Ryzen 5 7600X Air Cooler Recommendation(s)

[Crosseyed Sniper]

Hi,

 

I'm in the process of gathering components for my new build, which will be built around the Ryzen 5 7600x. Do you have any good air cooler recommendations for the 7600X? I have a short list of 5 or 6 (Be Quiet! and Noctua) coolers I am considering.

 

Thanks!

[Dukesilver27-]

When in doubt, go with Deepcool AK620.

[Bombastinator]

Doesn’t the 7600 come with a stock cooler?  
 

I put an assassin120 on a 12700 because I thought I could overclock it (yes I know it’s a non-k chip.  It’s a long story.)  As it sits I used the cpu fan port for something else because the thing doesn’t break 60°c with no fans at all. Is there a wattage rating for thing from somewhere other than AMD? (The manufacturers aren’t reliable for such things) iirc the 3700 was actually something in the mid to upper 80s.  The 3600 was below its 65w claim. The 5600 was a bit above it.  One would assume that the 7600 will continue this trend, but it will still probably use less power than a 3700, which means whatever stock cooler they are putting on it will work stock, because they’ve already got a design that can cool a 3700. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Crosseyed Sniper]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Doesn’t the 7600 come with a stock cooler?  

No included cooler. You can buy the 7700X with, or without a cooler. Have not seen the 7600X being sold with one, yet.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Crosseyed Sniper said:

No included cooler. You can buy the 7700X with, or without a cooler. Have not seen the 7600X being sold with one, yet.

Then a prism or equivalent will probably work fine, assuming that is what they are putting on 7700s.  A 7700x is going to be hotter than a 7600x Something in the $25-40 range I suspect will do more cooling than is useful.  I Haven’t seen anything on overclocking yet.  Zen2 didn’t overclock usefully for beans.  Zen3 apparently overclocked a little bit. PBO and that was it, generally. Which is a bit better than zen2 but not much.  Haven’t heard word one about the 7600 though.  Assuming that it’s a bit better than zen3, whatever they are putting in the 7700x boxes will do fine.  Iirc the 3700x stock cooler was good for a bit under 100 watts. Zen4 in general takes a different approach though.  It will just boost and boost more till it hits 95c every time.  I’ve heard of people putting 3 fan water coolers on it to keep it from being able to, which is a much larger envelope than air coolers are capable of.  So maybe 3fan water, maybe whatever you want.  If you’re using it to play games you could probably just slap a stealth on it and your cpu would still run rings around your gpu, unless you’re going for the whole “I want a bajillion fps at 1080p!” Thing which almost no one actually does.

 

If you want as much air cooling as will fit, probably a dh15 or a leGrande Macho. They’re about $80.  But if you want air it’s gonna be 95c    unless you take other steps which don’t have anything to do with the cooler.  There are I understand ways to deal with this like undervolting and stuff.  I didn’t pay a lot of attention.  There are long videos on the subject which claim it can be done.  The impression I am getting though is that it kind of doesn’t matter unless you go way big.  I looked for bang/buck in air coolers recently and settled on an assassin 120 for $35. Turns out it’s way too much cooler for a non k intel chip.  So much so that fans on it are pointless.  Which is nice I guess.  In fairness I did think I was going to OC it.  I could still do that but there’s no real use to it.  It runs rings around my gpu anyway as it is.  What do I need?  Faster rings?

Edited December 9, 2022 by Bombastinator

[WoodenMarker]

What case and ram are you using? 

Where are you shopping/ located ? Budget?

[freeagent]

I would pass on Le Grand Macho RT and other older coolers. If looking at Thermalright you want either a PA120 or FC140. FC140 is the better cooler by about 5-8c give or take.

[QuantumSingularity]

Can't go wrong with NH-D15. I like the original more than the chromax black, but both are the best air you can get.

[YellowJersey]

I recently slapped an NH-D15S (single fan) on my 7700X. Works great and nice and quiet. Idle temps around 28C. Gaming temps around 60C. I haven't put a full all-core load on it yet, but I'm pretty satisfied with my decision. Plus, it came with thermal paste. It's probably overkill, but I like knowing that I can likely carry it forward to a future build.

