My 12900K reaches 85°C during rendering at 22°C ambient temp.

Because a largish AIO cooler is able to dissipate more heat. It's not rocket science. Look at just about any 360mm AIO review. They generally perform 3-5C minimum better than an air cooler.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/arctic_liquid_freezer_ii_360_a_rgb_review,10.html

Not to mention you have any number of ways you can mount an AIO so as to pre-determine where the heat from your CPU goes rather than have it concentrated in one area.
But, I believe those two air coolers are as close to AIOs as they come? Gamers Nexus tested the Fuma 2, I believe. The performance was pretty good. I guess I am just nitpicking but the D15S is in that review - it's not too bad. I noticed the Dark Rock Pro 4 is in there, too - I'll be using it for a while but I initially wanted an AIO, myself - but getting it for free. Also, I dunno if all AIOs are created equal?: Some perform better than others and then there's the variance on fans the manufacturer chooses and pump noise - different mfr'ers of the pump etc.?

The other issue is the Arctic Liquid Freezer II performs at the top of most AIOs - but, the design of the rad is larger/thicker than most so you also have issues with fitting especially if you top-mount - there's youtube videos where reviewers talk about that - the room at the very top of the case and clearance with the top of the motherboard - has to be determined. I just mention this, because the current AIO performance is probably using the ALF II as 'the standard?'
 
But, I believe those two air coolers are as close to AIOs as they come? Gamers Nexus tested the Fuma 2, I believe. The performance was pretty good. I guess I am just nitpicking but the D15S is in that review - it's not too bad. I noticed the Dark Rock Pro 4 is in there, too - I'll be using it for a while but I initially wanted an AIO, myself - but getting it for free. Also, I dunno if all AIOs are created equal?: Some perform better than others and then there's the variance on fans the manufacturer chooses and pump noise - different mfr'ers of the pump etc.?

The other issue is the Arctic Liquid Freezer II performs at the top of most AIOs - but, the design of the rad is larger/thicker than most so you also have issues with fitting especially if you top-mount - there's youtube videos where reviewers talk about that - the room at the very top of the case and clearance with the top of the motherboard - has to be determined. I just mention this, because the current AIO performance is probably using the ALF II as 'the standard?'

Buy what works best for you. The D15S is a single fan version of the D15 though. The dual fan regular D15 will out perform it.

I'm not saying that an air cooler can't be good. I'm saying that a 360mm AIO will almost always out perform it even with a smaller radiator and weaker fans. I have no idea what you mean by "the standard" because you can go read any number of reviews about 360mm AIOs. Pick the one you're looking at and type "review" after it in a Google box. I have an EK Basic 360 AIO. At the time I bought it, it was $5 more expensive than the D15 Chromax Black, but I'm getting much better cooling for the money. I would guess in the 5-10C range, and I don't have to worry about it interfering with random VRM heatsinks on my Z690 board.
 
Buy what works best for you. The D15S is a single fan version of the D15 though. The dual fan regular D15 will out perform it.

I'm not saying that an air cooler can't be good. I'm saying that a 360mm AIO will almost always out perform it even with a smaller radiator and weaker fans. I have no idea what you mean by "the standard" because you can go read any number of reviews about 360mm AIOs. Pick the one you're looking at and type "review" after it in a Google box. I have an EK Basic 360 AIO. At the time I bought it, it was $5 more expensive than the D15 Chromax Black, but I'm getting much better cooling for the money. I would guess in the 5-10C range, and I don't have to worry about it interfering with random VRM heatsinks on my Z690 board.
I agree with you - as I have posted a bunch of times - I want to use an AIO but I over-extended my budget.... so, I have to use an air cooler I got for free. :)
I hope to use either a 280 or 360 AIO eventually - hopefully, soon. As you point out, the cooling is superior or at worst, no worse than the best air coolers. Yes, the D15S is with single fan - but, I suspect most users get an extra (Noctua) fan to use with it.
What board do you have? I managed to get a Tuf Gaming - and knock on wood, I hope it's okay (open box). The Asus Prime Z690-A you have is a really good board (both DDR4 and DDR5 versions) and has the VRM heatsink interference problem you speak of - so, you almost need an AIO if you really want the option of overclocking. I like the look of AIOs/CLCs so it probably wouldn't bother me - except, I'd have to find an additional $200 immediately if I bought that board. :)
Do you have any thoughts of 280 vs 360 AIO - some say the 280 is quieter. I believe my (eventual) case, P500A can fit either - but, I suspect a 360 might be the best option? At any rate, I hope to be debating which one soon.
 
