i9-12900K cooling option suggestions

[Arjun57]

Hi there, 

I am planning on getting the i9-12900K, but have a few doubts regarding cooling. I have a few coolers in mind, but I am not sure if they are good or not. I plan to use the pc for blender, fluid sims and related, and light gaming.

Here are my options for coolers:

• Thermaltake peerless assasin
• Cooler master ML240L
• Arctic Freezer 34 esports duo
• Arctic Liquid Freezer III 240 AIO
• MSI MAG CORELIQUID M360

Any other cooler suggestions are welcome, if they are moderately pricey.

 

My current location is in India

[cleric_warlock]

The arctic liquid freezer iii 420 is probably your best bet since i've been successful in using the the arctic liquid freezer ii 420 for the last 2 years to cool my 12900KS. I would suggest selecting your case so that it can fit this radiator since the 12900k/ks can put out quite a lot of heat. As you can see in my signature, I modded my aio with some pretty overkill fans, but the stock fans should also work just fine.

[Arjun57]

1 minute ago, cleric_warlock said:

The arctic liquid freezer iii 420 is probably your best bet since i've been successful in using the the arctic liquid freezer ii 420 for the last 2 years to cool my 12900KS. I would suggest selecting your case so that it can fit this radiator since the 12900k/ks can put out quite a lot of heat.

Hmm.... Alright will check it out, though might have bit of budget problems. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion

[cleric_warlock]

6 minutes ago, Arjun57 said:

Hmm.... Alright will check it out, though might have bit of budget problems. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion

From what I can see, the 420 model is only $10ish more expensive, and since you'll be running blender, which is cpu intensive, you're going to want the thermal headroom that the 420 model will give you. I should also add that I'm an engineer who has used my 12900ks computer pretty extensively for cad/finite element analysis and blender - having the biggest radiator you can get will allow you to keep fan speed and noise down during long workloads.

[Arjun57]

2 minutes ago, cleric_warlock said:

From what I can see, the 420 model is only $10ish more expensive, and since you'll be running blender, which is cpu intensive, you're going to want the thermal headroom that the 420 model will give you.

Well here in India, the price difference is actually more than 10$. The 420 is roughly twice the price of the 240, but I will keep the 420 in my watchlist none the less.

[cleric_warlock]

1 minute ago, Arjun57 said:

Well here in India, the price difference is actually more than 10$. The 420 is roughly twice the price of the 240, but I will keep the 420 in my watchlist none the less.

That is quite the price difference, but my edit in my last comment about noise still stands - you will appreciate being able to run all of the fans at lower speeds.

[Arjun57]

1 minute ago, cleric_warlock said:

That is quite the price difference, but my edit in my last comment about noise still stands - you will appreciate being able to run all of the fans at lower speeds.

Would the 280 be enough for mild blender work?

[cleric_warlock]

Just now, Arjun57 said:

Would the 280 be enough for mild blender work?

Blender is significantly more intense than any of the other cpu bound programs i actually use and will cause the cpu to generate quite a lot of heat even during proxy building for relatively small video files. Intel 12th gen cpus are very power hungry and heat intensive, so the cooling solution is definitely not the place to be looking for savings.

[Arjun57]

1 minute ago, cleric_warlock said:

Blender is significantly more intense than any of the other cpu bound programs i actually use and will cause the cpu to generate quite a lot of heat even during proxy building for relatively small video files. Intel 12th gen cpus are very power hungry and heat intensive, so the cooling solution is definitely not the place to be looking for savings.

Alright. Thanks for the info

[TatamiMatt]

4 hours ago, Arjun57 said:

Alright. Thanks for the info

Whats the price of a 360mm version, usually much more case compatible and cheaper

[Arjun57]

42 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Whats the price of a 360mm version, usually much more case compatible and cheaper

For the Artic Freeze one, 360mm is closer in price to the 240mm.. The MSI one is basically the same price as the Arctic freeze 240

[TatamiMatt]

16 minutes ago, Arjun57 said:

For the Artic Freeze one, 360mm is closer in price to the 240mm.. The MSI one is basically the same price as the Arctic freeze 240

Eh, i wouldnt really go for the MSI one, are there any thermalright AIOs available?

[Arjun57]

31 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Eh, i wouldnt really go for the MSI one, are there any thermalright AIOs available?

