Best cooler for 7700k

[Jason pocchiari]

Hi i have a 7700k and a deepcool gammaxx 400 and my temps are low 80s when playing games it was a prebuilt given to me and the thermal paste application is ok i just want to know what is the best cooling solution for a decent price, was looking at dark rock pro4 and non pro but dont really want to pay 80+ dollars i also intend to overclock a few years from now when my cpu is a bottle neck 

[DailyProcrastinator]

Yeah, unfortunately, I would say some of the better coolers are the Dark Rock Pro 4 and the Cryorig R1, but they are pricy. Still better than 240mm AIO's though, and they promote better case temps + VRM cooling. 

[thinwalrus]

Scythe Fuma or Mugen 5 rev b. Thermalright Macho rev b.

[BigDamn]

If you ever plan on overclocking you're going to want water cooling. I always recommend Corsair products so I would look at the Corsair H80i or even H60i if you want to save some money. That chip runs hot and it will take a little extra cash to bring those temps down. That said, low 80's really isn't THAT bad. Is it thermal throttling? If no, you're fine. I ran an i7 4790k around 85c under load while overclocking. Those chips are designed to run HOT

[Zando_]

Just now, BigDamn said:

If you ever plan on overclocking you're going to want water cooling. I always recommend Corsair products so I would look at the Corsair H80i or even H60i if you want to save some money. That chip runs hot and it will take a little extra cash to bring those temps down. That said, low 80's really isn't THAT bad. Is it thermal throttling? If no, you're fine. I ran an i7 4790k around 85c under load while overclocking. Those chips are designed to run HOT

They'll run at 80C fine for sure, 85C long term would make me uneasy though unless it's a throwaway CPU (I run X58 rn and tend to abuse my Xeons because they're $3-20 each on average). Strange you'd be getting temps like that on a stock 7700K though. I can punch 1.4v+ through an i7 950 on a Gammax 400 with two fans and it'll just break 86C under Prime95 load. 

[hello_there_123]

3 minutes ago, campy said:

Thats not a 7700k, but if it can do that with 35w, it can probably do pretty good with 135w...

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[BigDamn]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

They'll run at 80C fine for sure, 85C long term would make me uneasy though unless it's a throwaway CPU (I run X58 rn and tend to abuse my Xeons because they're $3-20 each on average). Strange you'd be getting temps like that on a stock 7700K though. I can punch 1.4v+ through an i7 950 on a Gammax 400 with two fans and it'll just break 86C under Prime95 load. 

Yeah his temps are pretty high, not sure whats up with that. 85c was over the top but boy did that thing fly haha. It didn't run quite that hot very often (at the time I wasn't gaming as much, mostly just programming) but having it cranked up to 4.8ghz made daily tasks quite a bit faster. I've since moved on to a Ryzen 1700 that tops out around 65c at 4ghz

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, BigDamn said:

Yeah his temps are pretty high, not sure whats up with that. 85c was over the top but boy did that thing fly haha. It didn't run quite that hot very often (at the time I wasn't gaming as much, mostly just programming) but having it cranked up to 4.8ghz made daily tasks quite a bit faster. I've since moved on to a Ryzen 1700 that tops out around 65c at 4ghz

Nice! My X5675 (4.2Ghz/1.35v, can do that at 1.306 but I swapped in RAM so I wanted a quick and dirty OC so I could game quick) maxes at 55-56C after an overnight AIDA64 run, but that's due to being cooled by a 360mm rad/loop with a Heatkiller IV CPU block. 

[DailyProcrastinator]

9 minutes ago, BigDamn said:

If you ever plan on overclocking you're going to want water cooling. I always recommend Corsair products so I would look at the Corsair H80i or even H60i if you want to save some money. That chip runs hot and it will take a little extra cash to bring those temps down. That said, low 80's really isn't THAT bad. Is it thermal throttling? If no, you're fine. I ran an i7 4790k around 85c under load while overclocking. Those chips are designed to run HOT

Any mid-size air cooler will destroy the H80i or H60i.... My Cryorig R1 outperformed my previous 240mm AIO noticeable. 

