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What cooler would you recommend for the 3950x?
Why? Have your tests shown it to not keep the CPU cool enough? Mega6's video above shows it being adequate to me.I don't recommend air cooling for the 3950X. AMD doesn't either.
Why? Have your tests shown it to not keep the CPU cool enough? Mega6's video above shows it being adequate to me.
Air will never catch up to water, it's physics. Air coolers need a lot of surface area to dissipate heat. They are simply becoming too large to handle the watts required for multicore chips and chiplets. Water with a radiator and fans is just so much more efficient than air.Air coolers really need to catch up with these new CPUs. Most were designed for quad cores, max.
I blame Intel and AIO RGB crap.
In the video I posted, keeping an eye on the clocks - they will dip into the 3900MHz range. We have no idea on ambient temps (that I saw). It would appear that even excellent air cooling leaves a lot on the table. If you are just doing gaming and light workloads, the 3950x probably isn't for you. I would suggest a 3900x on air with the NH-D15.
If you can bite the bullet and go aio - there are some great options out there for the 3950x. Kraken x72, Thermaltake Floe DX 360mm, corsair H150i Pro Hydro. I think the H150i is the quietest of the bunch.
My 3900x hovers around 4 GHZ in CB20 multi with a Corsair H100i SE Platinum (240 mm AIO) in push pull with Corsair LL120s pushing and Noctua A12x25s pulling with the pump set to extreme and fans ramped pretty aggressively. I can't see any air cooling keeping up with that and I'm not getting the greatest clocks as is. I wouldn't go air at all.
I don't recommend air cooling for the 3950X. AMD doesn't either.
Even AIO is an Air cooler though Dan.
I'd just say use a Noctua and never look back. It will do the job. Hes not gonna thermal throttle. Might not get the highest of highs on boost clocks but it will be stable and run well.
Even AIO is an Air cooler though Dan.
I'd just say use a Noctua and never look back. It will do the job. Hes not gonna thermal throttle. Might not get the highest of highs on boost clocks but it will be stable and run well.
AIO is easy,plug and play - just make sure you have a case setup for it. No filling, just put it in.Now you guys got me thinking... say I did go with water-cooling, it would be my first water cooled CPU. What case would I get (I know this isn't the case forum) that can hold the radiator? Also, it may sound dumb, but... do I just put water in the radiator? I'm assuming decent instructions come with a water cooler on what type of liquid and how much of the liquid to put inside.
Now you guys got me thinking... say I did go with water-cooling, it would be my first water cooled CPU. What case would I get (I know this isn't the case forum) that can hold the radiator? Also, it may sound dumb, but... do I just put water in the radiator? I'm assuming decent instructions come with a water cooler on what type of liquid and how much of the liquid to put inside.
Yes, but that's not what AMD means by air cooler even if you are technically correct.
I never said anything in this thread about an AIO.
Yeah I know what you mean. I just wished AIO was called hybrid coolers or something. The term water cooling and AIO has really misled people in the true technical differences and the dollar amount!
You sort of did when you mentioned " I dont recommend air cooling for the 3950x. AMD doesnt either."
Reading between the lines you couldnt have possibly been recommending that he go out and spend $700 in parts on a custom loop when he said he not interested in water cooling. So that means by logic you were possibly thinking AIO. But I cant put words in your mouth. It was just an assumption based on a logical interpretation. Sometimes that's all we have to go on in somewhat ambiguous replies.
In truth, I meant either a really good 360 AIO or a custom water cooling solution. I recommend the latter, but understand budget constraints on that.
Now you guys got me thinking... say I did go with water-cooling, it would be my first water cooled CPU. What case would I get (I know this isn't the case forum) that can hold the radiator? Also, it may sound dumb, but... do I just put water in the radiator? I'm assuming decent instructions come with a water cooler on what type of liquid and how much of the liquid to put inside.
Just go D15 man, no new case and sounds like it's perfect for your use-case.
My Thermaltake Floe Riing 360 Premium Edition AIO is a beast. It's not as good as a custom loop, but it does work very well. It can pretty easily handle a 9900K @ 5.0GHz, a Threadripper 2950X @ 4.2GHz all core and so on. It couldn't really handle a Threadripper 2990WX though. Temps are better on my custom loop, which obviously has greater heat dissipation capacity but it gets the job done for a variety of high end CPU's.
Are you kidding me? Noctua d15 is about as Enthusiast as you can get on an air cooler.
Not enthusiast
View attachment 213073
Pretty freaking enthusiast
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When has a true water loop defined the term enthusiast and only enthusiast?
Even Dan's AIO is enthusiast
Lmao
I would rather have a good air cooler, than a middle of the road AIO for the same price... No risk of leaks/failure just blow the dust out of the giant row of fins, plus they're usually within a few degrees of one another.
If you're going to play with water, just go with a custom loop and fork out the extra money imo.