There is a Thermaltake one(360 mm), not sure about thermalright

[TatamiMatt]

6 minutes ago, Arjun57 said:

There is a Thermaltake one(360 mm), not sure about thermalright

What website(s) are you using to look/will be buying from?

 

[Arjun57]

Just now, TatamiMatt said:

What website(s) are you using to look/will be buying from?

 

Amazon.in flipkart.com MDcomputers.in vedantcomputers.com primeabgb.com 

These are the main ones i am checking.

[TatamiMatt]

1 hour ago, Arjun57 said:

Amazon.in flipkart.com MDcomputers.in vedantcomputers.com primeabgb.com 

These are the main ones i am checking.

What about this one?
https://www.amazon.in/Thermalright-360-White-V3-Bearings/dp/B0CFYP8DC1/ref=sr_1_17?crid=1IUENQRXG7ZJL&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.MXbU1t-dO5U9cSfEW3wn8-9AQDi4zeACFd4WX-bdtE4NSagiZlMi_ZW7RV7HCCeUBoskEm16UMgoxPkpo-4NCqKRwGGshjQVFSbqP7iiNQOa6Bld0BhmUmCDt8kvanoQYwVl4UyYu-pkqD1xl0goSoJtCOGxrbCEx2zU5FkXlEtp_XkHrCpmbAQMQOnMTFm_7iG8oS4ov3fYE0_85vYJwENtSCW4W2ZI-GxlMprJdPw.8979_l93n-Ge21vaYvjjKm432Bl6i68HomFjH3rF57c&dib_tag=se&keywords=360+AIO&qid=1739974146&sprefix=360+ai%2Caps%2C516&sr=8-17

[Arjun57]

46 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

What about this one?
https://www.amazon.in/Thermalright-360-White-V3-Bearings/dp/B0CFYP8DC1/ref=sr_1_17?crid=1IUENQRXG7ZJL&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.MXbU1t-dO5U9cSfEW3wn8-9AQDi4zeACFd4WX-bdtE4NSagiZlMi_ZW7RV7HCCeUBoskEm16UMgoxPkpo-4NCqKRwGGshjQVFSbqP7iiNQOa6Bld0BhmUmCDt8kvanoQYwVl4UyYu-pkqD1xl0goSoJtCOGxrbCEx2zU5FkXlEtp_XkHrCpmbAQMQOnMTFm_7iG8oS4ov3fYE0_85vYJwENtSCW4W2ZI-GxlMprJdPw.8979_l93n-Ge21vaYvjjKm432Bl6i68HomFjH3rF57c&dib_tag=se&keywords=360+AIO&qid=1739974146&sprefix=360+ai%2Caps%2C516&sr=8-17

Holy Tomorrow! I had not seen that. Thanks for pointing that out. Just one Q regarding this, would you suggest this or the Air coolers(like deepcool assasin 4 or the Noctua NH-D15) if i had to do a m-atx build? (M-ATX is not neccesary form factor, but i might travel quite a bit, so in case i wanted to)

[TatamiMatt]

44 minutes ago, Arjun57 said:

Holy Tomorrow! I had not seen that. Thanks for pointing that out. Just one Q regarding this, would you suggest this or the Air coolers(like deepcool assasin 4 or the Noctua NH-D15) if i had to do a m-atx build? (M-ATX is not neccesary form factor, but i might travel quite a bit, so in case i wanted to)

Air coolers are a fab choice and the one id usually recommend, but only a select few, say 250W+ CPUs that id recommend AIO's as air just cant keep up with top end water cooling, its very close but at the top end of each its hard not to notice a difference, its mainly just LGA1700 i9s in that group mind you, very small group. But there are plenty of mATX cases that still support 360mm AIOs and are small enough to be, at least somewhat, easily transportable

 

You could absolutely go for air cooling if you wanted to limit your CPUs power just a tad however, should be quite minimal performance loss if you just take the top end off and tweak so you can run at full while staying under the temp limit

[Arjun57]

2 minutes ago, TatamiMatt said:

Air coolers are a fab choice and the one id usually recommend, but only a select few, say 250W+ CPUs that id recommend AIO's as air just cant keep up with top end water cooling, its very close but at the top end of each its hard not to notice a difference, its mainly just LGA1700 i9s in that group mind you, very small group. But there are plenty of mATX cases that still support 360mm AIOs and are small enough to be, at least somewhat, easily transportable

Alright. Thanks for the help mate!