[Jason pocchiari]

what about the coolermaster 240mm rgb aio its 70 which id buy but is it reliable and im not thermal throttling but the noise is really bad using coolermaster rgb 120 airflow balance case fans 1 intake 1 exhuast and 1 on heatsink

[r2724r16]

Just now, Jason pocchiari said:

what about the coolermaster 240mm rgb aio its 70 which id buy but is it reliable and im not thermal throttling but the noise is really bad using coolermaster rgb 120 airflow balance case fans 1 intake 1 exhuast and 1 on heatsink

How about no? Cooler Master's AIOs are pretty crap, unreliable, and loud so I'd avoid them at any cost (sorry for the pun).

 

As said above, the Dark Rock Pro 4 is a great option. If that's too expensive though, I recommend getting an Arctic Freezer 33 eSports ONE.

[LukeSavenije]

2 minutes ago, Jason pocchiari said:

what about the coolermaster 240mm rgb aio its 70 which id buy but is it reliable and im not thermal throttling but the noise is really bad using coolermaster rgb 120 airflow balance case fans 1 intake 1 exhuast and 1 on heatsink

cheap aios won't be any better than that... 120 especially isn't going to be. I'm personally a big fan of the arctic freezer 34 esports duo for around 40 bucks

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, Geography said:

How about no? Cooler Master's AIOs are pretty crap, unreliable, and loud so I'd avoid them at any cost (sorry for the pun).

at the low end that is, they are okay on the high end

 

and btw, the 34 line is out already

[Jason pocchiari]

what temps you getting with the artic freezer i dont want to do 5ghz probably 4.7

[hello_there_123]

Windale 6

[hello_there_123]

13 minutes ago, JM21 said:

Any mid-size air cooler will destroy the H80i or H60i.... My Cryorig R1 outperformed my previous 240mm AIO noticeable. 

In acoustical efficiency, maybe. In raw temps, not so much. 

 

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h60_review,11.html 

[LukeSavenije]

16 minutes ago, Jason pocchiari said:

what temps you getting with the artic freezer i dont want to do 5ghz probably 4.7

i know @seoz has a 33 esports one and got her 8600k @5ghz around 75 degrees iirc

 

and a 34 duo is even better

[DailyProcrastinator]

4 minutes ago, hello_there_123 said:

In acoustical efficiency, maybe. In raw temps, not so much. 

 

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h60_review,11.html 

80% of the tested coolers are AIO's, this is hardly a conclusive answer. The price spent on an AIO if reflect towards an air cooler will yield worse price to performance. 

 

Also at $66usd the Corsair H60 costs more than the Noctua NH-U9s at $58usd, which according to the data you presented to me does not outperform an AIO, and it costs less.

 

So I stand by my previous statement that any mid-size air cooler will outperform the H80i or H60i

 

 

[Turtle Rig]

I think the Noctua DH-15 can keep up with his overclock.

[jiyeon]

3 hours ago, Jason pocchiari said:

what temps you getting with the artic freezer i dont want to do 5ghz probably 4.7

To reference @LukeSavenije in an earlier comment of his, I own the Arctic Freezer 33 eSports One, and I run my i5-8600K at 4.7GHz on all 6 cores right now. The maximum temperature I hit on my i5-8600K using the Arctic Freezer 33 eSports One is tops 60°C.

Your mileage may vary as I am using an NZXT S340 case with 2 exhaust case fans.

[BigDamn]

7 hours ago, JM21 said:

Any mid-size air cooler will destroy the H80i or H60i.... My Cryorig R1 outperformed my previous 240mm AIO noticeable. 

Air coolers dispose of their heat inside of your case and then reuse that "dirty" air again (unless you have very good airflow inside your case). Watercoolers transfer heat to the radiator and dispose of it outside of the case and pull in "clean" air. I've overclocked some of my old chips on both water and air. Air cooling does fine, but will increase your GPU temps and will have a max temp on the CPU.

[Kalm_Traveler]

7 hours ago, Jason pocchiari said:

Hi i have a 7700k and a deepcool gammaxx 400 and my temps are low 80s when playing games it was a prebuilt given to me and the thermal paste application is ok i just want to know what is the best cooling solution for a decent price, was looking at dark rock pro4 and non pro but dont really want to pay 80+ dollars i also intend to overclock a few years from now when my cpu is a bottle neck 

Unfortunately you can't really have both ways - if you want the best air cooling for overclocking (which you really should just do once you can cool the chip - no benefit to waiting for it to be outdated, just enjoy it now) you need to spend a little bit of money.

