Was I given bad suggestion? Should I ask for a refund?

[Stan2292]

So here's the thing. I haven't been following PC hardware clossely at all in he last 9 years. Recently, I upgraded my 9-year-old CPU (ttherefore motherboard, RAM and CPU cooler etc the whole lot). I called one of my local PC hardware stores with a list of most of what I have in mind after doing some research. I did need suggestion on a CPU cooler though as I can't find videos or articles that contain i5-11500 cooling solution with stats like temp delta and noise level etc. So I asked them for suggestions on a quiet air cooler that is adequate for my CPU. They suggested Noctua's NH-l9i. I pulled up a picture and saw the heat sink being tiny. So I asked him to doulbe confirm for me that this is adequate. He said "it's absolutely fine". Ok i bought it. All was well for a few days, or so I thought.

 

I didn't pay attention to new hardware's performance that much at first. About 2 weeks later, I started noticing CPU temp regularly reaches 87C at 100% load with 2350rpm CPU fan speed. That's very high considering my room is at a constant 20C. I immediately re-did thermal paste and went into bios to temporarily set CPU fan to 100% speed at all temperatures. Then I opened both side panels on my case to eliminate the possibility of inadequate case air flow. After a few benchmark runs, the peak temp is still 85C with 2395rpm (100%) fan speed. I need to use the computer for work every day. I can' wait for delivery for a new cooler. So I bought a random secondhand cooler with a larger heat sink on facebook marketplace. It happens to be a Cooler Master Hyper 212X. The 100% load temp immediately improves by 20 whole degrees celsius afterwards.

 

Now I'm mildly pissed. Was I given bad advise? Do I have grounds to ask for refund? What if they say things like "Your CPU isn't throttling at 87C. Our suggested hardware is adequate."? Or is 87C a widely accepted CPU temp now? Any ideas?

[Fasauceome]

The L9i is a low profile cooler, designed for less demanding CPUs. 

13 minutes ago, Stan2292 said:

What if they say things like "Your CPU isn't throttling at 87C

technically the temp is totally safe, but the noise and unsatisfactory thermal performance should be enough to warrant a refund. The included cooler for the i5 would probably have done a better job, and it's a shame the seller took advantage of your lack of cooler knowledge.

[Mokrecipki]

I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask this.. Is it possible you didnt have proper mounting pressure with the noctua compatible heatsink?
When in doubt, more thermal paste. It won't hurt anything. It'll just make a mess.

[aisle9]

13 minutes ago, Mokrecipki said:

I'm going to play devils advocate here and ask this.. Is it possible you didnt have proper mounting pressure with the noctua compatible heatsink?
When in doubt, more thermal paste. It won't hurt anything. It'll just make a mess.

You know the Verge guide was a prime example of how not to do things, right?

[WoodenMarker]

1 hour ago, Stan2292 said:

Now I'm mildly pissed. Was I given bad advise? Do I have grounds to ask for refund? What if they say things like "Your CPU isn't throttling at 87C. Our suggested hardware is adequate."? Or is 87C a widely accepted CPU temp now? Any ideas?

The NH-L9i isn't a great recommendation if you can fit a larger cooler. It's similar to the stock cooler and is adequate for stock operation but doesn't give headroom for turbo clock speeds. 

What motherboard are you using? Check and make sure that you're running stock speeds and there isn't an auto-oc or raised power limit set in the bios. 

[Stan2292]

8 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

The NH-L9i isn't a great recommendation if you can fit a larger cooler. It's similar to the stock cooler and is adequate for stock operation but doesn't give headroom for turbo clock speeds. 

What motherboard are you using? Check and make sure that you're running stock speeds and there isn't an auto-oc or raised power limit set in the bios. 

i thought the non "k" version of intel CPUs don't even support OC? also my motherboard is one of the cheapest that supports lga1200 so i don;t think it has tthis function anyway. it's an asus b560m-k (matx). i did tell them on the phone that i have a full atx corsair chassis, albeit from 9 years ago. so there really is no reason to recommend a super low profile CPU fan to me i dont think.

[Stan2292]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

The L9i is a low profile cooler, designed for less demanding CPUs. 

technically the temp is totally safe, but the noise and unsatisfactory thermal performance should be enough to warrant a refund. The included cooler for the i5 would probably have done a better job, and it's a shame the seller took advantage of your lack of cooler knowledge.

yeah... it's not every day you hear a noctua fan sound like that lol. anyway, i've been binging steve and jayz for the past few days. turns out the hyper 212x i bought randomly is one of the best at its price range? and i paid a fraction of RRP for it as a secondhand unit. guess my luck turned a bit. but i still much rather not making the mistake in the first place.

[WoodenMarker]

Just now, Stan2292 said:

i thought the non "k" version of intel CPUs don't even support OC? also my motherboard is one of the cheapest that supports lga1200 so i don;t think it has tthis function anyway. it's an asus b560m-k (matx). i did tell them on the phone that i have a full atx corsair chassis, albeit from 9 years ago. so there really is no reason to recommend a super low profile CPU fan to me i dont think.

Turbo clock speeds are fairly high with the newer Intel cpus and are often limited by stock settings. Many motherboards come with settings that can result more aggressive turbo'ing even if it's not technically oc'ing. 

The motherboard manual doesn't go into any depth on the bios settings available but you should be able to use Advanced Mode (F7) and check out the settings in the Ai Tweaker tab. 

