5960X Cooling

[PeggersXtreme]

Hi, I have had a 5960X for about a year now running on a custom loop but I now want to make maintenance more simple and I want to downsize my case so was wondering what coolers are recommended for this CPU I was looking at the NZXT Kraken x61 but not sure if that is enough for the 5960x as I do have it overclocked.

[paprikman]

That's just not enough for such overclocked cpu. Stay with custom loop, it's way better than this AIO.

You can always do DIY mod for this case, if you need (you know, cut something, then weld it and so on).

[iBabySlapper]

Well, the 5960X only puts out about 140W OC'd, so I think a copper shim will do.

 

Just joking, any thicker 120 or 240mm AIO, or any air cooler with more than 6 heat pipes should do.

[PeggersXtreme]

3 minutes ago, paprikman said:

That's just not enough for such overclocked cpu. Stay with custom loop, it's way better than this AIO.

You can always do DIY mod for this case, if you need (you know, cut something, then weld it and so on).

If I downsized to single 360mm would that be enough for the 5960X then as I want to get the NZXT H440 case but need the hard drives in the front so would have to ditch my second 360mm

 

[done12many2]

13 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

Hi, I have had a 5960X for about a year now running on a custom loop but I now want to make maintenance more simple and I want to downsize my case so was wondering what coolers are recommended for this CPU I was looking at the NZXT Kraken x61 but not sure if that is enough for the 5960x as I do have it overclocked.

 

To be honest, any AIO is not going to be enough.

 

An overclocked 5960x throws out a ton of heat.  If I were you, I'd stick with the custom loop, but reconfigure it for your new case.  Radiator surface area or high fan speeds are really you're only two options.  Well, there's lower voltage/clock speed, but that's really not an option is it?  

[done12many2]

12 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

Well, the 5960X only puts out about 140W OC'd, so I think a copper shim will do.

 

Just joking, any thicker 120 or 240mm AIO, or any air cooler with more than 6 heat pipes should do.

 

Very wrong.

[done12many2]

12 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

If I downsized to single 360mm would that be enough for the 5960X then as I want to get the NZXT H440 case but need the hard drives in the front so would have to ditch my second 360mm

 

Yes.  Like I mentioned in my previous post.  It's more radiator surface area or more fan speed.  Pick your poison.  

[paprikman]

2 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

If I downsized to single 360mm would that be enough for the 5960X then as I want to get the NZXT H440 case but need the hard drives in the front so would have to ditch my second 360mm

 

You need at least 2 thick 360mm rads for this thing to make your watercooling worth it. If you want both power and small size, then watercooling and 5960X are not for you.

[iBabySlapper]

2 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

Very wrong.

Well, I used to cool a FX 9590 with a 240mm AIO and it did fine, and that's a much hotter CPU.

[PeggersXtreme]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

To be honest, any AIO is not going to be enough.

 

An overclocked 5960x throws out a ton of heat.  If I were you, I'd stick with the custom loop, but reconfigure it for your new case.  Radiator surface area or high fan speeds are really you're only two options.  Well, there's lower voltage/clock speed, but that's really not an option is it?  

At the moment I have the 5960X at 4.5Ghz 1.28v with the two Titan X (Maxwell) in the loop with dual 360mm 30mm Black ice rads but  hopefully in January/Feb the 1080ti will come out so I can go down to one card from the Titan X's (the heat and the SLI issues are annoying) and so it will be just the cpu in the loop on it's own as I will just air cool the gpu

[done12many2]

15 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

At the moment I have the 5960X at 4.5Ghz 1.28v with the two Titan X (Maxwell) in the loop with dual 360mm 30mm Black ice

 

To be honest, you're already running thinner that I'd be comfortable with.

 

15 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

hopefully in January/Feb the 1080ti will come out so I can go down to one card from the Titan X's (the heat and the SLI issues are annoying) and so it will be just the cpu in the loop on it's own as I will just air cool the gpu

 

With all GPUs removed from the loop, you should technically see a slight improvement with a single 360mm on your 5960x alone.  Two Maxwell Titan Xs put off a lot of heat so you'll probably see slightly cooler temps with a single 360mm on the 5960x by itself.

 

I can't imagine running a 1080Ti (if they actually make them) without water cooling.  

[done12many2]

20 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

Well, I used to cool a FX 9590 with a 240mm AIO and it did fine, and that's a much hotter CPU.

 

I'm not debating what chip runs "hotter."  I'm just saying that your "140W Oc'd" statement was wrong. 

 

You're confusing TDP for actual power usage and it doesn't work like that.

[iBabySlapper]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

I'm not debating what chip runs "hotter."  I'm just saying that your "140W Oc'd" statement was wrong. 

 

You're confusing TDP for actual power usage and it doesn't work like that.

I'm saying a 240mm AIO did fine with a far hotter CPU, so is fine with a colder one.