 

AFAIK the 'best' air cooler is still Noctua's NH-D15, but it is a giant heavy monster so make sure it will fit your case, and that you have case fans to bring in fresh air towards it, as well as ideally at least 1 behind it to help evacuate hot air.

[DailyProcrastinator]

37 minutes ago, BigDamn said:

Air coolers dispose of their heat inside of your case and then reuse that "dirty" air again (unless you have very good airflow inside your case). Watercoolers transfer heat to the radiator and dispose of it outside of the case and pull in "clean" air. I've overclocked some of my old chips on both water and air. Air cooling does fine, but will increase your GPU temps and will have a max temp on the CPU.

If you have a fan after your air cooler as exhaust it will pull out almost all the exhaust air out after the CPU cooler, yes GPU temps tend to be a bit hotter if you mount the air cooler in the traditional sense with the air exhausting right to left. However, CPU temps, ambient case temps, and VRM temps are significantly better in almost every case with an air cooler. I don't know what kind of air coolers you were using, if you mean $30 Hyper 212's then that's obvious, but a mid-range to the high-end cooler is a completely different story.

 

And for those really crazy about thermals if you mount the air cooler to pull air up with exhaust fans at the top of the case you often get even better CPU temps, ambient case temps, VRM temps, AND GPU temps. The only way AIO's begin to compete with regards to CPU temps is at the 280mm level and up.

 

I went from a Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 240 w/ Corsair ML fans, to a Cryorig R1, CPU package temps are consistently 2-6 degrees C lower, VRM's 6-8 lower, and ambient case temps are anywhere from 5-10 degrees C lower. GPU temps did go up ever so slightly so I adjusted my fan curves and temps are now the same as before. 

 

Case ambient temps and VRM temps are always higher with AIO's, this is due to the fact that there is no fan around the CPU socket area to promote airflow through that area. This is one reason why I personally stick to air coolers whenever possible. 

 

Cryorig and now Asus have fixed this problem with their AIO's by placing a small fan over the pump, but at an even greater increased cost.

 

On my delid 8700k, I had the Cryorig H5 ($60cad) previously but replaced it with a Corsair H100i Pro ($145cad) I got for Christmas, temps are only slightly better on the CPU package (3-6 degrees C) but VRM and case temps are higher as a trade-off. 

[BigDamn]

1 hour ago, JM21 said:

And for those really crazy about thermals if you mount the air cooler to pull air up with exhaust fans at the top of the case you often get even better CPU temps, ambient case temps, VRM temps, AND GPU temps. The only way AIO's begin to compete with regards to CPU temps is at the 280mm level and up.

 

I went from a Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 240 w/ Corsair ML fans, to a Cryorig R1, CPU package temps are consistently 2-6 degrees C lower, VRM's 6-8 lower, and ambient case temps are anywhere from 5-10 degrees C lower. GPU temps did go up ever so slightly so I adjusted my fan curves and temps are now the same as before. 

 

Case ambient temps and VRM temps are always higher with AIO's, this is due to the fact that there is no fan around the CPU socket area to promote airflow through that area. This is one reason why I personally stick to air coolers whenever possible.

All depends on the airflow in your case. I've got a Rosewill Armor Evo with 2x120mm's up front, 1 120mm in the back, 2x 120mm's, 1 240mm on the side. This presents PLENTY of air flow for the VRM's if installed correctly and uses colder air than the CPU cooler is spitting out. The issue? Newer cases (including my NZXT H440) don't have my side panel fans. So your point may be correct in that regard, but a case with proper airflow and water cooling has always provided my best results.

[DailyProcrastinator]

11 hours ago, BigDamn said:

All depends on the airflow in your case. I've got a Rosewill Armor Evo with 2x120mm's up front, 1 120mm in the back, 2x 120mm's, 1 240mm on the side. This presents PLENTY of air flow for the VRM's if installed correctly and uses colder air than the CPU cooler is spitting out. The issue? Newer cases (including my NZXT H440) don't have my side panel fans. So your point may be correct in that regard, but a case with proper airflow and water cooling has always provided my best results.

Like you said almost no modern cases have side intakes, thing of the past. In 2019 air coolers are the better price to performance option and despite a lower cost they mostly perform better than their AIO counterparts.