[freeagent]

57 minutes ago, QuantumSingularity said:

but both are the best air you can get

No they aren't

 

 

[person123456789]

20 hours ago, Crosseyed Sniper said:

Hi,

 

I'm in the process of gathering components for my new build, which will be built around the Ryzen 5 7600x. Do you have any good air cooler recommendations for the 7600X? I have a short list of 5 or 6 (Be Quiet! and Noctua) coolers I am considering.

 

Thanks!

Noctua NH-D15

[Bombastinator]

6 hours ago, freeagent said:

I would pass on Le Grand Macho RT and other older coolers. If looking at Thermalright you want either a PA120 or FC140. FC140 is the better cooler by about 5-8c give or take.

The point was that all of them from the tiniest stock cooler to the most monsterous 6 pipe (my memory is the leGrande actually has 7) are going to produce the same final temp.  95c.  My memory is that pretty much all the big air coolers no matter who made them were all pretty similar cooling wise.  And a lot less than 5-8c seperate them.  There’s just a very specific number of cubic centimeters of volume that an air cooler may inhabit.  All the big air coolers inhabited as much as there was and that meant they all had pretty much the same amount of fin surface area to throw heat into the atmosphere with.  It’s not magic. How they differed were more what their mounting system was and how they dealt with fast or slow air much more that what temps they would hit.  They all would have probably had a lot more than 6 pipes but the CPUs were only so big. The leGrande Macho does 7, but it does it by having slightly smaller pipes. It does kind of make me wonder what you could do with a really large cpu like a threadtripper.  How many pipes would be “solid copper all the way” on one of those?  An actually larger cooling envelope.. or maybe not.  There is still various pieces and parts surrounding the cpu and one can only go so high.  Thermo dynamics is a law, not just a suggestion.

[Crosseyed Sniper]

19 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

What case and ram are you using? 

Where are you shopping/ located ? Budget?

RAM will most likely be the G.Skill Trident Z5 NEO Series (AMD Expo) 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin SDRAM DDR5 6000 CL30-38-38-96 and the short lists of cases I am looking at are the following;

 

Lian Li O11 AIR MINI

 

Thermaltake Divider 370 TG

 

Phanteks Eclipse G500A Performance

 

Unsure about case fans to consider, unless any included case fans seem good enough. I'll use the stock fans if they get the job done.

 

I'm in the United States, and not looking to spend over $70 for an air cooler. And I don't care if it has RGB or not. Would probably disable it anyway. Below are the air coolers I am considering. I listed two be Quiet Pure Rock 2 coolers (one with RGB and one without) because I've seen them both out of stock, so I'll get either one that is in stock when I go to purchase.

 

be quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX

be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black

be quiet! BK024 Dark Rock Slim

 

Noctua NH-U12S chromax.Black

 

Thanks for the help everyone. 

 

[freeagent]

12 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The point was that all of them from the tiniest stock cooler to the most monsterous 6 pipe (my memory is the leGrande actually has 7) are going to produce the same final temp.  95c.

Yeah.. maybe. I don't have one so I cant say for sure...

 

12 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

There’s just a very specific number of cubic centimeters of volume that an air cooler may inhabit.  All the big air coolers inhabited as much as there was and that meant they all had pretty much the same amount of fin surface area to throw heat into the atmosphere with.  It’s not magic. How they differed were more what their mounting system was and how they dealt with fast or slow air much more that what temps they would hit.

Its not just about fin area though, a lot does have to do with Cold plate design, overall mass, heat pipes, their count, and their diameter. For example, an 8mm pipe is better than a 6mm pipe. 40w vs 60w, no brainer Their mounting system is what set them apart from other, if you are speaking of Noctua. It was more of an ease of installation thing. You have to remember, people are dumb, easier is better right?

 

12 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

The leGrande Macho does 7, but it does it by having slightly smaller pipes.

