Cooling upgrade advice

[ComradeBard]

Budget (including currency): Id like to keep it around 130 euros, but more i can go with more

Country:  Slovenia (buying from amazon.de preferably)

I need a cooler upgrade for my 13700k. Right now im looking at a ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro, but i read in several places its not as good on intel as amd bc of the mounting.
Any recommendations for another good cooler? i dont mind going with air cooling, but from what I've seen the 360 aios outperform them
Build: 

13700k cpu, Factal Design North case, Asus Tuf 4070ti Super, 4 nf12p fans (3 in, 1 out), Peerless assassin cpu cooler 

[Dr. Will0hlep]

On 6/22/2025 at 1:19 PM, ComradeBard said:

I dont mind going with air cooling, but from what I've seen the 360 aios outperform them

It is not really this simple.

 

An AIO can store more heat and therefore it can often allow a chip to boost for longer. However, the equalibrium temperiture can be very similar between Tower coolers and AIOs.

 

Also, 360mm Rads arn't much better than 240mm rads. This is because AIOs at >240mm are limited by their CPU block, not their Radiator.

 

On 6/22/2025 at 1:19 PM, ComradeBard said:

Budget (including currency): Id like to keep it around 130 euros, but more i can go with more

Country:  Slovenia (buying from amazon.de preferably)

I need a cooler upgrade for my 13700k. Right now im looking at a ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro, but i read in several places its not as good on intel as amd bc of the mounting.
Any recommendations for another good cooler? i dont mind going with air cooling, but from what I've seen the 360 aios outperform them
Build: 

13700k cpu, Factal Design North case, Asus Tuf 4070ti Super, 4 nf12p fans (3 in, 1 out), Peerless assassin cpu cooler 

I honestly would expect a Peerless assassin to handel a 13700k just fine.

 

What temps are you actually seeing in day to day use?

 

If your staying below 95C, leave your Peerless assassin alone.

[podkall]

12 minutes ago, ComradeBard said:

I need a cooler upgrade for my 13700k. Right now im looking at a ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro, but i read in several places its not as good on intel as amd bc of the mounting.
Any recommendations for another good cooler? i dont mind going with air cooling, but from what I've seen the 360 aios outperform them
Build: 

13700k cpu, Factal Design North case, Asus Tuf 4070ti Super, 4 nf12p fans (3 in, 1 out), Peerless assassin cpu cooler 

Current cooler?

[Dr. Will0hlep]

Just now, podkall said:

Current cooler?

Peerless assassin (it is buried at the end of his orginal message, I missed it too)

[podkall]

 

Is that the dual tower 120 peerless assassin or a different one?

 

 

13 minutes ago, ComradeBard said:

I need a cooler upgrade for my 13700k.

Do you have bad temperatures? And if yes, did you always have bad temps with it?

[christian244]

25 minutes ago, ComradeBard said:

Budget (including currency): Id like to keep it around 130 euros, but more i can go with more

Country:  Slovenia (buying from amazon.de preferably)

I need a cooler upgrade for my 13700k. Right now im looking at a ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro, but i read in several places its not as good on intel as amd bc of the mounting.
Any recommendations for another good cooler? i dont mind going with air cooling, but from what I've seen the 360 aios outperform them
Build: 

13700k cpu, Factal Design North case, Asus Tuf 4070ti Super, 4 nf12p fans (3 in, 1 out), Peerless assassin cpu cooler 

I run a i9-12900k with an ROG Strix LC II 360mm AIO, works pretty well and keeps my CPU at (sometimes sub) 30 degree temps at idle, and keeps it pretty cool, below 60 (and thats being generous) degrees under load. While I'm not sure if this is available to you in your market, it's definitely worth looking into. If you're on a budget, look into the 240mm version, or something similar.

[Dr. Will0hlep]

3 minutes ago, christian244 said:

I run a i9-12900k with an ROG Strix LC II 360mm AIO, works pretty well and keeps my CPU at (sometimes sub) 30 degree temps at idle, and keeps it pretty cool, below 50 (and thats being generous) degrees under load. While I'm not sure if this is available to you in your market, it's definitely worth looking into. If you're on a budget, look into the 240mm version, or something similar.

