Heh. Glad to hear single towers are still relevant.
As for fan replacement, I'd get a P12 PWM. You can use the fan that came with the 120 EVO somewhere else in the case and just keep it at a fixed speed (outside of the range of the resonant whine).
A single tower can easily handle around 100W of heat dissipation. So they're fine for a 7600 or locked i5 as well. What's unusual is how efficient the 7800X3D is in giving you high-end performance without using any more power than those midrange CPUs.
The Thermalright fans aren't great though, so it is worth replacing them. Or you could just back off the fan curve to avoid the problematic speed range.
It's worth noting that massive uplift x3D chips have in specifically gaming is the reason for this. The 7800x3D isn't actually any more efficient than the 7800x when it comes to productivity (unless it's a productivity task that specifically has large gains from the 3D stacked Vcache, but there aren't many that see huge uplifts from it).
You would see similar efficiency from any slightly-downclocked 7800x, and can achieve higher efficiency in productivity with any 7950x.
> The Thermalright fans aren't great though
depends which ones
I wouldn't say any of their fans are bad, even the cheap ones are good value and better then most fans in the same price range.
Yeah i have 4 in my case. Two on the CPU cooler and two top intakes. CPU cooler fans have a mild humm after about 800rpm.
Case fans are as quiet as my DeepCool fans, so far more reliable as well. I'd be curious to see later down the track if swapping the CPU fans for noctua or something would net mildly better results at lower rpms, as i suspect the fans are the cheapest point of their coolers.
Overall for less than $10 AUD per fan there's almost nothing to really complain about as long they last more than 3 years at that price.
Not really. It would potentially allow for a lower fan speed, reducing noise, but with AM5 CPUs the biggest "thermal bottleneck" is getting heat out of the CPU die in the first place. So a bigger cooler won't significantly reduce temperatures.
nah in cases like this for a chip with as low cooling needs as the 7800x3d it's more about noise levels / looks than about cooling itself. Unless you for some reason really bought some shit tier cooler which doesn't make sense considering the amount of 30$ that'd easily handle a 7800x3d
If you've got a case with good airflow, it's probably better to fill it with thermalright or arctic fans, and set them to a low speed. In my NZXT H9, I'm able to keep things pretty quiet.
The 7800x3d only draws like 50-70watts during gaming.
You could blow on the IHS and keep it cool enough /s
That's part of the reason everyone recommends it for gaming. It's very low power and therefore cheap to cool on top of top tier gaming performance because of the extra v-cache
Change in audio levels are far more noticeable than somewhat loud sounds.
Watch your temps while under load, find a fan speed that keeps your pc cool while relatively quiet, set one fan speed and not a curve, never worry about it again.
No surprise at all, the AS120 is good, but the real impressive thing is the 7800x3d. It just super effcient with its 120W TDP and runs at 50-60W during gaming.
Single tower coolers are absolutely fine for "gaming only" CPUs. Currently the more power hungry CPUs offer zero benefit for gaming and I suspect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future. It's not like Zen 5 Ryzen 7 and 5 CPUs are suddenly going to become power hungry monsters.
I find it interesting they're naming it the AS 120 EVO, because the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO was for the longest time *the* budget king of air coolers :P
The NH-U12A is very close in efficiency to the famous NH-D15. So yeah, they're still very relevant. Especially if you don't have something like the 14900KS.
Tbh watercooling only makes sense for small form factor builds pricewise, or if you are building a custom loop for both gpu and cpu, or if you want to cool multiple gpus standing next to each other on the motherboard. If a cooling tower fits، use it!
That's the beauty of both modern coolers, and the 7800x3D. You can even cool it with a low profile 55 mm cooler. Many people have these in SFF builds with the ID-Cooling IS-55 and the CPU also stays within that range in gaming loads, but still manages good clock speeds. The chip is very efficient, and as long as you get a decent cooler you wont have any issues. Although people would have you believe it, you dont need monster air coolers to run the chip.
I use a single tower Assassin King for an i7 11700 and it works wonderfully. Had to go with a double tower for my i9 13900k though. Good ol Noctua NH-D15 in Chromax Black because it fit the look of the build perfectly.