[PeggersXtreme]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

To be honest, you're already running thinner that I'd be comfortable with.

 

 

With all GPUs removed from the loop, you should technically see a slight improvement with a single rad on your 5960x alone.  Two Maxwell Titan Xs put off a lot of heat so you'll probably see slightly cooler temps with a single 360mm on the 5960x by itself.

 

I can't imagine running a 1080Ti (if they actually make them) without water cooling.  

I get good temps at the moment max I have seen my cpu hit is 68C and my gpu's hit the low 50's. I did consider changing things up a bit in my pc and going to a 6800k or completely platform to a 6700k as I no longer use my cpu for super heavy multicore stuff (no longer doing 3D rendering)

[Drak3]

9 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

Well, the 5960X only puts out about 140W OC'd, so I think a copper shim will do.

 

Just joking, any thicker 120 or 240mm AIO, or any air cooler with more than 6 heat pipes should do.

The 5960X puts out 140W stock, that's the TDP of al Haswell-E and Broadwell-E CPUs.

Overclocked, it can easily output 300W.

[done12many2]

10 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

The 5960X puts out 140W stock, that's the TDP of al Haswell-E and Broadwell-E CPUs.

Overclocked, it can easily output 300W.

 

Exactly.  

[done12many2]

12 minutes ago, ibabyslapper said:

I'm saying a 240mm AIO did fine with a far hotter CPU, so is fine with a colder one.

 

Comparing temps of two different chips isn't how it works.  

[iBabySlapper]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

Comparing temps of two different chips isn't how it works.  

It's the only way to do it unless you have expensive equipment to measure how much heat your chip in particular produces.

[done12many2]

17 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

I get good temps at the moment max I have seen my cpu hit is 68C and my gpu's hit the low 50's. I did consider changing things up a bit in my pc and going to a 6800k or completely platform to a 6700k as I no longer use my cpu for super heavy multicore stuff (no longer doing 3D rendering)

 

If that's the case, you could definitely move to a 6700k/7700k setup, but once you give up that 5960x, you're going to miss it.  

 

I wouldn't got down to a 6800k.  Either keep your current chip or go with a Skylake rig.  Skylake chips are so much easier to cool than a 5960x, 6900k, or 6950x.

[piemadd]

29 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

Hi, I have had a 5960X for about a year now running on a custom loop but I now want to make maintenance more simple and I want to downsize my case so was wondering what coolers are recommended for this CPU I was looking at the NZXT Kraken x61 but not sure if that is enough for the 5960x as I do have it overclocked.

First off, how the living f*ck can you afford one of those.

 

I think an overclocked cpu like that should get something a little better.

[Aytex]

10 minutes ago, PeggersXtreme said:

I get good temps at the moment max I have seen my cpu hit is 68C and my gpu's hit the low 50's. I did consider changing things up a bit in my pc and going to a 6800k or completely platform to a 6700k as I no longer use my cpu for super heavy multicore stuff (no longer doing 3D rendering)

Definitely go for the chips that @done12many2 said, 5960x would be a waste of power if you weren't using its full potential.

 

 

[PeggersXtreme]

1 minute ago, done12many2 said:

 

If that's the case, you could definitely move to a 6700k/7700k setup, but once you give up that 5960x, you're going to miss it.  

 

I wouldn't got down to a 6800k.  Either keep your current chip or go with a Skylake rig.

Yeah I will miss the extra cores lol I did a test and disabled 4 cores to replicate a 4790K's performance and my average FPS was about the same but my minimums and max fps was much higher with 8 cores 16thread and also have a lot open in the background when I game so the extra cores help there too.

[pyrojoe34]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

The 5960X puts out 140W stock, that's the TDP of al Haswell-E and Broadwell-E CPUs.

Overclocked, it can easily output 300W.

That's not quite how TDP works. TDP is the rated amount of heat energy that needs to be dissipated by a cooler for any given CPU, not the actual total power used by the CPU. So at stock it would be 140W of heat energy + the power of the actual CPU working (not 100% of the energy a CPU uses is converted to thermal energy, that would mean the CPU is doing nothing but generating heat).

[done12many2]

11 minutes ago, pyrojoe34 said:

That's not quite how TDP works. TDP is the rated amount of heat energy that needs to be dissipated by a cooler for any given CPU, not the actual total power used by the CPU. So at stock it would be 140W of heat energy + the power of the actual CPU working (not 100% of the energy a CPU uses is converted to thermal energy, that would mean the CPU is doing nothing but generating heat).

 

He's talking about how much power the CPU actually draws when overclocked, not TDP.

[pyrojoe34]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

He's talking about how much power the CPU actually draws when overclocked, not TDP.

Right, the TDP is not the amount of power the CPU draws. The CPU uses more power than the TDP since some of the energy is used for actual processing, not just generating heat.