Best air cooler?

[OnionRings]

Was gonna get a dark rock pro 3 but the reviews say the install is a nightmare and I'm not good with difficult tasks, plus its huge, anything better? How good does the 212 still do these days? I know the 212x is only like 35$ and I also know there's a new 212 plus with a double heat sink, worth it? Or should I go bigger? (avoiding water because its just too expensive and after long time water gets to be just as hot as air)

[Enderman]

It's a great budget cooler, but don't expect high performance or lots of overclocking from it.

 

And who told you that after a long time "water gets to be just as hot as air" ??? What the heck? How does that even make sense?

[Mooshi]

If this is for the sig rig, anything beyond a Cryorig H7 is throwing your money away.

 

I have an overclocked 6700k at 4.4Ghz itx build using the H7 in the other system and temps are great.

[Shimejii]

a simple 60$ watercooler would do you just fine, but if your going with a beefy air cooler, most are going to be fine with your cpu.

[OnionRings]

Just now, Enderman said:

It's a great budget cooler, but don't expect high performance or lots of overclocking from it.

 

And who told you that after a long time "water gets to be just as hot as air" ??? What the heck? How does that even make sense?

Well after a long time, water gets hot does it not? But the air will be taken out of the case, but the water keeps cycling over and over. Looks it up, there's some videos on it that show after a few hours use that water eventually climbs in heat. But its also because its alot of trouble to install, and im afraid it will break open and fry my stuff

[OnionRings]

1 minute ago, Mooshi said:

If this is for the sig rig, anything beyond a Cryorig H7 is throwing your money away.

 

I have an overclocked 6700k at 4.4Ghz itx build using the H7 in the other system and temps are great.

If I buy one it will probably go on a 7700k, I haven't decided between 7700k or ryzen yet, if ryzen im just using the stock cooler, but if 7700k I wanna try and push it to 5GHz, but idk if air can do that.

[Glennieboyyy007]

you can get the non-pro version. i have it and as a first time builder, it wasn't that hard, you have to fiddle around a little bit, bot no worries ( i'm 17 years old btw). you can also order the am4 bracket kit for free if you want to go for ryzen.

[OnionRings]

1 minute ago, Glennieboyyy007 said:

you can get the non-pro version. i have it and as a first time builder, it wasn't that hard, you have to fiddle around a little bit, bot no worries ( i'm 17 years old btw)

Oh cool I didn't know there was a non pro version. How does it hold up for you? On that 7600k at 5 ghz? What's your temps? I know that a 7700k is different, hotter, more power, but having an estimate isn't bad.

[Mooshi]

5 minutes ago, OnionRings said:

If I buy one it will probably go on a 7700k, I haven't decided between 7700k or ryzen yet, if ryzen im just using the stock cooler, but if 7700k I wanna try and push it to 5GHz, but idk if air can do that.

7700/k is just a 6700/k with a 2% performance increase, worst thermals and Netflix 4k DRM. It's not much of an upgrade if you have the Skylake version.

 

Ryzen stock cooler is good, but even a budget cooler cools better. 5Ghz on Kabby either means you won the silicon lottery..but most likely will have to delid to replace the Intel mayonnaise and go AIO/custom loop.

[ItsTheDuckAgain]

2 minutes ago, OnionRings said:

Well after a long time, water gets hot does it not? But the air will be taken out of the case, but the water keeps cycling over and over. Looks it up, there's some videos on it that show after a few hours use that water eventually climbs in heat. But its also because its alot of trouble to install, and im afraid it will break open and fry my stuff

yeah of course water gets hot, thats why all water cooling solutions use a radioator to get rid of the heat. in general water cools better and doesn't get that hot while being a more expensive.

 

to answer your question:

Good air coolers on the top end: Dark Rock Pro 3 and noctua nh-d15

Good value and fine for your CPU: Cryorig h7

aio: all of them

[OnionRings]

Just now, Mooshi said:

7700/k is just a 6700/k with a 2% performance increase, worst thermals and Netflix 4k DRM. It's not much of an upgrade if you have the Skylake version.

I don't though sadly, I have a non K 6700, and I want to get a better motherboard for faster ram so I might as well upgrade my processor too, no point in getting a Z270 board and not getting a better processor.

[HKZeroFive]

I have a Cryorig R1 Ultimate and the mounting process was relatively easy to handle. But if you're looking for a smaller cooler with comparable performance, I suggest looking at the Scythe Fuma or Thermalright True Spirit 140.

[Mooshi]

Just now, OnionRings said:

I don't though sadly, I have a non K 6700, and I want to get a better motherboard for faster ram so I might as well upgrade my processor too, no point in getting a Z270 board and not getting a better processor.