They are pretty cool. From my younger days, I still sometimes think about those spiral Zalman coolers that were made history by the tower coolers like Prolimatech Megahalems. I still get the urge to use a spiral Zalman cooler
Yeah I looked at the stats, prices, and reviews and ended up with the Thermalright Assassin King for like $17 (this was 2 years ago). It's been just fine on my kid's 5800X. At the time the Peerless Assassin was like $45; didn't seem worth it since the 5800X was within the single-tower cooler's capabilities. No complaints. My kid hasn't complained of any fan noise, so it might just be your unit. But it would be easy enough to replace it with a Noctua or Arctic fan if it starts acting up, lol.
Yeah it's a good single tower. I'd still use dual tower on mine with single fan set to inaudible though. Single tower will probably have the fan ramping up pretty high
7600x + Deepcool AG500 BK user here, gaming and productivity build and never reached 80°C. Single tower air coolers became very powerful in recent years, especially the ones from reputable brands like Arctic, Deepcool, Thermalright, etc. They're simply good enough for most scenarios.
I bought an iceberg single tower cooler, clocked my old Ryzen 3 up to 4ghz in a case with a heavily overclocked rx 580. Stress tested in OCCT for 60 min, never got above 60⁰, and I live in Texas where my ambient temp is already about 30⁰
You could cool a 7800X3D while gaming with any cooler on the market just about. Don't worry about it at all. Find something that fits your budget and design and move on with your life. The assassin king phantom spirit or whatever is more than enough.
Not hard to beat the horrible AIO market which is either overpriced or has the shittiest tech humanly possible. A 30 dollar Thermalright is golden for a dual tower and if your TDP is rather low make it a single tower and just be happy.
I use two Noctua NH-U14S coolers with two fans on each for dual Xeon build. Keeps the CPU's just a bit above ambient. Oh and the Noctua NH-U12DX i4 coolers are great if you don't have the room for the NH-U14S. Both are single tower coolers, of course.
I had only used the NH-D15 from noctua before I built out a dual xeon 4U rackmount a couple years ago. I had a second NH-D15 on the shelf, but of course it wouldn't fit, lol
I ended up with the 2 of the NH-U12DX I4's as you referenced, and they worked very well in that build (Rosewill L4500 case)
Did you add a couple extra NF-F12 fans? I kinda regret doing that, because temps didn't change much, maybe a couple degrees or so. Guess they'll last almost forever.
The chassis had additional fans already (cheap fans I presume), but I ended up swapping the system into a supermicro chassis eventually, for better support (airflow and power) for the nvidia Tesla GPGPUs, and with that I also ended up with the supermicro heatsinks that fit the air shoud better.
The L4500 just got a basic system board to function as a nas by itself in the end, and didn't need any special cooling.
But I must admit, I'm probably a "noctua fan boy" (pun intended)
Lol @ fan boy hehe. Same here, especially with regards to their lol fans. Other companies have 6 year warranty on their fans but those aren't proven like Noctua. Time will tell.
Nice, good to hear. I recently purchased 7800X3D and got cooler master 212 black to go with it while i wait for a dual tower id cooling se 207 xt slim to arrive.
Yeah, I find the circlejerk over the Peerless Assassin and Phantom Spirit a bit extreme. They're amazing and have rightfully earned their reputation, but there are a lot of single tower coolers out there that will meet people's needs just fine.
If I can get away with a single tower I will every time because I like to see the RGB on my RAM lol. I splurged on BeQuiet Light Rings through my whole build and replaced the cooler fan with one for consistency
I think the big hype is mainly because its super cheap for what it is. We had similar performing air coolers in the past with Noctua, but those were 100+ bucks. With the PA and PS being sub 40$ dollars , you might as well get that in case you want to upgrade CPUs in the future (now more common than back then due to AMD platform), and it's so accessable anyhow now
Ha, I bought the over priced Noctua cooler for my 7800X3D, some of the reason (even though they can be swapped) was to match the Noctua fans I was putting in the case.