With Alder lake, cooler factories should have upgrade and replenish their offer for air coolers. VRM heatsink interference with tower coolers shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't understand why there aren't new models to tackle this.
 
With Alder lake, cooler factories should have upgrade and replenish their offer for air coolers. VRM heatsink interference with tower coolers shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't understand why there aren't new models to tackle this.
Not sure, but, IIRC, it's only the Asus (Z690) Strix series that has the heat sink interference problem - and it's only with the fat air coolers - but, those happen to be the better air coolers - from Noctua, Be Quiet etc. I don't know if other motherboard brands/ (MSI, Asrock, Gigabyte etc.) have motherboard models that encounter the same interference issue.
 
I don't understand why there aren't new models to tackle this.

There are no models because it's exceedingly impractical. You need a comically large air cooler like the Noctua D15 with dual or triple fans, and that cooler will just barely be adequate under a nominal load. Forget overclocking or heavy boosting, not happening.

The 12900k has been shown to pull up to 330W heavily loaded on boards which ignore turbo boosting timeout guidelines.

The huge brick fin stack required to cool a monster like the 12900k gives little room for moving the fin stack around since it's such a tall cooler. Any taller and you won't be able to put the door on an average tower case.
 
12900k has trouble being cooled by 360 AIOs. That's ridiculous. Modern day P4 but with actual performance to back it up lol
 
12900k has trouble being cooled by 360 AIOs. That's ridiculous. Modern day P4 but with actual performance to back it up lol
That hasn't been my experience.

Only AiOs that don't mount properly are struggling to cool a 12900K. Also, there's a massive difference between the power draw of a 12900K running at Intel intended limits vs one that is overclocked and ignoring limits. My 12900K runs very cool (40-60℃) when ran at Intel's limits and while gaming and its 70-80℃ temps are very reasonable for 100% all core encoding.

With a Corsair H150i though, I was easily hitting 100℃ TJ max at the desktop under Intel limits which only means Corsair messed up since the AiO wasn't contacting the IHS completely.
 
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Just wanted to add that I've now worked on 4x different 12900K(S) systems and I think there are some bad Intel CPUs out there as well. I've seen 2 out of 4 CPUs thermal throttle and power throttle at stock speeds while the others can be overclocked with no throttling. I think this comes down to some CPUs having nearly defective cores that require so much voltage to run that they throttle at stock speeds. With that said, I don't think this affects most gamers because these nearly defective CPUs only seem to exhibit these problems when stressed on All Core workloads.
 
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Just wanted to add that I've now worked on 4x different 12900K(S) systems and I think there are some bad Intel CPUs out there as well. I've seen 2 out of 4 CPUs thermal throttle and power throttle at stock speeds while the others can be overclocked with no throttling. I think this comes down to some CPUs having nearly defective cores that requires so much voltage to run that they throttle at stock speeds. With that said, I don't think this affects most gamers because these nearly defective CPUs only seem to exhibit these problems when stressed on All Core workloads.
Send to Intel these 2 to investigate.
 
Send to Intel these 2 to investigate.
I did, but I don't think most customers have enough samples or do the stress testing to know this is happening. That's the bigger reason I raised this.
For anyone wondering, the two unstable CPUs were SP89 & SP87 while the stable ones were SP85 & SP94. I don't think that SP rating is entirely an indicator of whether an Alder Lake chip may be problematic.
 
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I did, but I don't think most customers have enough samples or do the stress testing to know this is happening. That's the bigger reason I raised this.
For anyone wondering, the two unstable CPUs were SP89 & SP87 while the stable ones were SP85 & SP94. I don't think that SP rating is entirely an indicator of whether an Alder Lake chip may be problematic.