 

The NH-L9i was probably recommended since it's long been a safe recommendation as a quieter alternative to the stock cooler for locked non-oc cpus. It's become less appropriate for Intel's latest cpus.

4 minutes ago, Stan2292 said:

turns out the hyper 212x i bought randomly is one of the best at its price range?

 There are plenty of similar budget-oriented 120mm tower coolers. The Hyper 212X is decent and how good it stacks up in comparison is dependent on current pricing. 

[Stan2292]

10 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

Turbo clock speeds are fairly high with the newer Intel cpus and are often limited by stock settings. Many motherboards come with settings that can result more aggressive turbo'ing even if it's not technically oc'ing. 

The motherboard manual doesn't go into any depth on the bios settings available but you should be able to use Advanced Mode (F7) and check out the settings in the Ai Tweaker tab. 

 

The NH-L9i was probably recommended since it's long been a safe recommendation as a quieter alternative to the stock cooler for locked non-oc cpus. It's become less appropriate for Intel's latest cpus.

 There are plenty of similar budget-oriented 120mm tower coolers. The Hyper 212X is decent and how good it stacks up in comparison is dependent on current pricing. 

i just quickly did a benchmark. CPUID tells me all 6 cores reached 4591mhz. is that looking normal for 11500 or does it look motherboard OC'd?

[aisle9]

27 minutes ago, Stan2292 said:

yeah... it's not every day you hear a noctua fan sound like that lol. anyway, i've been binging steve and jayz for the past few days. turns out the hyper 212x i bought randomly is one of the best at its price range?

I wouldn't go that far, but it is way more than adequate for an i5-11500

[Fasauceome]

9 hours ago, Stan2292 said:

yeah... it's not every day you hear a noctua fan sound like that lol. anyway, i've been binging steve and jayz for the past few days. turns out the hyper 212x i bought randomly is one of the best at its price range? and i paid a fraction of RRP for it as a secondhand unit. guess my luck turned a bit. but i still much rather not making the mistake in the first place.

The hyper 212 range has been solid going all the way back. It's definitely gonna keep the system cool and quiet.

 

9 hours ago, Stan2292 said:

i just quickly did a benchmark. CPUID tells me all 6 cores reached 4591mhz. is that looking normal for 11500 or does it look motherboard OC'd?

I believe the single core turbo is 4.6 so depending on the motherboard's CPU power settings you might be getting some nice aggressive performance. Pretty good.

[bootLoop]

13 hours ago, Stan2292 said:

So here's the thing. I haven't been following PC hardware clossely at all in he last 9 years. Recently, I upgraded my 9-year-old CPU (ttherefore motherboard, RAM and CPU cooler etc the whole lot). I called one of my local PC hardware stores with a list of most of what I have in mind after doing some research. I did need suggestion on a CPU cooler though as I can't find videos or articles that contain i5-11500 cooling solution with stats like temp delta and noise level etc. So I asked them for suggestions on a quiet air cooler that is adequate for my CPU. They suggested Noctua's NH-l9i. I pulled up a picture and saw the heat sink being tiny. So I asked him to doulbe confirm for me that this is adequate. He said "it's absolutely fine". Ok i bought it. All was well for a few days, or so I thought.

 

I didn't pay attention to new hardware's performance that much at first. About 2 weeks later, I started noticing CPU temp regularly reaches 87C at 100% load with 2350rpm CPU fan speed. That's very high considering my room is at a constant 20C. I immediately re-did thermal paste and went into bios to temporarily set CPU fan to 100% speed at all temperatures. Then I opened both side panels on my case to eliminate the possibility of inadequate case air flow. After a few benchmark runs, the peak temp is still 85C with 2395rpm (100%) fan speed. I need to use the computer for work every day. I can' wait for delivery for a new cooler. So I bought a random secondhand cooler with a larger heat sink on facebook marketplace. It happens to be a Cooler Master Hyper 212X. The 100% load temp immediately improves by 20 whole degrees celsius afterwards.

 

Now I'm mildly pissed. Was I given bad advise? Do I have grounds to ask for refund? What if they say things like "Your CPU isn't throttling at 87C. Our suggested hardware is adequate."? Or is 87C a widely accepted CPU temp now? Any ideas?

its fine but i would still get a better cooler like a aio (all in one water cooler) but if you are looking for quietness then be quiet! Dark Rock 4, BK021  or the    be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, BK022 but for the ultimate air cooler is the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.Black be quite also has cases to if you are looking for no noise 

[WoodenMarker]

15 hours ago, Stan2292 said:

i just quickly did a benchmark. CPUID tells me all 6 cores reached 4591mhz. is that looking normal for 11500 or does it look motherboard OC'd?

The single / dual-core boost clocks should be up to 4.6ghz. All-core boost is 4.2ghz. If it's any higher when all cores are at load, there's probably a setting that's raising the turbo clock speed. 4.6ghz all-core boost is very good for performance. 

[Stan2292]

2 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

The single / dual-core boost clocks should be up to 4.6ghz. All-core boost is 4.2ghz. If it's any higher when all cores are at load, there's probably a setting that's raising the turbo clock speed. 4.6ghz all-core boost is very good for performance. 

I think CPUID only records max core clock reached. It doesn't tell me whether all 6 cores were reaching it at the same time or was it 1 or 2 at a time though. When I have time, I might redo the experiment while staring at the real-time core speed. That should tell me a bit more I reckon.