New Build Cooling Questions

[chillz]

My next build is a 3700X paired with an Asus ROG X570 board. Here are my questions:

1) Is it worthwhile to go with an AIO, or is a tower air cooler sufficient for a 3700X?

2) For AIOs, I'm considering Deepcool's Castle series (mainly because they're one of the better AIOs within my budget and are also currently on sale). Should I go full size 360, or is 240 enough?

3) For Tower Air Coolers, would my Cooler Master 212 Evo do the job? If not, would a push/pull setup be better?

I am planning to run Power Boost Overdrive to see what my CPU can handle, but I'm not going to do any further tweaking than that. And I'm building this into a Phanteks P400A with the mesh front so airflow shouldn't be an issue.

I'd appreciate any help you can give, and any suggestions on alternate cooling products you may have. Thanks in advance!

 

[trents]

The CM Hyper 212 Evo will give you approximately the same cooling power as the top down cooler that ships with the 3700x. Maybe just a little better. If you want significantly better air cooling without paying Noctua-like prices, I would go with this: https://www.amazon.com/Scythe-Cooler-Sealed-Precision-SCMG-5100/dp/B01M6CR4GH

What case will this cooling be installed in? Make sure the cooler you choose, whether air or water, will fit in your case.

Generally, speaking an AIO with a 240mm radiator will give as good or slightly better cooling than the top end air coolers. An AIO with a 360 mm rad will give better cooling still. If you are going to overclock at all, I would definitely go with the 360mm radiator AIO. If stock, any of the options I have offered will be just fine.

Even the stock OEM cooler will probably cover you for real world computing (but not running Prime95 stress tests) but a lot of people feel it gets too noisy. Even at stock idle my OEM 2700x cooler was constantly ramping up and down. It has a wine type annoying sound to it.

 

[chillz]

The CM Hyper 212 Evo will give you approximately the same cooling power as the top down cooler that ships with the 3700x. Maybe just a little better. If you want significantly better air cooling without paying Noctua-like prices, I would go with this: https://www.amazon.com/Scythe-Cooler-Sealed-Precision-SCMG-5100/dp/B01M6CR4GH

I've used Scythe and other comparable brands for previous builds, but these are all getting up there in price and are in the same price range as several decent AIOs. I was really hoping to either salvage my CM 212, or at least get a recommendation on a cost-effective alternative. Basically I'm being cheap. And I don't know why seeing as how I've already spent a healthy sum on the other components

What case will this cooling be installed in? Make sure the cooler you choose, whether air or water, will fit in your case.

I'm putting this into a Phanteks Eclipse P400A http://phanteks.com/Eclipse-P400A.html - this has really good airflow potential, and it does have enough clearance for most tower coolers (6.3 inches) including the Scythe Mugen 5.

Generally, speaking an AIO with a 240mm radiator will give as good or slightly better cooling than the top end air coolers. An AIO with a 360 mm rad will give better cooling still. If you are going to overclock at all, I would definitely go with the 360mm radiator AIO.

This is the kind of answer I was looking for. Some people are hardline one way or the other, and others walk the line. You gave practical points for going one way or the other, and I appreciate that. Thank you.

I wasn't planning to overclock at all seeing as I haven't kept up with the technologies at all, and I haven't really played around with a BIOS in almost a decade. Even just the different UEFI layouts needs getting use to. But ya, with all this self-isolating going on, I might just try my hand at overclocking again - after getting some info from these forums (and maybe watching some current YouTube vids as well lol). Thanks again, trents. Now I think I'll update my embarrassing signature

 

[trents]

What you will find is that overclocking will only give you slightly better performance than stock and will likely drive temps up. Usually, the overclocking ceiling for the Ryzen CPUs winds up giving a slightly lower frequency (but on all cores) than stock default does which ratchets some of the cores up to Turbo frequency. For Instance, with my 2700X, three cores will turbo to 1.4325 ghz but with five cores hanging around 1.4 under load. If I manually overclock it I can get all 8 cores running at 1.415. It gives me Cinebench R20 scores about 100 points higher (4066 at stock vs. 4166). Not hardly worth the extra heat, wear and tear and fan noise in my book. Your results may be better as you have a better motherboard than I do.

How much is the Scythe Mugen 5 where you live? Under $50 US here. That's a great bargain. Whoops! Amazon is sold out on them and the prices on NewEgg are considerably higher. COVID 19 is having on impact on inventories.

You might also look at AIO units with the 280 mm radiator and split the difference as long as it would fit in your case.

One thing I like to do is add another set of fans to the radiator for a push pull effect. Usually doesn't make a huge difference under full load but makes for a quieter system in everyday computing.

 

[chillz]

I'm just north of you, across the border lol!

The Scythe Mugen 5 on Amazon Canada is $100 CDN, which is around $70 USD. Oddly enough, the Deepcool Castle 360EX on Amazon US is $169 USD, which is $241 CDN. But Amazon Canada has it at $200 CDN, which is $141 USD. It's actually cheaper up here!

I was initially looking at the Castle 240 RGB V2 since it's only $20 CDN more (I don't see this particular variation on the US website for some reason, but it's the same as the 240EX but with RGB fans). However, I think I'll just pull the trigger and get the 360 RGB V2 instead. Again, I can't find it on Amazon US, but it's $160 CDN ($112 USD) on Amazon Canada.

My whole build is for longevity and scalability. I think AMD has said they'll be keeping the AM4 socket around until 2024/25 so I do hope I can at least keep this new rig for a few years. My current one has lasted me 9 years... 10 years this December! EarthDog, one of the moderators on here, was so surprised this rig of mine is still going lol!