The SP rating is just based on the voltage/frequency curve. A common misconception is that a CPU core that needs less voltage is automatically superior to one that needs more. It is not necessarily true. Sometimes a core that gets by on lower voltage also has higher leakage, which means that it draws a fuck-ton of current and runs hot. If I had no other data to go by, then yeah, I would take the CPU with the higher SP rating because they do tend to be better, but I would much rather put the CPU fully though its paces before deciding if it's a good sample.
 
because a good 360 aio will out perform air...

Personally I'll never go back to an aio after using the D15. The pump in an aio is just one more thing that can go bad and it's a pain to deal with. Also I never have to worry about a leak occurring. Performance is on par with the best aios..
 
Back to the topic at hand. I've read these new Intel CPUs have had a problem with warping which can also cause temperature issues if the cpu partially loses contact with the cooler. Google it to find out more, doesn't sound good to me.
 
Personally I'll never go back to an aio after using the D15. The pump in an aio is just one more thing that can go bad and it's a pain to deal with. Also I never have to worry about a leak occurring. Performance is on par with the best aios..
ok.
it can, but ive never had one die before it was swapped out.
never had a leak either.
nope, 4-7.5c difference is not "on par"
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ps: welcome to [H]! lots of new people today for some reason...
 
ok.
it can, but ive never had one die before it was swapped out.
never had a leak either.
nope, 4-7.5c difference is not "on par"
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ps: welcome to [H]! lots of new people today for some reason...
Thanks for the welcome!

I guess it's subjective, imo they're close enough to be in the same ballpark. Yes the aio has better performance but 58 C is still fantastic temps for a cooler and I'm not into extreme overclocking, just moderate OC is fine for me. I guess it's a tradeoff between the hassle and slightly better performance, but personally if I wanted to do extreme overclocking then I'd spend the time on doing a custom loop at that point!
 
I run a d15 with both fans in a 12900 in a torrent compact case with the 2 180mm fans for intake. On a hot day with vray rendering it peaks at about 95c.

Options are to either under volt or just limit the power to 190w. Or use a renderer that’s gpu based. That’s what I ended up doing. Gpu is 10x faster and and barely touches the cpu so cpu temps are non issue. Vray, octane and redshift and even blender cycles have gpu rendering so you got options.
 
I run a d15 with both fans in a 12900 in a torrent compact case with the 2 180mm fans for intake. On a hot day with vray rendering it peaks at about 95c.

Options are to either under volt or just limit the power to 190w. Or use a renderer that’s gpu based. That’s what I ended up doing. Gpu is 10x faster and and barely touches the cpu so cpu temps are non issue. Vray, octane and redshift and even blender cycles have gpu rendering so you got options.
Good to hear, I just got done building my 12900KF with the D15 yesterday. I am a little worried about temps but prefer air to a AIO. Cannot test the system out until tomorrow when the graphics card arrives.
 
Good to hear, I just got done building my 12900KF with the D15 yesterday. I am a little worried about temps but prefer air to a AIO. Cannot test the system out until tomorrow when the graphics card arrives.
You should be fine as long as your build isn't in an ultra-SFF ITX case that is choked for airflow. The D15 cools on par with most 240mm AIOs and maybe even better, depending on manufacturer and model. It will put any 120-140 to shame and only be outperformed by 280s and up.
Let us know how everything goes!
 
Good to hear, I just got done building my 12900KF with the D15 yesterday. I am a little worried about temps but prefer air to a AIO. Cannot test the system out until tomorrow when the graphics card arrives.
If I undervolt by just .05, my Cinebench temps drop from 95 down to 82.
 
I have never had to undervolt. I will have to see what to do. Here is the build minus the card coming tomorrow.

I made my 13 year old build this with my direction. It's crazy I have been on this forum so long I am now instructing others

20220704_191523.jpg
 
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Not trying to jack the thread man...just posting I cannot get temps because of a fuckup. Will do that once I can.
 
