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I'm looking to have air cooling hardware for high end CPUs that will allow me to verify that high end builds both POST and overclock well enough before i go to the trouble of getting them built into a custom water loop final setup. Most high end GPUs seem to be coming with decent enough out of the box cooling solutions, so I'm not particularly worried about any GPU cooling solutions for this setup. I have the test bench and some 120mm and 140mm 3000rpm noctua fans already and need a high capacity air cooler that can be used with mounting kits for future sockets far into the future while providing generous clearance for RAM and PCIE slots.

 

I've been looking mainly at the Noctua NH-D15S and the NH-U12S so far - the D15S seems like it has what I want (like it can handle 250ish tdp with a few of those powerful fans) but I'm worried that i might run into ram/pcie clearance problems with it down the road. The U12S seems compact enough, but I'm worried that it will not support a high enough tdp for the high end builds i'll be testing. Is there a better option that I'm missing here? Thermal solutions at this test bench stage can't involve anything that would endanger the success of a return like LM or delidding of any kind. I also don't care if my setup sounds like a jet engine because it's temporary, i just need it to cool effectively and be uncomplicated to setup and take apart.

Current PC:

  • CPU
    Intel i9-12900KS
  • Motherboard
    Asus Rog Maximus Z690 Hero (BIOS Version 2403)
  • RAM
    Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6600 MT/s, 2 x 16GB, (CL32-39-39-76, 1.40V), CMK32GX5M2X6600C32 for gaming or
    G.Skill Ripjaws DDR5-6000 MT/s, 2 x 32GB, (CL30-40-40-96, 1.40V), F5-6000J3040G32GX2-RS5K for heavy multitasking
  • GPU
    Aorus Xtreme Waterforce RTX 3090 TI
  • Case
    Corsair 7000D Airflow
  • Storage
    2 x 2TB WD Black sn850 NVME SSDs
    1 x 4TB Sabrent Rocket NVME SSD
  • PSU
    EVGA Supernova 1600W P2, Fully Modular
  • Display(s)
    34" Alienware AW3423DW, 32" Alienware AW3225QF
  • Cooling
    Arctic Liquid Freezer ii 420, Built in 360mm gpu rad, 7 x 140mm Noctua NF-A14's (4 used as full case fan set, 3 used to upgrade CPU rad fans), 4 x 120mm Noctua NF-F12's (3 used to upgrade GPU rad stock fans, 1 used to fill last remaining case fan slot)
  • Keyboard
    Custom Keychron Q6 Pro
  • Mouse
    Asus Rog Spatha X
  • Sound
    SteelSeries Arctis Pro + Game DAC Wired Headset
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro
  • PCPartPicker URL

 

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https://linustechtips.com/topic/1596259-cpu-test-bench-air-cooling-solution-needed/
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2 minutes ago, cleric_warlock said:

I'm looking to have air cooling hardware for high end CPUs that will allow me to verify that high end builds both POST and overclock well enough before i go to the trouble of getting them built into a custom water loop final setup. Most high end GPUs seem to be coming with decent enough out of the box cooling solutions, so I'm not particularly worried about any GPU cooling solutions for this setup. I have the test bench and some 120mm and 140mm 3000rpm noctua fans already and need a high capacity air cooler that can be used with mounting kits for future sockets far into the future while providing generous clearance for RAM and PCIE slots.

 

I've been looking mainly at the Noctua NH-D15S and the NH-U12S so far - the D15S seems like it has what I want (like it can handle 250ish tdp with a few of those powerful fans) but I'm worried that i might run into ram/pcie clearance problems with it down the road. The U12S seems compact enough, but I'm worried that it will not support a high enough tdp for the high end builds i'll be testing. Is there a better option that I'm missing here? Thermal solutions at this test bench stage can't involve anything that would endanger the success of a return like LM or delidding of any kind. I also don't care if my setup sounds like a jet engine because it's temporary, i just need it to cool effectively and be uncomplicated to setup and take apart.

Can't you just get a 360mm AIO instead?  I dont know what CPU's you are testing or overclocking but if you want the extra headroom to match a custom loop, an large AIO is the way to go.

And its not going to be a problem with RAM.

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Just a 360 or 420mm aio? Like a 13900k or 14900k can push a nhd15 beyond its limits at stock already so kinda pointless for your usecase.

 

An arctic liquid freezer III 360/420 is less than a nhd15 and BETTER

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22 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Just a 360 or 420mm aio? Like a 13900k or 14900k can push a nhd15 beyond its limits at stock already so kinda pointless for your usecase.

 

An arctic liquid freezer III 360/420 is less than a nhd15 and BETTER

also the thermalright 360 aios with similar perf at 50$ ish and still make the d15 look like a complete joke which in this day and age is quite unsurprising considering the phantom spirit is already beating the old d15 for only 36$ and that fancy new gen2 isnt that much better either (still gets slaughtered by a 360 let alone a 420), the u12s is even more of an irrelevant joke compared to the d15

 

theres also the benifit of easy installation and no clearence issues since aio blocks are very light and short, heck if you dont have mounting hardware you can mount it with zipties in a pinch unlike a regular tower thatd be extremely annoying to ziptie if you can even ziptie it in the first place

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