Current best air cooler for CPU (2011-3)

Bluntwrapped · 8 Mar 2017 at 12:06

Hey guys, as the title suggests I'm wondering what the best option would be for a 5820k or 6800k.

I have been watercooling for years now so I'm completely behind the times when it comes to decent air cooling.

I'm building a productivity workstation for my dad. For simplicity I have decided to stick with air cooling this time round. I am planning on doing a bit of overclocking (would be a shame not to) so I need something which will leave headroom for this.

Is the Noctua NH-D15 still considered the top dog?

I like the look of the much smaller NH-U12 and U14S but wonder how these compare to the massive D15.

The case im using is MATX - Silverstone FT03, so space is a little bit limited.

Another thought is im not sure how comfortable I am mounting 1.3kg of cooler to the motherboard

Anyone able to offer any thoughts or
advice?

I have a few GT1850 fans left over from a previous project so I'm thinking bare cooler may be an option too (if there are any DIY fan bare coolers out there)

Thanks

Radox-0 · 8 Mar 2017 at 13:01

Noctua is still up there. Another really good cooler I had my hands on recently and gets great reviews while keeping up is the Scythe Fuma. Somewhat smaller also but performs just as well so may be worth a look. Others ones I have got nice temps on X99 with are the BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3 (but it has the absolute worst mounting system known to man) and Cyrorig R1 Ultimate. All had more then enough headroom to hit decent overclocks on X99 and only really the very high voltages that will be locked off to you vs a custom loop.

I would not worry too much about the weight, have used or owned most of the large coolers and the mounting solution's do a fine job of not applying all the weight to one place. As long as your not often moving the case around the house or what not I would not worry about it too much.

Bluntwrapped · 8 Mar 2017 at 16:20

That's great thanks a lot for getting back to me. I hadn't heard of the Scythe Fuma until now. Seems like a great deal for the price. You said you had one yourself, did you give up using it to make the move to custom watercooling?

I'll check out some reviews. Do tall RAM heat sinks still interfere with most air coolers? I haven't bought any RAM yet so if this is something I need to consider it may limit my choice a fair bit.

Cheers

Matt26LFC · 8 Mar 2017 at 18:32

I like the Phanteks 140mm dual tower, did well on my 5960X!

Didn't you have a awesome 3770K?

Bluntwrapped · 8 Mar 2017 at 19:23

I'll check that out too then cheers

Yeah, I still do. It's in my main rig at the moment. 5Ghz 1.28v but I've been running it 5.1 for a while now. Brilliant chip

Matt26LFC · 9 Mar 2017 at 07:26

Thought you did, I msg you on HWbot asking if you still had it and were interested in selling it, been playing with cold on the Z77 platform and wanting more chips to play with

Radox-0 · 9 Mar 2017 at 09:10

Bluntwrapped said:
That's great thanks a lot for getting back to me. I hadn't heard of the Scythe Fuma until now. Seems like a great deal for the price. You said you had one yourself, did you give up using it to make the move to custom watercooling?

I'll check out some reviews. Do tall RAM heat sinks still interfere with most air coolers? I haven't bought any RAM yet so if this is something I need to consider it may limit my choice a fair bit.

Cheers

My Main rig's are always under water mostly for looks really. The Air coolers were used in a separate rig, bench rig, when I pulled the PC's out from under water and when I built PC's for clients now and then for testing. They work Fantastic on X99 with even modest overclocks, amazingly quiet. Only got the Noctua now after moving and doing a parts clear out, but loved them two.

They can interfere with tall ram sticks yes, partly another reason as I like my dom plats. But some stuff like Corsair LPX works great and minimizes any issues.

Bluntwrapped · 17 Mar 2017 at 09:13

I ended up going for the Cryorig H5 Universal

haven't tested it yet but it looks great.

Robin Gregg · 19 Mar 2017 at 12:39

I went with the Cool master 212x and in all fairness its quiet and my i5 7600k is running cool.

doyll · 20 Mar 2017 at 12:44

Bluntwrapped said:
I ended up going for the Cryorig H5 Universal haven't tested it yet but it looks great.

I have H5 on i7 920 @ 3.8GHz and it works great. Please let us know what you think of it once you've decided. Always good to hear other's opinions.

Bluntwrapped · 20 Mar 2017 at 13:30

doyll said:
I have H5 on i7 920 @ 3.8GHz and it works great. Please let us know what you think of it once you've decided. Always good to hear other's opinions.

So far my impressions of the C5 Universal have been really positive

Fantastic build quality and the mounting system is superb. I was originally a bit unsure of the long screwdriver through the cooler to tighten down the screws, but now having tried it I'm seriously impressed. Even the supplied screwdriver feels really well made and oozes quality.

Stock temps on the 5820k were good but the moment I started fiddling with voltages the temperature skyrocketed. I believe the CPU is at fault so I have a 6800k on the way now

I'll let you know how that goes once it arrives.