Confusion about tierlist

[TTwerty]

Hi,

 

I don't fully understand the air cooler tier list.

Is a 140mm cooler always better than a 120mm cooler (or atleast not the high ends)?

Is a dual tower always better than a 140mm cooler?

 

What territory of cooler should I look after if I just want to run my 5 3600 cool enough to never thermal throttle (possibly with minor oc).

 

Thanks

[Enderman]

1) no not always

 

2) no not always

 

3) to go google and look up benchmarks and reviews that compare performance and noise

[Mira Yurizaki]

10 minutes ago, TTwerty said:

Is a 140mm cooler always better than a 120mm cooler (or atleast not the high ends)?

 

Is a dual tower always better than a 140mm cooler?

 

What territory of cooler should I look after if I just want to run my 5 3600 cool enough to never thermal throttle (possibly with minor oc).

All of these questions can be answered in the following way: it depends. When it comes to cooling, there's typically two primary concerns: how hot the processor is when its doing something and how loud you can tolerate it to be. A 140mm cooler with a fan that's moving slow all the time may be great for low noise, but not so much for temperature compared to a 120mm cooler that's allowed to ramp up the fan speed. And if the processor is low power to begin with, a dual tower cooler doesn't have a lot of value over a 140mm or even a 120mm cooler, even if it technically keeps the processor cooler.

 

On another note, thermal throttling is when the processor is unable to keep base clock speeds when doing a workload. Even the stock cooler that AMD's processors come with can do this. If you want the processor to maintain boost clock speeds for extended periods of time, then investing in a better cooler will certainly help.

 

So with that out of the way, what should you get? Unfortunately the old metric of using TDP doesn't work anymore since Intel and AMD measure it differently and coolers likely default to Intel if they don't specifically say. But for a lower power part like the Ryzen 5 3600, any decent 120mm cooler will do. Heck I'd wager a 90-92mm cooler is fine too, but I advise against it due to the scarcity of finding decent fans in that size.

[TTwerty]

3 hours ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

All of these questions can be answered in the following way: it depends. When it comes to cooling, there's typically two primary concerns: how hot the processor is when its doing something and how loud you can tolerate it to be. A 140mm cooler with a fan that's moving slow all the time may be great for low noise, but not so much for temperature compared to a 120mm cooler that's allowed to ramp up the fan speed. And if the processor is low power to begin with, a dual tower cooler doesn't have a lot of value over a 140mm or even a 120mm cooler, even if it technically keeps the processor cooler.

 

On another note, thermal throttling is when the processor is unable to keep base clock speeds when doing a workload. Even the stock cooler that AMD's processors come with can do this. If you want the processor to maintain boost clock speeds for extended periods of time, then investing in a better cooler will certainly help.

 

So with that out of the way, what should you get? Unfortunately the old metric of using TDP doesn't work anymore since Intel and AMD measure it differently and coolers likely default to Intel if they don't specifically say. But for a lower power part like the Ryzen 5 3600, any decent 120mm cooler will do. Heck I'd wager a 90-92mm cooler is fine too, but I advise against it due to the scarcity of finding decent fans in that size.

Sometimes I see 120mm's in wrong tiers like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B in tier 4 (tier 4 is named High-End 140mm's)?

Does this mean there is a 140mm version of it or is it just a very good 120mm?

[Deli]

37 minutes ago, TTwerty said:

Sometimes I see 120mm's in wrong tiers like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B in tier 4 (tier 4 is named High-End 140mm's)?

Does this mean there is a 140mm version of it or is it just a very good 120mm?

Just a very good(and cheap) 120mm cooler.

 

You also find Noctua U12A in the tier 3 Dual-Tower category. While it is actually a 120mm single tower cooler. However it performances so well like many 140mm dual tower coolers.

[LogicalDrm]

11 hours ago, TTwerty said:

Sometimes I see 120mm's in wrong tiers like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B in tier 4 (tier 4 is named High-End 140mm's)?

Does this mean there is a 140mm version of it or is it just a very good 120mm?

Tier lists, all of them, are just suggestion. You should always read up before buying stuff. Read multiple reviews, look at graphs etc. With air coolers fan size doesn't mean much overall. Amount of heatpipes, density of fins, size of cooler itself, fan speed and performance. All contribute. This is why you see well performing 120mm towers with 140mm towers.

[WoodenMarker]

On 11/19/2019 at 1:25 PM, TTwerty said:

Sometimes I see 120mm's in wrong tiers like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B in tier 4 (tier 4 is named High-End 140mm's)?

Does this mean there is a 140mm version of it or is it just a very good 120mm?

It's a great 120mm cooler.

As mentioned at the top of the list, the tiers and titles are arbitrary summaries and mainly to make it easier to sort by performance. They're not categories nor rules for categories. As summaries, they describe most of what tends to be in it. They'd otherwise have very nondescript titles like Tier 1, Tier 2, and so on. I've updated the explanation text in the thread to hopefully make it more clear.

The only thing the list shows is coolers that tend to perform better are in tiers higher than the coolers in lower tiers. 

 

If you're wondering how much cooling performance would prevent thermal throttling, anything in or above Tier 8 - 92mm's should be plenty provided adequate case airflow.

If you would like cooler recommendations, please let us know what case and ram you're using, where you're shopping / located, and budget.