Demonic Donut

With that budget it's Arctic P12/P14, they are great bang for your buck. Noctua redux gets a nod from me but as you mentioned they are gray/black. If you up to $20 a fan you can get the Thermal Take Toughfan. Any gentle typhoon knock off will be pretty good from a decent brand.

Pull the fan out and get a better look at the model number. Looks like you can find something at least very similar (probably a new revision) for about $8. Took me 60 seconds of Google to find it. https://www.qihaobuy.com/item/y-s-tech-fd0530107b-2a-3cm-30mm-fan-5v-0-50w-double-ball-bearing-micro-cooling-device-fan/

What model tstat?

You might want to do a DDU on the drivers, then reinstall. I used to have this problem with my 5700xt until they fixed the Radeon software. It drove me bananas. Another option is to use Fan Control, it's a great piece of software you can download in the Cooling section of the forum.

Ryzen gets great performance because of it's excellent boosting algorithm. It pushes high voltage to get high clocks, then it pulls back voltage and frequency to stay within temperature and current draw limits. That's the simple explanation as I understand it, anyway. That spike in temperature is on one core of your processor, it's not an average accross all of the chiplets. So you've got one core of one chiplet doing all of the work at very high frequency and high voltage, once the load drops away that heat generation is off like a light switch, the heat disapates into the surrounding silicon and then IHS. So the temp drops very quickly. If you run a heavy all core load for a while and then go back to idle, the temps will drop much more slowly. 70C is totally safe and normal. Fan curves aren't going to help those temp spikes much, because the limit is the heat transfering from the silicon to the cooler, not the cooler to the ambient air. You can still play with fan curves, but I generally recommend people adjust curves for acoustics. A great program is Fan Control here in the cooling section of the forum. I use it to change fan speeds when I want them different from my standard of locked at 50% and it is perfect for adjusting fan speeds while stress testing and seeing what your temps do.

Good temps, you can try running the front top fan as intake. This dropped my CPU temps by 2-3 degrees when the gpu was loaded. I'm not sure how the 5000 series behaves, but the 3000 series runs higher than needed voltage at stock. Custom OC runs faster/cooler for me than stock settings.

That would definitely work. You could also use 1 FH-04 and 1 FH-10 to save a few bucks, but you wouldn't have possible expandability later on the exhaust side.

You can choose to not agree/believe me, but that's just ignorance and stubbornness. Do the research and prove me wrong if you think you know more. I've been working with everything from tiny 1/40 hp circulators to 50hp chilled water and condenser loop water pumps for high rises for over 10 years now. I guess those little circulators don't actually do anything for the 5 stories of high rise that the engineers put them in... But you "agree" with what you want.

Your fans are rated at .12 amps each. Most fan headers are rated at 1 amp. Some are 2 amp, check your motherboard manual. If you use one fan hub, all fans will run at the same speed. If you use two hubs you can control two groups differently. You can also use splitters. I run my 2 CPU fans on a splitter, 2 top fans on system fan 1 on a splitter, 2 side intake fans on system 2 on a splitter and rear exhaust + bottom intake on CPU opt on a splitter. I also have two front intake fans running on molex, I can't change the rpm on these two, but they are low RPM and basically silent. There are 2 and 3 way splitters, and you can daisy chain them but I wouldn't go too crazy doing that.

If you want to be economical, try pulling the top panel off (if possible) and any other "optional" pieces that block airflow. Next cheapest is to buy a 5 pack of Arctic P12 fans for $30 on Amazon. Other than that, buy a more airflow optimized case

A pump can only create so much pressure differential. Flow is a function of pressure differential vs restriction. That's why pump curves are important. You're right that pumps can only push so much water up (known as head pressure), but we aren't fighting gravity in a sealed loop. We don't have to worry about the 1psi of head for ever 2.41 feet of height. As long as you aren't air locked, height doesn't matter. If you create differential pressure at the bottom of a closed loop, you'll push water over the "top" of the loop and it will "fall" back down to the suction side of the pump. You don't need to overcome the height of the loop, only the restrictions. As long as there isn't air, you're fine. The water will freely "spill" over the top of the loop because it's being "pulled" back down the suction side of the loop like a siphon. You need a bigger pump when your stuff is remotely located due to increased pipe length, which increases the restriction to flow caused by friction inside the tube/pipe, fittings, and turns etc, not because of the height of the loop.