It actually has 7x 6mm pipes. Its an awesome cooler, for older CPUs

[QuantumSingularity]

Also fin thickness plays a role as well. Thicker and denser fin array means more mass, thus more thermal capacity, but slower heat dissipation. Also different metals and alloys disperse heat at a different rate. I remember once upon a time there were all copper CPU heatsinks from Zalmann and one other company which i forgot the name of. They were incredibly fragile and finicky to install, but boy did they cool the sh!t out of the old CPUs. My Athlon X2 had one of those and was incredible. They also look pretty sick:

 

 

As you can see though, the fin array is a lot less dense and the fins themselves were a lot thicker. If you wonder why no one makes them anymore - they are just too expensive to manufacture. A big all copper heatsink like this will easily surpass the price of a 280mm AIO and maybe even some lower tier 360mm

 

P.S

Just found the company - it was called Thermalright. Appearently they are still in business, but not producing awesome stuff like this:

 

 

 

As you can imagine, these being all copper used to weight quite some more than aluminum fins heatsinks. Mine was about 1.3kg, but this last one is a 2kg monster

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, freeagent said:

Yeah.. maybe. I don't have one so I cant say for sure...

 

Its not just about fin area though, a lot does have to do with Cold plate design, overall mass, heat pipes, their count, and their diameter. For example, an 8mm pipe is better than a 6mm pipe. 40w vs 60w, no brainer Their mounting system is what set them apart from other, if you are speaking of Noctua. It was more of an ease of installation thing. You have to remember, people are dumb, easier is better right?

 

It actually has 7x 6mm pipes. Its an awesome cooler, for older CPUs

Cold plate design stuff is going to be about actual chip location for a given cpu under the ihs, but with those big air coolers they’re all basically solid pipe down there so while it might affect which pipe is doing the most cooling and therefore where in the fin stack is getting that bit more heat it’s not going to matter near as much as with a, say, 3 pipe cooler.  The cold plate thing is to some degree more or less luck.  If a given cold plate is normally not very flat but you just happen to get a good one that is, in the test it’s going to make a lot of difference. Likewise with a normally very consistantly flat plate that just happens to have a hair on it or something.  GN has apparently talked about maybe having a lapped comparison too to negate that.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Bombastinator

[Bombastinator]

5 hours ago, QuantumSingularity said:

Also fin thickness plays a role as well. Thicker and denser fin array means more mass, thus more thermal capacity, but slower heat dissipation. Also different metals and alloys disperse heat at a different rate. I remember once upon a time there were all copper CPU heatsinks from Zalmann and one other company which i forgot the name of. They were incredibly fragile and finicky to install, but boy did they cool the sh!t out of the old CPUs. My Athlon X2 had one of those and was incredible. They also look pretty sick:

 

 

As you can see though, the fin array is a lot less dense and the fins themselves were a lot thicker. If you wonder why no one makes them anymore - they are just too expensive to manufacture. A big all copper heatsink like this will easily surpass the price of a 280mm AIO and maybe even some lower tier 360mm

 

P.S

Just found the company - it was called Thermalright. Appearently they are still in business, but not producing awesome stuff like this:

 

 

 

As you can imagine, these being all copper used to weight quite some more than aluminum fins heatsinks. Mine was about 1.3kg, but this last one is a 2kg monster

The closer the fins are together the faster the air has to move and the louder the fan is.  Coolers designed for fanless operation often have very thick widely spaced fins because the air moves more slowly.  I bought a cheapass assassin 120 for like $35.  It’s a six pipe double tower double fan cooler. I took the fans off and put them in the box though and the thing is cooling a 12700 if anything excessively. Fin spacing happens to be good enough in my case I guess.

[freeagent]

Well, I have:

 

TRUE 2007, Le Grand Macho RT, True Spirit 140 Power, TRUE Black Rev 4, Peerless Assassin 120, Frost Commander 140.

 

At least  on 7nm AMD, my newer Thermalright coolers outperform my older, larger coolers quite handily, by more than 12c in some cases when looking at FC140 vs LGMRT.  And with my samples, my LGMRT is 5c better on Intel than TS140P. All of the older Thermalright coolers that I have were better than my old D14 was on X58, including my TRUE from 2007.

