Coolers

[SpellowHouse]

About four years ago, I ditched water cooling for a more traditional cooler, and currently am using a Noctua NH-U12A.

This performs very well, but recently some games have appeared that are pushing the cooler to it’s limits. Short-term temperatures have been bordering unacceptable, and later this year I want to get a new CPU so will be pushing 25% more heat, so I am figuring that the temperatures will cause temporary throttling.

In passing, the temperature spikes are for shader building. This seems to stress the CPU more than any test.

So, my question is, what are the best air coolers and AIO’s?

I am not concerned about price but I am concerned about the best performance and lowest noise.

I would prefer an air cooler but will move to an AIO if necessary.

My case can accommodate any size cooler. Including a 420mm AIO.

 

[Glanza]

If cost not an issue Noctua D15 G2 for air cooler.

AIO Arctic liquid freezer iii 420.

 

[mickyflinn]

Echo the above if you can fit a 420 then the Arctic Freezer is a no brainer.

It has a thicker rad than most so check clearance to motherboard if fitting in the top of your case.

 

[freddie64]

What case have you got and what CPU are you getting?

 

[Tetras]

In passing, the temperature spikes are for shader building. This seems to stress the CPU more than any test.

This is so bad it destroyed Intel's latest CPUs, so honestly: I wouldn't care about the temps in these moments if your CPU doesn't crash.

The Noctua UH12A should be perfectly fine for AMD's CPUs and I assume you're not going for an Intel build.

 

[doyll]

New NH-D15 G2 is way over-rated and even more over priced. Lots of hype and higher price for very little improvement. Several Thermalright coolers are only 2c, maybe 3c warmer normalized noise, for less than half the price, some almost 1/3rc the price.

ID-Cooling is about to release 2 new coolers: ID-Coolng is about to release two 10x 6mm heat pipe cooler, the TE10 10x 6mm twin tower cooler and OE10 10x 6mm heat pipes single tower cooler. I found an Asian news pre-release / news release about them, but not knowing the language I didn't understand much of it.

Here's a release notice from Overclocking.com saying OE10 is 10x heat pipes, but they only saw front row of heat pipes in TE10 saying "5x heat pipes". If you look closely at image they posted you will see the top fin distortions of 2nd row 5x heat pipes at angle of image behind front row. Hope that makes sense.

OE10 and TE10: Cryorig unveils two new fans! - Overclocking.com EN

Cryorig is presenting two new products. The OE10 and TE10 are single- and double-tower aircooling heatsinks

en.overclocking.com

Cryorig now has them showing on their website:

OE10 - PRODUCT - CRYORIG

OE10 - PRODUCT - CRYORIG

en.cryorig.com

TE10 - PRODUCT - CRYORIG

TE10 - PRODUCT - CRYORIG

en.cryorig.com

I'm waiting to see review of these new coolers:

Cryorig​

OE10​

TE10​

Thermalright​

Peerless Assassin 140 / PA140​

Frost Vortex 140 SE​

​

And of course how they compare to​

Noctua​

NH-D15
& new NH-D15 V2​

 

[zaniro]

The Noctua NH-U12S seems to tame my 7900X3D.

 

[doyll]

The Noctua NH-U12S seems to tame my 7900X3D.

That sounds reasonable. 7900X3D is rated 120w TDP. NH-U12S has 5x 6mm heatpipes. 6mm heatpipe can cool up to about 80w vertical (flat mobo) and 62w horizontal (tower / vertical mobo). This means even if heatpipes max out at 40w, these 5x 6mm heatpipes can cool 200w no problem. This means NH-U12SD can easily cool the 120w TDP your CPU can make at full load. This is good because it means cooler fan don't need to run fast, thus run quiet.

NH-U12S is a good cooler. Too bad because Thermalright coolers with same performance cost 1/4 to 1/3 as much. Granted, Noctua will give you any new mounts if you want to use old cooler on new build with new mount, but many of us don't think it's worth the extra money.

 

[zaniro]

That sounds reasonable. 7900X3D is rated 120w TDP. NH-U12S has 5x 6mm heatpipes. 6mm heatpipe can cool up to about 80w vertical (flat mobo) and 62w horizontal (tower / vertical mobo). This means even if heatpipes max out at 40w, these 5x 6mm heatpipes can cool 200w no problem. This means NH-U12SD can easily cool the 120w TDP your CPU can make at full load. This is good because it means cooler fan don't need to run fast, thus run quiet.

NH-0U12S is a good cooler. Too bad because Thermalright coolers with same performance cost 1/4 to 1/3 as much. Granted, Noctua will give you any new mounts if you want to use old cooler on new build with new mount, but many of us don't think it's worth the extra money.

That's good to know. I got my cooler back in 2016, so at my request Noctua sent me a new mount free of charge in a timely manner.

 

[doyll]

Just keep in mind with Noctua you are paying 2-3, even 4 times as much for their name and granted, they have best customer support. While you might think customer support is important, it's really not. Reality is most of us never or extremely rarely need or use customer support, and while Thermalright and others may not be as great customer support, when needed they handle problems reasonably well.

 

[SpellowHouse]

Just keep in mind with Noctua you are paying 2-3, even 4 times as much for their name and granted, they have best customer support. While you might think customer support is important, it's really not. Reality is most of us never or extremely rarely need or use customer support, and while Thermalright and others may not be as great customer support, when needed they handle problems reasonably well.

That's very true. Fact is that even if the cheaper model dies, you can buy another and still be saving money.

 

[doyll]

That's very true. Fact is that even if the cheaper model dies, you can buy another and still be saving money.

Indeed!
If anything does die it's the fan, and that is not at all a common failure. CPU coolers almost never die. I've tried finding what CPU cooler heatpipe life expectancy is and it seems to be way more years than we would ever use one .. like 30+ years. I have a 2006 Ultra 120 Extreme that's been in uses pretty much constantly for 15 years now on different CPUs. Obviously fan has been replaced and had to update mount, but cooler is same 6x 6 heatpipe 120mm fanned finpack that came out of brown box in 2006.

 

[Dashik]

Currently lokint the AIO corsair stuff, just wen t with teh 3x 120 mm with the rgb /oled display.