I think this might be the wrong message to send until we've indentified for certain that there is an issue to be fixed.

 

Given the cooler and chip the OP has, he might have great temps already.

[ComradeBard]

10 minutes ago, podkall said:

 

Is that the dual tower 120 peerless assassin or a different one?

 

 

Do you have bad temperatures? And if yes, did you always have bad temps with it?

 

19 minutes ago, will0hlep said:

 

 

I honestly would expect a Peerless assassin to handel a 13700k just fine.

 

What temps are you actually seeing in day to day use?

 

If your staying below 95C, leave your Peerless assassin alone.

In games the Perless assasin is completley fine, but with exports or other cpu heavy loads can hit 100C. Cinebench basically puts it at a 100C and throttles it instantly.
It was always like this, i did change the paste once or twice from when i got it, and i keep the pc dust free

[strange13930]

1 hour ago, ComradeBard said:

 

In games the Perless assasin is completley fine, but with exports or other cpu heavy loads can hit 100C. Cinebench basically puts it at a 100C and throttles it instantly.
It was always like this, i did change the paste once or twice from when i got it, and i keep the pc dust free

have you messed with the fan curves?

[ComradeBard]

 

7 hours ago, strange13930 said:

have you messed with the fan curves?

I did, everything goes to 100% once cpu temps hit 80C.
My idle temps arent bad either, 45-47C at 25C ambient and it isnt loud. I was doing some testing with cyberpunk now, and the temps settled at over at around 95C after about and hour with a max cpu package power at 180W, note it didnt seem to throttle too much, p cores were still hitting 5,3.

Should i try reseating the cooler? The temps seem higher than they should be 

[freeagent]

I found PA120 to be lacking with my 5900X, PS120 did a bit better. I am using Thermalright AIO right now, it is pretty good. Would recommend.

 

When my 9900X is working, it sits between 240-260w. None of that weak stock stuff.

[ComradeBard]

Reseated the cpu cooler. Its a lot better, average in cyberpunk is under 80 now, but it still jumps to 100C from time to time, and cinebench still does it instantly. So what is a good cooler that can handle this cpu at 100% load without getting to 100C, preferably not over 90

[freeagent]

Probably none.

[Dr. Will0hlep]

6 hours ago, ComradeBard said:

Reseated the cpu cooler. Its a lot better, average in cyberpunk is under 80 now, but it still jumps to 100C from time to time, and cinebench still does it instantly. So what is a good cooler that can handle this cpu at 100% load without getting to 100C, preferably not over 90

My advice would be this: if it stays mostly below 100C in normal use (gaming and productivity) stick with the PA120.

 

You won't gain much by eliminating momentary spikes.

 

If however this is not the case, Gamer's Nexus has some great AIO reviews, which usually contain a leaderboard at the end.

 

I normally suggest going for a 240mm, becuase larger radators don't give much better performance. The bottleneck in any 240+mm AIO is the CPU cool plate.

 

The only time imo to get a 360mm would be if it fit better in your case and was a roughly equal price.

 

Overall, cause of how much power high end 12th, 13th, and 14th gen intel chips draw, I'm not such any cooler/AIO could completely eliminate thermal throttling.

[FocusNotFound404]

16 hours ago, will0hlep said:

My advice would be this: if it stays mostly below 100C in normal use (gaming and productivity) stick with the PA120.

 

You won't gain much by eliminating momentary spikes.

 

If however this is not the case, Gamer's Nexus has some great AIO reviews, which usually contain a leaderboard at the end.

 

I normally suggest going for a 240mm, becuase larger radators don't give much better performance. The bottleneck in any 240+mm AIO is the CPU cool plate.

 

The only time imo to get a 360mm would be if it fit better in your case and was a roughly equal price.

 

Overall, cause of how much power high end 12th, 13th, and 14th gen intel chips draw, I'm not such any cooler/AIO could completely eliminate thermal throttling.

