenfohn-brocken-3-cpu-cooler-140mm-hs-05a-al.html

Thank you so much for that in depth answer, I really appreciate it. I'll order the brocken eco, as I'm unsure if my case will fit the other one. I would have to check on pc part picker for that.

 

[Mr Bungle]

Can I just say, as a novice to PC building all your answers to my question is greatly appreciated. Thanks to everyone who posted. Certainly better answers here than the ones I received on Facebook haha

 

[Mr Bungle]

Is CPU clearance in my case specs enough to go on? CPU cooler clearance says 180mm and the Brocken black edition is 146 x 165 x 150 mm (W x H x D). Normal Brocken 3 is 146 x 165 x 125 mm (W x H x D)

 

[Mr Bungle]

Shouldn't be any issue in the case. From the specs you provided the cooler has a height of 165mm and the case allows 180mm so over a cm clearance.

If you want a RGB cooler you could consider

▷ Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition CPU… | OcUK (overclockers.co.uk)

Not too fussed for RGB, would rather function over fashion haha