I'll just throw out there that in a closed loop, elevation doesn't change flow, only the restrictions in the system. If you had a filled, closed loop that was 500 feet tall and 1 foot wide, it would flow the same as that same loop if it was laid on its side, 500 feet wide and 1 foot tall.

No, assuming you don't short anything. It also won't effect core temps much, if at all. Backside of RAM can be cooled for some benefit though.

Is your pump higher than the radiator? Have a pic of the system? Sounds like cavitation.

Is this a new problem that started to occur recently or has it been a problem for the life of the computer? Jumping GPU usage makes me think it's a drive, CPU and/or RAM bottleneck. You might want to consider upgrading to an SSD for your windows install and the games you play the most. You can try OCing RAM but YMMV on how stable that is or of you can even OC it.

I've used H2 on two different laptops as well as on GPUs. Always had better performance than stock paste. What makes you say it's a poor choice? The temp difference between most good pastes is minimal, and it's always pretty subjective. I've heard mixed things about Master Gel for example. SYY-157 seems to be popular right now for whatever reason, but it seems to be a bugger to work with and I haven't seen any good reviews on it. Could be a case of good marketing making it seem better than it is. If you want the best performance, you just need conformal coating and Conductonaut. Otherwise, throw a dart at a board of the top 10 pastes and have fun.

I use Noctua H2. Kryonaut would be my choice of the two you listed. Anything Thermal Grizzly is excellent.

If I was you, I'd just try the fan in some different locations and run some stress tests. If you are primarily gaming, be sure to pay attention to GPU and CPU temps. For example I've optimized airflow for my GPU but sacrifice a few degrees on my CPU.

My only issue with goo gone is the residue it leaves, which you'll want to clean afterwards with rubbing alcohol. If it works, it works. As you stated I might worry about it's affect on the PCB and exposed semiconductors. I usually saturate with 90% iso, lay a small square of paper towel onto the IHS and resaturate a time or two, then wipe away the old gunk. Barely takes any real force or scrubbing. Probably takes longer than the goo gone though.

A second fan makes a negligible difference in CPU temps, mainly helps if you are running the tower fans at low speeds. Depending on how many case fans you have, you might be better served by using the second included fan as a case fan.

Be sure to press the reply button on someone's post so they get a notification that you've replied to them. If you have a 3d printer, removing the fan shroud and printing a ducted mount would work well and look good. You can go to the far opposite side of the spectrum and use cardboard and duct tape. All depends what you have available and how much time and money you want to spend.

I always recommend conformal coating, if components nearby don't need direct airflow, foam would be fine. If it's not being moved around much and you apply the liquid metal properly, it won't move and short anything.

I would try a remount of the CPU block before buying a new one If nothing else changed I'm not sure what else it could be. Cryofuel vs water should be nearly identical in temps. I know 3000 series Ryzen can be hot at "idle" due to how it boosts and runs high voltage with stock settings. Minor background tasks can spike your temps, even just moving the mouse around. What are temps in bios?

I don't know any marble racers. Not a simulation, but World of Goo is a great building puzzle game. I also really enjoy Besiege.

Yikes, that case is a bit restricted. I'd try putting the front fan in the top as an exhaust. Is it the stock 3600 cooler? If so you're looking at low to mid 80s no matter how good your airflow is. Do you have budget for more fans and possibly a new CPU cooler? Spending about $35 on a 5 pack of Arctic P12 fans would be a decent investment. Then maybe another 30-50 on a better CPU cooler as well. There's also a chance you have a bad mount on the CPU cooler and just need to repaste and remount. If I were you, I'd pull off the side panel until you can get the temps under control. That will also tell you if it's airflow related or a bad CPU cooler mount.