An air cooler better than an aio?

[DevilsHand676]

Currently have a Corsair H60 thats a few years old now. I am not getting the cooling I would like, maxing around 76C on overwatch, normal settings at 144fps, and max 99.51 W, 87.29 A. Anyway I was looking at air coolers cause this aio is just not cutting it, and I can't drop $100+ on a bigger aio. Originally I was looking at Noctua NH-D15 but that boy is just too big for my case to handle. My MASTERBOX Q300L TUF can only handle max of 159mm cooler. I google best air cooler and all they put are tall boys or super small boys that don't look like that do much.

 

Any recommendations of a cooler that less or around $100 and that is 159mm or less is appreciated. 

[katoptrys]

Well, the H60 is only a 120mm so there is only so much it can cool. Depending on how much you OC/undervolt your CPU you might be able to squeeze better temps out of it. I had the same AIO until the pump crapped out on me a couple of weeks ago, but usually under an intense load I'd get 70C at 3.9 GHz (I had my voltage set up at 1.45).

As far as air coolers go, I'd recommend a Dark Rock 4 from bequiet, it's about 160mm IIRC but performance should be great and they are, as the name of the brand states, very quiet.

[Mateyyy]

NH-U12A, NH-U12S or Dark Rock 4, but off the top of my head they just barely make the 159mm limit (I could be wrong).

You could also go for a downdraft cooler, like a Dark Rock TF, NH-C14S or NH-L12S.

[glenalz81]

Should be looking at a case with better airflow first.

[Semper]

Steve over at GN just released his review on Arctic's new offering. It does not have endurance testing, granted that it's still very new, but it looks promising.
Consider giving it a look
https://www2.arctic.ac/liquidfreezer2/us/
 

 

[MrBrightSyde]

Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo and Cryorig M9 Plus are both good choices in my opinion

 

 

[DevilsHand676]

1 minute ago, glenalz81 said:

Should be looking at a case with better airflow first.

case is mesh top, bot and front panel. Don't think air flow is the problem, but thank you for your input. 

[Semper]

16 minutes ago, DevilsHand676 said:

case is mesh top, bot and front panel. Don't think air flow is the problem, but thank you for your input. 

The q300l suffers the same pitfalls as the q500l.

It's not the worst there's ever been, but it's "mesh" is very misleading, and it's certainly not optimal.
 

 

[WoodenMarker]

Do temps get higher? 76c should be fine. 

[DevilsHand676]

8 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

Do temps get higher? 76c should be fine. 

temps will sometimes go up to 80 81, I know that still isn't considered bad but my pc sits right next to me on my desk so its more of trying to get the temps down to keep the fan noise down. 

[WoodenMarker]

3 hours ago, DevilsHand676 said:

temps will sometimes go up to 80 81, I know that still isn't considered bad but my pc sits right next to me on my desk so its more of trying to get the temps down to keep the fan noise down. 

Which H60 is it? There's been a few versions and they can be identified by the fan / cpu block. If you're not sure, the color and number of fan blades alone can narrow it down enough.

If it's a particularly loud fan, replacing it could be a cheaper solution. If the pump is also noisy, getting a different cooler is a good idea. 

[DevilsHand676]

30 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Which H60 is it? There's been a few versions and they can be identified by the fan / cpu block. If you're not sure, the color and number of fan blades alone can narrow it down enough.

If it's a particularly loud fan, replacing it could be a cheaper solution. If the pump is also noisy, getting a different cooler is a good idea. 

It from back in 2017, square block with no lights. Model number from Amazon is CW-9060007-WW. I've got that original grey fan as well as a rgb fan that came off from my old cooler master case. To cut down on idle noise I have the corsair fan always going but the rgb ones stop until it hits 50C. I made a high quality render to show it. I just moved the pump from the back to the front to see the difference because I watched a bitwit video that said front intake is better. I was also looking at the Artic Freezer 2 and the Cooler Master MasterLiquid LC240E for 240 mm options. 

[WoodenMarker]

1 hour ago, DevilsHand676 said:

It from back in 2017, square block with no lights. Model number from Amazon is CW-9060007-WW. I've got that original grey fan as well as a rgb fan that came off from my old cooler master case. To cut down on idle noise I have the corsair fan always going but the rgb ones stop until it hits 50C.

Stopping the rgb fan would probably just obstruct airflow during idle. I recommend at least running it at low rpm. 

Is it too noisy at idle as well? Is the pump running at max rpm?

[Corsair Nick]

1 hour ago, DevilsHand676 said:

It from back in 2017, square block with no lights. Model number from Amazon is CW-9060007-WW. I've got that original grey fan as well as a rgb fan that came off from my old cooler master case. To cut down on idle noise I have the corsair fan always going but the rgb ones stop until it hits 50C. I made a high quality render to show it. I just moved the pump from the back to the front to see the difference because I watched a bitwit video that said front intake is better. I was also looking at the Artic Freezer 2 and the Cooler Master MasterLiquid LC240E for 240 mm options. 

 

Your cooler should be under warranty if it is defective (5-years).  You can put in a support ticket, and one of our Technical Support agents can help with a replacement through the link below.  Before we get that far though in writing off the cooler as failed, did moving the radiator to the front make a difference?  Which RGB fans do you have installed?  Is it only Overwatch that sees high temps?

 

https://support.corsair.com/

[DevilsHand676]

30 minutes ago, Corsair Nick said:

Your cooler should be under warranty if it is defective (5-years).  You can put in a support ticket, and one of our Technical Support agents can help with a replacement through the link below.  Before we get that far though in writing off the cooler as failed, did moving the radiator to the front make a difference?  Which RGB fans do you have installed?  Is it only Overwatch that sees high temps?

 

https://support.corsair.com/

moving the radiator to the front gives me idles about 45 - 50 with random peaks up to 57ish and going back down. I tested a few games on normal settings max fps setting at 144 and put together a fancy little table but I don't know how to put a table on this form so its not fancy. This is with the 1600x maxing to 4.01Ghz and 5.31V

 

Average cpu temps

Overwatch: 67

Apex: 69

Fallout76: a cool 53

So it looks like putting it up front helped a lot for temps but at the expense of my gpu temp, with it hitting 78C in Overwatch and Apex. 

 

The rgb fans are from the MasterBox Lite 5 RGB, model number DF1202512RFMN. I'm not able to find coolermaster selling them by themselves though. 

The pump is also plugged into the cpu fan header on my mobo (ASUS TUF B450M Plus Gaming) and its always set to 100% 

[Corsair Nick]

This seems more like an airflow issue rather than the pump.  You could try adding additional fans to the top and retest the radiator in the front and back.  Based on the feedback @Semper gave, you could also try pulling the front fascia off with the current config and see how really restrict it is.  If you see a significant drop, you have your culprit.