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Rolling with my new Ryzen 9 5050X! I pushed my old setup as long as I could and it was overclocked to the hills but still holding me back. I finally upgraded!

Scott Helme

@Scott_Helme

Apr 19, 2021

A question though, I'm seeing idle temps of ~60c and fully loaded tempts 80c-90c. That's a lot higher than I'm used to, is that normal?

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If you're used to i7 from a generation back, Ryzen runs pretty hot by comparison. All that TDP has to go somewhere!

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FWIW, most AIOs will underperform a high-end air cooler like an NH-D15 or NH-U14. For a 240mm the noise might even be slightly worse, since HSP fans are a little louder for the same CFM throughput. An AIO is just aesthetically cleaner and a bit flashier.

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Custom watercooling loops absolutely can outperform air coolers, though. It's just very expensive and only really worth it if you're overclocking or running high-TDP parts like a 3995WX or EPYC.

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Threadripper / EPYC with many cores really need coolers designed for them. They generate a huge amount of heat but over a larger surface area. noctua.at/en/nh-u14s-tr4 is Noctua's best offering for those. Does the job for 3970X (32 cores) without overclocking much but not beyond.

noctua.at

NH-U14S TR4-SP3

Continuing the legacy of Noctua’s classic NH-U-series, which has received more than a thousand awards and recommendations from international hardware websites and magazines, the NH-U14S has become a...

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With a second fan you can run a 3995WX with a U14S, as long as you've got good case airflow. It'll run hot, so you won't get perfect multi-core boosts, but it'll still work. Ideally I'd run a 360 radiator just for the CPU, though.

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icegiantcooling.com appears to be a better option than the NH-U14S for 64 core Threadripper or overclocked 32 core. I don't think I'd want it in a case with a vertical motherboard though. Probably what I'll get when Zen 3 Threadripper is finally available in a few months.

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Looks decent. In my experience you usually get better results out of Noctua's air coolers than they spec for. I'm running a pair of NH-D9 DX-3647 in my dual Xeon 8276L workstation, and they're 165W TDP each. Idle 45C, 95th percentile under load is about 76C, absolute peak 82-ish.

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I have an NH-D15 and I've been quite happy with it. It essentially has 3 fans because there's an NF-A14 exhaust aligned well right behind it. It's an old workstation from late 2016 though. I've needed to replace it for a while. Issue is lack of time and component availability...

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I was either going to make a 3970X build with an NH-U14S and a 2nd fan or a 3990X build with the ProSiphon Elite. Kept hitting the issue of decent motherboards not being available in Canada or the CPUs being overpriced. Kept getting delayed and now seems silly to go with Zen 2...

1:33 PM · Apr 20, 2021Twitter Web App

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It's tempting to make a build with a Ryzen 5950X as a stopgap until Zen 3 Threadripper is available. I only really need a new motherboard and CPU... Most of the parts from 2016 are still fine: 64GB DDR4-2400 memory, SuperNOVA 750 T2, 2TB 960 Pro NVMe SSD, NH-D15, Core V21 case.

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i7-6950X that I got at a 50% discount thanks to an Intel employee was initially great. Stable 4.4GHz+ overclock as long as the AVX offset is high. It has not aged well. 10 cores isn't what it was and the Meltdown / Spectre changes really destroyed Broadwell-E performance...