RYZEN AM4 cooler orientation?

[woshixiaozhu]

Hi, thanks for reading. I recently started a build of Ryzen's 1700x cpu and X370 motherboard. However I am kinda stuck with air cooling solutions: as you can see from the attached picture, the stock retention system of X370 (both MSI and ASUS) are over/under configuration. Most common air coolers on the market at this moment use a special bracket to mount their heatsink, which will inevitably cause a "vertical" orientation of the heatsink/fan. So it either blows air upward or downward. I am kinda curious about this configuration since it is not the most common layout and to make the system work efficiently one seems to have to open the top vent on most of the cases and install additional fan over to pull air out...

 

Is this so far the only option for air cooling of AM4? I am wondering if I should consider a case with good top ventilation or just wait for new model of major air coolers to come to market.

 

Thanks.

 

 

[LienusLateTips]

21 minutes ago, woshixiaozhu said:

Hi, thanks for reading. I recently started a build of Ryzen's 1700x cpu and X370 motherboard. However I am kinda stuck with air cooling solutions: as you can see from the attached picture, the stock retention system of X370 (both MSI and ASUS) are over/under configuration. Most common air coolers on the market at this moment use a special bracket to mount their heatsink, which will inevitably cause a "vertical" orientation of the heatsink/fan. So it either blows air upward or downward. I am kinda curious about this configuration since it is not the most common layout and to make the system work efficiently one seems to have to open the top vent on most of the cases and install additional fan over to pull air out...

 

Is this so far the only option for air cooling of AM4? I am wondering if I should consider a case with good top ventilation or just wait for new model of major air coolers to come to market.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Well there is the MasterAir line and some others... Some mobos have AM3+ mounts in addition to the AM4 one. The stock bracket is the same so you might be able to buy a used wraith cooler for ebay or something.

[woshixiaozhu]

15 minutes ago, JDE said:

Well there is the MasterAir line and some others... Some mobos have AM3+ mounts in addition to the AM4 one. The stock bracket is the same so you might be able to buy a used wraith cooler for ebay or something.

 

Thanks JDE. I just noticed that ASUS has a mother board supporting using old AM3+ cooler with AM4 CPU. Too bad it is well beyond my budget and also I have already bought the MSI X370 carbon. I should have done homework more thoroughly.

 

It looks like MasterAir line all require the upgrade kit for AM4 and they may end up in the same orientation as EVO 212

[LienusLateTips]

51 minutes ago, woshixiaozhu said:

 

Thanks JDE. I just noticed that ASUS has a mother board supporting using old AM3+ cooler with AM4 CPU. Too bad it is well beyond my budget and also I have already bought the MSI X370 carbon. I should have done homework more thoroughly.

 

It looks like MasterAir line all require the upgrade kit for AM4 and they may end up in the same orientation as EVO 212

The wraith cooler can be mounted on nearly every board and supports 125W TDP.

[woshixiaozhu]

7 minutes ago, JDE said:

The wraith cooler can be mounted on nearly every board and supports 125W TDP.

Yeah it seems to be the most sensible option for me, or maybe to simply choose a case with good top vent instead. I wish my 1700X came with a wraith max... Thanks for the suggestion! I will see if I can grab an old one from ebay or something similar.

[LienusLateTips]

16 minutes ago, woshixiaozhu said:

Yeah it seems to be the most sensible option for me, or maybe to simply choose a case with good top vent instead. I wish my 1700X came with a wraith max... Thanks for the suggestion! I will see if I can grab an old one from ebay or something similar.

They look good too, with AMD logo LEDs and its pretty silent.

[LogicalDrm]

Running cooler horizontally instead of normal vertical orientation doesn't matter for performance. You only need to check if cooler fits wit RAM and 1st PCIe slot.