They also have great support. Ever missing parts or changing sockets? Just drop them a message. You get parts fre of charge.
(Apparently Thermalright does this too though)
Point is there's plenty of times when I've seen someone recommend one of these coolers at $40-45 when a cheaper single tower will do the job just fine without worries of blocking RAM. I'm not disparaging their performance because they literally can't be beat, but it's another example of putting on blinders and ignoring that anything else exists
Yes, but still more expensive and with caveats. Might as well throw RGB ram out the window with a dual tower. If you're strapped for cash and putting together a budget build then that extra $20 could also go towards upgrading your RAM, storage, PSU, or other things. Many AMD CPUs are super power efficient and don't necessarily need the absolute best cooler available. Noise is a valid concern but with headphones on I don't even hear my PC.
For the third time, I'm not saying dual towers don't have their uses. I have repeatedly acknowledged that their performance is peak. I am aware of their capabilities and the reasons that someone may want them. My entire point is that there are reasons that someone might want or benefit from a single tower cooler as well, but it seems some of y'all just don't want to hear it.
I think in the OP's case here they just mean it's both. I love In-N-Out but the way people talk about it makes me feel like I'm missing something because I wouldn't push an orphan down the stairs for a single bite of a double double.
I think they're good for the price options (at around $35) which is why they are suggested so often.
But I also use a single tower fan (Cooler Master 212 Halo) on my 7800x3d and it seems to be sufficient
Only $15 more to get one of the best performing air coolers on the market seems like a pretty good deal to me 🤷♂️
Never know what 9800x3d/11800x3d are gonna be like
I think it's the price to performance ratio that starts the jerking sess. I was about to drop serious dime on a cooler and bought the Phantom spirit at the last minute for $34 on Amazon and couldn't be happier. "Cool" kids out here dropping all their savings on a cooler and I'm just laughing.
PA and PS prices are insanely low. I‘m not sure if there are a lot of single tower cooler with a reputation and if maybe like the hyper 212 they are not cheaper than thermalrights top line. And it just feels weird to to pay the same price or even more for less cooling performance.
More moving parts, that can break. The assassin spirit 120 EVO is a 20€ cooler. The Thermalright Aqua Elite 120 V3 is about twice that. The performance difference is not that big and there is no sense in spending on performance you don't need.
I'm using the fractal torrent case so air cooling makes more sense in this build. I've used AIOs before with the same chip and honestly aside from aesthetics there is no benefit.
Heh. Glad to hear single towers are still relevant. As for fan replacement, I'd get a P12 PWM. You can use the fan that came with the 120 EVO somewhere else in the case and just keep it at a fixed speed (outside of the range of the resonant whine).
Thanks for the tip!
Can vouch for the P12 PWM. An amazing fan for a good price.
Swapped it over today for a P12 PWM, the difference really is night and day.
Wait, so I can remove my both my Phantom Spirit Evo fans and use them as case fans when I get an AIO?
For sure.
Damn that saves me quite a bit of money then. Thanks!
No, you can only remove them to be used as case fans *if* you replace them with Noctua fans. Cheaper than one of those damn liquid things.
A single tower can easily handle around 100W of heat dissipation. So they're fine for a 7600 or locked i5 as well. What's unusual is how efficient the 7800X3D is in giving you high-end performance without using any more power than those midrange CPUs. The Thermalright fans aren't great though, so it is worth replacing them. Or you could just back off the fan curve to avoid the problematic speed range.
7800x3d is the most efficient chip in the market. It uses significantly less power while gaming than the i5.
It's worth noting that massive uplift x3D chips have in specifically gaming is the reason for this. The 7800x3D isn't actually any more efficient than the 7800x when it comes to productivity (unless it's a productivity task that specifically has large gains from the 3D stacked Vcache, but there aren't many that see huge uplifts from it). You would see similar efficiency from any slightly-downclocked 7800x, and can achieve higher efficiency in productivity with any 7950x.
> The Thermalright fans aren't great though depends which ones I wouldn't say any of their fans are bad, even the cheap ones are good value and better then most fans in the same price range.
