Recommended cooler for an AMD 2700X that's getting toasty?

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

Soldato
Joined
6 Sep 2005
Posts
3,781
Hi guys

I've been really happy with this AMD chip for a long time and with just the stock cooler (saved a lot of pennies in the initial build), but I'm looking to do some HD 1080p encoding for the first time on this chip and I've noticed that is getting really hot 80oC+ so I'm thinking of an aftermarket cooling solution.

I would like:

Either...
Something air cooled that doesn't take up too much room. I've had huge Phantex air coolers before now, I couldn't get my fingers around the case with one of those, but I have upgraded the case since.

Or...
A sealed water cooling unit, I've used the Corsair H50 and H110i before now and been happy with them.

No
I don't want a DIY water solution. I'd bungle it and fry the computer, or myself. Something simple is what I need.

Case
It's going into a Coolermaster Cosmos II case, so space shouldn't be an issue.

Budget
I know what I need isn't going to be cheap and I'd rather buy something really good once that's exceptionally quiet, rather than buying cheaper and upgrading fans etc., later...whatever is recommend really that fits the specs. Having said that, certainly less than £200, less than £170 is even better.


I've been looking round online and much of the info is either from affiliate sites so who knows if it's accurate, or quite out of date now.

Any recommended solutions I can pick up from OCUK would be much appreciated!

Thanks.
 
For silence go bequiet dark rock 4 pro but it's huge

Slightly ahead of that is the Noctua D15 but again it's huge and a bit noisier

The D15S is big but not as big as the above

The best air cooler for space saving, compatibility and performance is probably the Noctua U12A

The scythe posted above is ok but the fans spin too slow for high loads on a CPU like the 2700X I would want to know the fans can ramp up of I need them too
 
Second the Dark Rock 4 Pro and as mentioned it's huge.
It's really quiet and my 3700x temps are ~32C (from Ryzen master) when just web browsing. Haven't gamed on it yet but ran Cinebench and got temps around 65C. I found the brackets for the fans a bit of a hassle to clip on but all in all definitely recommend this cooler.
 
Relentless81 said:
The scythe posted above is ok but the fans spin too slow for high loads on a CPU like the 2700X I would want to know the fans can ramp up of I need them too
Click to expand...

I think the single fan scythe out performs the dual fan as it has a 1300rpm flux as opposed to the 2 700rpm variant. It would be even better swapping that fan out to a noctua NF-F12 though a bit louder at high workloads but still £30 cheaper than the U12A.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies guys, it's interesting that there doesn't seem to be concensus on there being a single absolute best. I guess technologyt and specialist companies have really come on in the last few years.

As Relentless81 has pointed out, it is heavy duty cooling I'm after, looks like for an air cooler it's going to be a massive heatsink.

What about the contained water systems like the Corsair Hydro series? Are they just not as good as a big air cooler?

Thanks.
 
TheBigCheese said:
Thanks for the replies guys, it's interesting that there doesn't seem to be concensus on there being a single absolute best. I guess technologyt and specialist companies have really come on in the last few years.

As Relentless81 has pointed out, it is heavy duty cooling I'm after, looks like for an air cooler it's going to be a massive heatsink.

What about the contained water systems like the Corsair Hydro series? Are they just not as good as a big air cooler?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

More noise and more points of failure on an AIO, put it this way. Arctic Cooling will give you a ten year warranty on their air cooler and 2 years on their new Liquid Freezer 2 AIO as an example.

You dont have to go huge, The D15S is big but it doesnt cover RAM (Only just clear of the first stick on mine with two sticks in Dual Channel) its easy to install and its miles from the PCI slot.

The U12A is even better still in terms of compatibility not covering RAM at all and keeping up with the D15S but its expensive and there are no Chromax accessories for it yet

If I were in your shoes I would go with the U12A if I didnt care about the brown fans or the D15S with Chromax accessories (Buy bit by bit like me or the full thing for £120 inc Chromax fan and covers)
 
Last edited:
The DR coolers are MASSIVE mind,they cool well BUT be aware they partially block the mem slots
I have the DR2 pro and am thinking of getting something different for a while
Larger heatsink memory sticks just fit under but it is a pain to swap sticks as i need to remove the front fan every time
Fine if you only fit and forget the ram
 
ANDARIAL said:
The DR coolers are MASSIVE mind,they cool well BUT be aware they partially block the mem slots
I have the DR2 pro and am thinking of getting something different for a while
Larger heatsink memory sticks just fit under but it is a pain to swap sticks as i need to remove the front fan every time
Fine if you only fit and forget the ram
Click to expand...

Try permanently running it without the front fan, if you have good case air flow you might only lose a degree or two
 
Thanks again for the replies guys, I think we're getting there.

So the AIOs are out, very good point about the guarantees on them.

I don't remove the RAM unless there was a fault. There's 64GB in there, filling all the channels so it's not going anywhere.

This may be a stupid question...would any of the heatsinks block the RAM slots or do they all fit over the top? It's Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB x4 16GB sticks, so there's no extra height in heatspreaders etc. The motherboard is an Asrock X470 Taichi.

Quiet is definitely key as well as much as possible, especially if I'm going to be doing a lot of video editing so it'll be running at full speed.

So, if heatsink size isn't a factor, would the recommendations still be for a U12A, D15S or does the Dark Rock 4 Pro take the cake?

*edit* wow, that DR4 Pro is 'only' £74 at the moment, that's a far better price than I was thinking for top quality cooling!
 