There's no point going Z270 at all if you already have a Skylake chip, non K version or not. It's a total waste of an investment.

[OnionRings]

Just now, Mooshi said:

There's no point going Z270 at all if you already have a Skylake chip, non K version or not. It's a total waste of an investment.

I know but ryzen is a pain in the ass. I can't get above 2933 on the ram, all the motherboards are filled with complaint reviews of issues. But Skylake can go up to like 4266 on ram and has little to no issues. 

[Mooshi]

Just now, OnionRings said:

I know but ryzen is a pain in the ass. I can't get above 2933 on the ram, all the motherboards are filled with complaint reviews of issues. But Skylake can go up to like 4266 on ram and has little to no issues. 

True, but if you really wanna see a real improvement, grab a GTX 1080 Ti instead of going Ryzen or Kabby. 

 

[OnionRings]

Just now, Mooshi said:

True, but if you really wanna see a real improvement, grab a GTX 1080 Ti instead of going Ryzen or Kabby. 

 

I really honestly thought about it, but I really want to get better ram too, and no board below Z170 support anything higher then 2133. I want a good premium board and ram, but why would I buy a Z170 or 270, then stick this processor in it? When I could get a much better processor. Sure the 7700k is not much better then a 6700k, but that's at stock right? I mean we're comparing a 6700 NON K, to a 7700k that I can overclock to like 5GHz, is that not going to be more then 2%?

 

I haven't made up my mind yet, so try and sell me on ryzen if you really want. I like being able to get 8 cores for 300$, its just the ram and motherboards are all so finicky and its very hard to find a good one. Plus intel hasn't done me wrong like ever, my i5 6500 held up great, as has this 6700 so far.

[luigi90210]

Installing a dark rock pro 3 is about as hard as installing a 212 Evo imo. 

 

Also to people saying water doesn't get as hot as air, it does but it all depends on the setup. There are air coolers that cool a lot better than AIOs though. 

 

The issue with water coolers is that not everyone waits for the water temps to stabilize before reporting their temps. You also have to remember water takes longer to heat up than metal but it also holds heat longer than metal so if you're gaming for long periods of time and you stop, your temps will still be hot for a little bit after your gaming session. 

[OnionRings]

Well I think ill stick to air just because its cheaper and I'm not pushing for the best overclocks ever.

[Changis]

17 minutes ago, luigi90210 said:

Installing a dark rock pro 3 is about as hard as installing a 212 Evo imo. 

 

Also to people saying water doesn't get as hot as air, it does but it all depends on the setup. There are air coolers that cool a lot better than AIOs though. 

 

The issue with water coolers is that not everyone waits for the water temps to stabilize before reporting their temps. You also have to remember water takes longer to heat up than metal but it also holds heat longer than metal so if you're gaming for long periods of time and you stop, your temps will still be hot for a little bit after your gaming session. 

the Noctua NH-D15 is pretty easy to install, i'm not sure how the darkrock or evo is to install, but the noctua is: put on backplate, put on plastic spacers, thumbscrew on the standoffs, screw on the heatsink to the standoffs. fasten the fans with the clips and bob's your uncle.

 

the noctua performs about as well as a good aio.. (my new kraken x62 is just a degree or so cooler)

but it is huuuge
 

[Enderman]

3 hours ago, OnionRings said:

Well after a long time, water gets hot does it not? But the air will be taken out of the case, but the water keeps cycling over and over. Looks it up, there's some videos on it that show after a few hours use that water eventually climbs in heat. But its also because its alot of trouble to install, and im afraid it will break open and fry my stuff

No, I don't think you understand how watercooling works.

The water is used to move the heat from a component like a CPU/GPU to a radiator where it is then transferred to the air.

Radiators that are 240mm or larger have more area to dissipate heat than a regular heatsink and that's why they get lower temperatures.

 

Only custom water cooling loops with a large reservoir take a while to heat up (since the reservoir contains a lot of water) and even when it is fully heated it will still get much lower temperatures than an air cooler because the radiators are always dissipating heat.

There is this thing called an "AIO" which is far easier to install than a custom watercooling loop, even easier than a heatsink since there is nothing in the way of the mounting bracket around the CPU.

A good quality AIO from Corsair or NZXT will last 5+ years no problem, leaks are extremely rare.

[Glennieboyyy007]

4 hours ago, OnionRings said:

Oh cool I didn't know there was a non pro version. How does it hold up for you? On that 7600k at 5 ghz? What's your temps? I know that a 7700k is different, hotter, more power, but having an estimate isn't bad.

the temps have never been higher than 80C with a voltage of 1.305V, and keep in mind that my oc'ed 1070 is right underneath the cooler, 1070 has max 75C