 

I also have copious amounts of airflow 

[Bombastinator]

50 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Well, I have:

 

TRUE 2007, Le Grand Macho RT, True Spirit 140 Power, TRUE Black Rev 4, Peerless Assassin 120, Frost Commander 140.

 

At least  on 7nm AMD, my newer Thermalright coolers outperform my older, larger coolers quite handily, by more than 12c in some cases when looking at FC140 vs LGMRT.  And with my samples, my LGMRT is 5c better on Intel than TS140P. All of the older Thermalright coolers that I have were better than my old D14 was on X58, including my TRUE from 2007.

 

I also have copious amounts of airflow 

True in 2017 too. (Which is what you might have meant).  I wasn’t looking for a machine in 2007 so I have no idea what was available.  I did that in 2002, 20014, and just recently.  80’s to 2000s I only had macs so there’s a big bite out of that. AMD ryzen and intel Xgen are different beasts.  The ihs is at a different height and the chips are in different places.  When AMD went chiplet it didn’t start out as a big deal but became one.  This is also true of threadripper for that matter. The impression I got was that zen2 wasn’t very different from 10th gen that way.  Could well have diverged after that, especially with 12th and 13th which is a different form factor not just a different socket.  Big air is still generically big air though.  You’ve got ~6 pipe coolers(to include the occasional 7 and 5), ~4 pipe coolers, ~3 pipe coolers, and the finned heat sink stuff.  Each section behaves more or less similarly. The most movement is in the ~3 heat pipe stuff brand to brand, but less so with 4 pipe and with 6 pipe there is very little.  The numbers you are quoting are a bit less than a single pipe jump.  It may be the cold plates on those coolers need to be messed with to keep up with shifting ihs deformation and hotspots. No great strides have been made in fluid mechanics though that apply to this.  So fins are fins are fins. I notice the leGrande Macho isn’t even sold anymore.  I assume the change from the dh14 to the dh15 was nexus’s move.  If what you are saying is true they need a dh16.  I was just using them as examples of big air.  I’m trying to describe cooler classes not specific model names.  They were just examples.  

Edited December 11, 2022 by Bombastinator

[WoodenMarker]

18 minutes ago, freeagent said:

At least  on 7nm AMD, my newer Thermalright coolers outperform my older, larger coolers quite handily, by more than 12c in some cases when looking at FC140 vs LGMRT.  And with my samples, my LGMRT is 5c better on Intel than TS140P.

Not surprising if you're testing on AM4. Many older Thermalright coolers had coldplates optimized for monolithic dies from Intel. 

10 hours ago, Crosseyed Sniper said:

Unsure about case fans to consider, unless any included case fans seem good enough. I'll use the stock fans if they get the job done.

be quiet! Pure Rock 2 FX
be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black
be quiet! BK024 Dark Rock Slim

Noctua NH-U12S chromax.Black

The stock case fans should be fine for most systems. What gpu are you using?

Any of them would be fine. 

If you just want something that works, an Assassin King 120 SE is a good option: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RkC48d/thermalright-assassin-king-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-ak120-se-d6

[Bombastinator]

For what it’s worth I went for some arctics recently for both horizontal and vertical stuff.  When a fan is vertical the big thing is blade quality.  All the various bearing types work ok on f vertical fans which most case fans are.  It’s the horizontal fans where things can get important.  A generic sleeve bearing is fine for vertical mount, because gravity keeps things lubricated.  In a horizontal mount though the cheapest bearings which are regular sleeve and one bearing fans (if the bearing isn’t on the side that supports the fan) can have problems over time because instead of helping gravity hurts them.  So for case fans as long as they’re not top or bottom fans it just doesn’t matter much.  Blade quality still can though for noise.  Cheap fans can have cheap plastics or poor molding leaving flash, which can cause vibration and therefore noise problems.  Doesn’t affect longevity of course. Just how hard they blow and how much noise they make doing it.  I did see some fans that were really cheap, but they were only available in 140mm.  I personally would go with whatever is cheap, within limits. The more rigid and carefully made a fan is the less noise it will make.   The arctics were made out of a fairly rigid plastic, looked well cast, and had fwb bearings so they could handle horizontal mount.  And in a 5 pack they were dirt cheap.  I only used 4, but even with having to waste a fan it was still a good deal.