If size isnt a factor then its either -

Silence = Bequiet Dark Rock 4 Pro

Performance = Noctua NH-D15 (Not S version)

The D15 fans can get a little loud under loud but it'll outperform the Bequiet by a few degrees

The D15S is the middle man, it performs the same as the Bequiet or very similar but has better compatibility

There is also the Deepcool Assassin 3 but thats apparently louder than a D15 and a similar size with similar performance

Noctua has a 6 year warranty and very very good customer service, Bequiet I think is 3 years so you should double check that and I've never used it or read about anyone that has
 
Joxeon said:
I think the single fan scythe out performs the dual fan as it has a 1300rpm flux as opposed to the 2 700rpm variant. It would be even better swapping that fan out to a noctua NF-F12
Click to expand...
NF-F12 is one of the crappiest fans I've touched in 25 years of PC hobby.
Motor is one vibrating roller/single cylinder ICE without balancing (while even budget price fans achieve smooth non-vibrating running) and also acoustics is crappy with restless sound profile.
Caused by marketing hype design of those "stators" being parallel with trailing edges of the blades inducing constant major disturbances to airflow separating from blades.
(at least preceding NF-P12 has OK good acoustics, while having same garbage motor)

Arctic P12 is good fan without paying for no doubt high profit margins and marketing quackery departments.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-cooling-p12-pwm-pst-black-fan-120mm-fg-04h-ar.html
 
I think I'm leaning more towards the Noctua NH-D15 than anything else, no messing about buying extra fans etc., it's all in one package, that'll do the job. Even if it is a bit louder, it'll be quieter than the stock cooler so it'll be a win either way.

Am I right in thinking that the only difference the two models is one is black and one is a colour that should never be seen on tech? I don't look in my computer, it's down the side of my desk with the window facing away from me, but even so, I don't think I could live with myself knowing that brown monstrosity is in there!
 
TheBigCheese said:
So the AIOs are out, very good point about the guarantees on them.


So, if heatsink size isn't a factor, would the recommendations still be for a U12A, D15S or does the Dark Rock 4 Pro take the cake?
Click to expand...
Overall AIOs aren't even actually as powerfull as marketing quackery claims:
Waterpipes in place of heatpipes don't make heat disappear magically and while water's heat capacity can absorpt short load spikes, heat has to be always dissipated into air.
And typical slim radiators simply don't have excess of surface area, easily forming bottleneck in long heat load.
Out of dozens and dozens of AIOs only few can match the best dual tower heatsinks in continuous cooling per noise.
And you don't need the most expensive or biggest heatpipe coolers to match typical AIO.
Some Corsair H115i RGB Platinum sure looks fashionable and high performance one, doesn't it?
Sub £50 Mugen 5 just makes its performance per price look bad in continuous cooling per noise.


If size isn't problem, of course big size allows having more heat dissipation area and hence cooling performance.
Though further variation in that is fin stack density.
Low density fin stack optimized for passive cooling/low rpm fan speed needs bigger dimensions for same surface area.
Thermalright Machos are very good example of that type.
With airflow guide from case rear exhaust fan they could work without own fan, but size is quite huge per max performance.
Again increasing fin density allows good surface area in more reasonable dimensions, but needs that own fan.

Every heatsink design is compromise between these factors.
Big dimensions allow high performance easily, but especially dual towers eat space like there's no tomorrow:
https://www.tweaktown.com/image.php...3_27_noctua_nh_d15_cpu_cooler_review_full.jpg
Now imagine working with that inside normal case instead of open test bench...

Single towers are usually more reasonable sized, but usually fall more behind in performance.
Though smartness of designers and actual effort put into design plays big part.
Scythe Mugen 5 has step behind the best performancer in very reasonable working friendly size:
https://www.tweaktown.com/image.php...scythe-mugen-5-rev-cpu-cooler-review_full.jpg
That's actually neck to neck with super expensive brand&marketing hype NH-U12A:
https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9057/noctua-nh-u12a-cpu-cooler-review/index6.html
Which isn't surprise when it's same weight class heatsink, just without heavy brand&marketing hype pricing.
 
TheBigCheese said:
Thanks for the replies guys, it's interesting that there doesn't seem to be concensus on there being a single absolute best. I guess technologyt and specialist companies have really come on in the last few years.

As Relentless81 has pointed out, it is heavy duty cooling I'm after, looks like for an air cooler it's going to be a massive heatsink.

What about the contained water systems like the Corsair Hydro series? Are they just not as good as a big air cooler?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

For an aio option I would suggest you look into arctic freezer ii either 280 or 360 versions, it's actually cheaper than the d15 and will give slightly better cooling.
 
There are two versions of the D15 -

The original D15 with silver heat sync and Noctua signature brown and tan fans

Or the Chromax D15 which is completely blacked out and was only released very recently

The D15S only comes in silver with one brown and tan fan but there are Chromax options for it
 
Thanks again everyone for all the posts and information. That's been a really interesting read EsaT!

Joxeon, cheers for the different recommendations, I think I'm going to move away from AIOs this time, especially with the suggestions from others and improved performance with air coolers these days.

I think I'm going to take your suggestion Relentless81, D15, but the Chromax black version. Yep, I'm falling for the marketing and paying more for the black version...I don't know whether that makes me more or less of a fool going into that with my eyes open. :D
 
TheBigCheese said:
I think I'm going to take your suggestion Relentless81, D15, but the Chromax black version. Yep, I'm falling for the marketing and paying more for the black version...I don't know whether that makes me more or less of a fool going into that with my eyes open. :D
Click to expand...

I bought the S version with a brown fan so I can buy the Chromax bits over the coming months because I love buying things for my PC :p

Enjoy, I'm sure you wont be disappointed, if you think its too loud in windows because the CPU is boosting when browsing etc just set a custom fan curve, mine is completely silent in Windows
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom