Opinions, options for air cooling 5900x

S

SmokeRngs

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2008
Joined
Aug 9, 2001
Messages
18,228
It has been a long while since looking into mid to high end air cooling and I need opinions and options.

I'm hoping to get a Ryzen 5900x or at least settle for a 5800x before too long and will need a good heatsink for said CPU. The size and performance of modern air coolers is an issue I'm aware of but have no experience with. The CPU will probably be put on either an MSI x570 Tomahawk board or Gigabyte x570 Aorus Pro Wifi board for those familiar with them. The case allows for a maximum height of 165mm coolers and will likely have a couple sticks of G.Skill Trident Z Neo RAM.

I want good performance without breaking the bank and expect to spend a minimum of $50 but prefer to stay well under $100. After price, performance is of the most concern with noise not being a huge issue. I don't want a howling banshee in my case but some noise isn't a great concern. For example I have a CM Hyper 212 LED with fans in a push/pull config running 100% on a Ryzen 2600x and don't notice the sound outside the case. I should mention that I'm likely going to be running the fan(s) at 100% all the time. Between video encoding and distributed computing projects the CPU will be running quite hard most of the time and I will notice if fans ramp up and down which annoys me to no end. Hearing fans is not a problem but hearing them spin up and down at all is beyond irritating.

So, what options and opinions do you all have for a giant piece of metal hanging off the motherboard designed to cool the CPU?
 
High end cooling requirement has been mitigated considerably by PBO curve optimizer so run what ya brung and decide from there. I ran a cheap 212 knock off on my 3800x and it did well before curve optimizer.
 
Le Grand Macho RT has been good to me. Used it on X5690, 3770K, 3600XT, and now my 5600X. I ran my 3770K and 3600XT under it passively cooled with no CPU fan on and it was fine for a couple of days. The 3770K was at 4500MHz. And it doesn't block your ram at all.
 
After some looking some options have made themselves known.

Noctua NH-D15 chromax
This has a nice look and seems to be one of the best for air cooling. It's $10 more at $100 than the regular version but doesn't have the really out of place fan colors. Downside is definitely price as well as some clearance issues with RAM when using both fans.

be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Nice looking with very similar cooling capacity to the NH-D15 and $10 cheaper at around $90. The price is still higher than I'd like and longevity could be an issue since one of the fans is basically a custom 135mm. I'll probably be using the heatsink I choose for quite a few years so the ability to easily and cheaply replace bad fans is a priority.

Scythe Fuma 2
Looks are nothing special but not ugly and should fit in well with other components. At $60 the price is much more to my liking. From what I've been able to research the cooling ability is good and close to the above two options. It's also a bit smaller with standard size fans which should be easy enough to replace when needed. It also seems to have the fewest issues with RAM since the outside fan is a slim fan. There's also the option of adding a third fan if I want to get nuts with it.

At the moment the Scythe seems to be the front runner. I'd still like to see other options and opinions.
 
I've had a Scythe Fuma OG since I first saw a review on it. I can't complain at all about the performance.
 
I have that noctua chromax back when it first launched a year and a half ago for my 3900X. Its been cool and quiet running even at full speed on the fans, plus it is extremely easy to blow the dust out of it. It is a big boy though, and clearance can be an issue along with the height of it.
 
DRP4 will be a Newegg shell shocker on 3-15(Monday). I grabbed one while they had stock during black friday pricing and it's been working good in another build. Chromax black is classy also, it's the model of my NH-D15.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Noctua NH-D15 chromax
This has a nice look and seems to be one of the best for air cooling. It's $10 more at $100 than the regular version but doesn't have the really out of place fan colors. Downside is definitely price as well as some clearance issues with RAM when using both fans.
Click to expand...

Can't go wrong with this as far as air cooling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top