240mm+ will give decently better performance if you are doing long sustained loads though, right? As you have a greater area for the heat to soak and dissipate 

[Dr. Will0hlep]

On 6/25/2025 at 2:53 PM, FocusNotFound404 said:

240mm+ will give decently better performance if you are doing long sustained loads though, right? As you have a greater area for the heat to soak and dissipate 

So, AIOs do have greater thermal mass and can therefore soak up more heat.

 

However, 240mm rads don't actually have a greater surface area for heat dissapation than good tower coolers. Take for example an NH-D15. It's volume of fins is 94mm+ tall by 150mm wide by 109mm thick. Meanwhile 240mm AIOs has at most 240mm by 120mm by 25mm of volume for fins. If you multiply those numbers up, you can see for yourself that the NH-D15 has far more volume of fins. Now, the fins in AIOs are typically densers. Also, AIOs (that are heat saturated) don't have a part of the cooler that is less efficent, where as the NH-D15's second tower is going to be less efficent than its first. But overall, it basically works out a good tower cooler will dissapate heat roughly as fast as a good 240mm AIO.

ETA: This also explains why 120mm AIOs are so bad. They are far worse at disapating heat, and they have less thermal mass.

 

For this reason, the only advantage of a 240mm rad over a tower cooler is that it can soak up more heat, buying you only a few extra seconds before you thermal throttle in most cases (although Noctua will argue that their NH-D15 dissapates heat faster than a 240mm rad, giving more thermal head room).

 

Now, you might be saying "Okay, but what about a 360mm rad, that must be able to dissapate more heat than a tower cooler or a 240mm rad", and you'd be right, it would dissapate more heat. But at this point you run up against a different limit; Even though thermal paste and cooper are way better than water at moving heat, they still can only move it so fast. As such, in 360mm rads the CPU block becomes the bottleneck.

 

Now, yes this does mean a bit more thermal head room (a handful of degrees) for the CPU than it would get with a 240mm rad or a tower cooler. And, those few degrees will mean you see a little less thermal throttling being applied, than with the tower cooler or 240mm rad. But it isn't typically a big difference.

 

So, in conclusion: yes, you will normally see better performance in long sustained loads with Rads than with tower coolers, but the difference isn't usually as much as you'd think.

 

ETA2: This, combined with price and reliability*, is typically why tower cooler still get recommended alot, even in more expensive builds.

*AIOs are much better than they used to be. They don't typically start leaking anymore, and they usually last a decently long time. However, when their pump fails, you are left without a PC for several days. Meanwhile, if a fan fails on your tower cooler, you can usually limp along just fine thanks to case fans.

[ComradeBard]

Thanks for the advice and sorry for the late answer, had insane hours at work the past few days, i did manage to do some research  during smoke breaks though

On 6/24/2025 at 11:17 PM, will0hlep said:

My advice would be this: if it stays mostly below 100C in normal use (gaming and productivity) stick with the PA120.

 

You won't gain much by eliminating momentary spikes.

 

If however this is not the case, Gamer's Nexus has some great AIO reviews, which usually contain a leaderboard at the end.

 

I normally suggest going for a 240mm, becuase larger radators don't give much better performance. The bottleneck in any 240+mm AIO is the CPU cool plate.

 

The only time imo to get a 360mm would be if it fit better in your case and was a roughly equal price.

 

Overall, cause of how much power high end 12th, 13th, and 14th gen intel chips draw, I'm not such any cooler/AIO could completely eliminate thermal throttling.

It peaks a bit more than im comfortable with, and the fans ramping is annoying so i decided to upgrade.

I watched a few reviews on GN ended up going for the liquid freeze 3 pro 360, it was discounted too so i got it for a 100.
Already have a plan for the PA, gonna give it to a buddy whose 5800x i had to throttle to get the temps under control

[ComradeBard]

Got the block, unfortunately it got damaged in shipping, managed to get it mounted but it looks like the pump is also dead, looks like il be using the PA for a while longer