That does seem hot for such a large cooler, but I don't have one of these latest gen Intel CPU's so I don't know how hot they normally run.

All of that said, you don't have to worry about damaging a CPU by overheating it anymore. In the old days, yes, but not in the last 15-20 years depending on the model. Modern CPU's have more transistors dedicated to thermal management than the Pentium Pro had in total.

Worst that will happen is your CPU will hit the temp at which it will start throttling. It will not allow itself to overheat to the point where it is damaged, it will just slow itself down in order to produce less heat.

The worst that will happen is that you will lose performance.

So, don't worry about any heat related damage. That just doesn't happen anymore.

All of that said, I'd look into the pump speeds, fan profiles, and maybe install orientation to avoid air bubbles getting caught in the system, because ideally you'd want temps a little lower than that to avoid throttling and losing performance. Lower temps usually result in higher boost clocks too.

So discussions around temperatures these days, and any time in at last 15 years temperature is all about performance, not about protecting your CPU or GPU. They protect themselves, and when they do, you'll know because of performance drops. Other components may not have as well developed thermal protection (like some m.2 drives) but CPU's and GPU's are well protected these days.
 
Ok I got a good graphics card. 1. Windows 11 sucks anyone have some tips? 2. The msi command suite is shit at giving useful information. I'm at 38 one sec and 65 the next. I downloaded CPU temp. Here is what I got doing setup. This is with the Noctua D15

20220708_202046.jpg
 
Playing Cyberpunk at max I can. This PC blows away my old 4930K. Super fucking smooth.

temps.jpg
 
AIOs are not necessarily better in my experience.. but I'm not an overclocker or max performance enthusiast (workstation so stability is my game) so take with a grain of salt.

If it helps.. I'm on my second 12900k. The first went to my son after it was clear it had definitely warped. For the second I bought one of those Thermalright? LGA1700 socket correction anti-bending things and never even used the stock levered design so it's never had the chance to bend. It by far has been the biggest contributing factor to temps *I think*. The first 12900k I ran a Lian Li Galahad 360 AIO (Microcenter), then I went to a Noctua D15 (whatever the double fan is) because I figured those LLi temps just weren't right and could be better, next a BeQuiet Dark Pro 4 because why not spend more money, and finally splurged and got a Corsair 360 AIO Elite something or other (the one with the LCD screen on the pump) (i wanted to do the 420mm cooler with LCD, not much difference in price between the 360, but Microcenter was out of stock). The amount exotic thermal paste I tried during all of these.. oye vey. Of those 4 the Corsair was the best, but it wasn't a bigly best, only a few degrees C. I didn't mark down exact temps and memory is never to be trusted, but all 4 hovered mid to high 80s in Handbrake, Blender renders and Cinebench.

Unfortunately not scientific as I can't directly compare the 2 systems because for the second 12900k I bought an IceGiant ( https://www.icegiantcooling.com/ ) with 1700 adapter and never tried any of the original coolers (first i9 had already been passed on to the kids and extra coolers had been ebay'd and I was running a 5950x with the LCD Corsair). Blender and Cinebech (haven't done any Handbrake with this system yet) hover almost steadily around 73C (occasionally 75C, no real rhyme or reason to it afaik). I can't exactly say if it's the IceGiant with it's 4x120mm fans and unique air cooling system or the LGA1700 replacement tray, but my gut says the tray upgrade made most of the difference after the experience with the first i9 along with the washer mod reports. But the IceGiant is also a beast of a cooler.

Gigabyte AERO G (ddr4) for both systems. When in my case (currently Fractal Design Meshify C with 8 case fans; the AIO builds had 5 case fans + 3 AIO fans).

This thing:
 

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i need to get the nerve up to pull the CPU and put that hard mount... and check to see if the CPU is convex but i hate pulling stuff apart like that. i have it and some good TIM. cranking down the waterblock helped a bit. also i tested with wPrime and it only hits 70c at full load where Cinabench hits high 80s normal games never see temps over 60. and idle with fans set to low rpm i s around 28c so i have no idea any more ... i think AVX just makes this thing run hot has hell
 
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