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, QuantumSingularity said:

Also fin thickness plays a role as well. Thicker and denser fin array means more mass, thus more thermal capacity, but slower heat dissipation. Also different metals and alloys disperse heat at a different rate. I remember once upon a time there were all copper CPU heatsinks from Zalmann and one other company which i forgot the name of. They were incredibly fragile and finicky to install, but boy did they cool the sh!t out of the old CPUs. My Athlon X2 had one of those and was incredible. They also look pretty sick:

 

 

As you can see though, the fin array is a lot less dense and the fins themselves were a lot thicker. If you wonder why no one makes them anymore - they are just too expensive to manufacture. A big all copper heatsink like this will easily surpass the price of a 280mm AIO and maybe even some lower tier 360mm

 

P.S

Just found the company - it was called Thermalright. Appearently they are still in business, but not producing awesome stuff like this:

 

 

 

As you can imagine, these being all copper used to weight quite some more than aluminum fins heatsinks. Mine was about 1.3kg, but this last one is a 2kg monster

That’s a really nice looking cooler.  Copper has better thermal conductivity than aluminum too. Unfortunately it’s also really expensive. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that thing was over a Benjamin.

[Crosseyed Sniper]

1 hour ago, WoodenMarker said:

Not surprising if you're testing on AM4. Many older Thermalright coolers had coldplates optimized for monolithic dies from Intel. 

The stock case fans should be fine for most systems. What gpu are you using?

Any of them would be fine. 

If you just want something that works, an Assassin King 120 SE is a good option: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RkC48d/thermalright-assassin-king-se-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-ak120-se-d6

No GPU atm. May go with a 3070 or wait a little longer and see what else NVIDIA releases with their 40 series. 

 

Thanks again, everyone. 

[freeagent]

1 hour ago, WoodenMarker said:

Not surprising if you're testing on AM4. Many older Thermalright coolers had coldplates optimized for monolithic dies from Intel.

Indeed, since I was with Intel for about 15 years or so. The cool thing about Zen 2 is that it is easier to cool than Zen 3. Because with Le Grand Macho RT I was able to run a 3600XT at 4400MHz static at 1.2675v and was Linpack stable with no fan on the cooler. I tried that with my 5600X when I got it and stopped it shortly after I started

[Bombastinator]

50 minutes ago, freeagent said:

Indeed, since I was with Intel for about 15 years or so. The cool thing about Zen 2 is that it is easier to cool than Zen 3. Because with Le Grand Macho RT I was able to run a 3600XT at 4400MHz static at 1.2675v and was Linpack stable with no fan on the cooler. I tried that with my 5600X when I got it and stopped it shortly after I started

Heh.  I thought the motherboard I bought could to that clock trick to OC non-k CPUs.  I was misinformed.  I considered buying the correct motherboard, but The cpu is so fast that at my (admittedly limited) needs there is just no need to overclock it.  So I tested the cooler I bought to overclock it with no fans in it and it barely gets warm.  I have yet to hit 60°c with the thing.  So I took the fans out again and put them back in the box.  They just don’t have a use, and it was wasting a motherboard port. I watched a thing recently where they talked about GPUs not progressing as fast as cpus.  While technically true, super sampling has done astounding things.  I can run at 4k high refresh with my cpu at less than 30% and my gpu at half it’s rated wattage.  I’m not overclocking I’m underclocking.  It’s crazy.  What I think there needs to be is not a cpu or gpu move but a monitor move to 3d.  That might work my system a bit.  As it is though there’s just no need.  I totally get why the high end cpus and GPUs aren’t selling that well.  What would one DO with them?

Edited December 11, 2022 by Bombastinator