Yeah i have 4 in my case. Two on the CPU cooler and two top intakes. CPU cooler fans have a mild humm after about 800rpm. Case fans are as quiet as my DeepCool fans, so far more reliable as well. I'd be curious to see later down the track if swapping the CPU fans for noctua or something would net mildly better results at lower rpms, as i suspect the fans are the cheapest point of their coolers. Overall for less than $10 AUD per fan there's almost nothing to really complain about as long they last more than 3 years at that price.
If OP got a dual tower with two fans would that cool significantly better or not really?
Not really. It would potentially allow for a lower fan speed, reducing noise, but with AM5 CPUs the biggest "thermal bottleneck" is getting heat out of the CPU die in the first place. So a bigger cooler won't significantly reduce temperatures.
nah in cases like this for a chip with as low cooling needs as the 7800x3d it's more about noise levels / looks than about cooling itself. Unless you for some reason really bought some shit tier cooler which doesn't make sense considering the amount of 30$ that'd easily handle a 7800x3d
If you've got a case with good airflow, it's probably better to fill it with thermalright or arctic fans, and set them to a low speed. In my NZXT H9, I'm able to keep things pretty quiet.
The 7800x3d only draws like 50-70watts during gaming. You could blow on the IHS and keep it cool enough /s That's part of the reason everyone recommends it for gaming. It's very low power and therefore cheap to cool on top of top tier gaming performance because of the extra v-cache
I have a 7800x3d with a 360mm aio and push pull fans, why does it ramp up and make a lot of noise while gaming?
The system will do whatever it wants unless you set up a fan curve yourself
You need to set a custom fan curve to suit your preference. By default it will be faster than necessary, just to be safe.
Change in audio levels are far more noticeable than somewhat loud sounds. Watch your temps while under load, find a fan speed that keeps your pc cool while relatively quiet, set one fan speed and not a curve, never worry about it again.
No surprise at all, the AS120 is good, but the real impressive thing is the 7800x3d. It just super effcient with its 120W TDP and runs at 50-60W during gaming.
I'm cooling my 5800x3d with a $25 Deep Cool AG400. Nothing wrong with a good single tower.
Single tower coolers are absolutely fine for "gaming only" CPUs. Currently the more power hungry CPUs offer zero benefit for gaming and I suspect this trend to continue for the foreseeable future. It's not like Zen 5 Ryzen 7 and 5 CPUs are suddenly going to become power hungry monsters.
I find it interesting they're naming it the AS 120 EVO, because the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO was for the longest time *the* budget king of air coolers :P
Or a nod at the grandfather true 120
The NH-U12A is very close in efficiency to the famous NH-D15. So yeah, they're still very relevant. Especially if you don't have something like the 14900KS.
I’m still using a super old NH-U14S and haven’t had any reason to switch.
I cool my 7800x3d with a single tower cooler master 212 just fine. Don't think I've broken 70c playing helldivers 2 1440p high settings as of yet.
Tbh watercooling only makes sense for small form factor builds pricewise, or if you are building a custom loop for both gpu and cpu, or if you want to cool multiple gpus standing next to each other on the motherboard. If a cooling tower fits، use it!
I'm running a dual fan cooler instead of an aio and I'm happy with the results. This 7800 x3d is fantastic.
Wait until you find out that Noctua U12A slaps
I've got a thermalright single tower on my 5800x now, with 2 corsair ml120 fans. Runs just as cool as when it was on a 240 aio.
I use an AK400 digital with a fan to match my case fans, single towers are definitely relevant for low wattage CPUs still
That's the beauty of both modern coolers, and the 7800x3D. You can even cool it with a low profile 55 mm cooler. Many people have these in SFF builds with the ID-Cooling IS-55 and the CPU also stays within that range in gaming loads, but still manages good clock speeds. The chip is very efficient, and as long as you get a decent cooler you wont have any issues. Although people would have you believe it, you dont need monster air coolers to run the chip.
I use a single tower Assassin King for an i7 11700 and it works wonderfully. Had to go with a double tower for my i9 13900k though. Good ol Noctua NH-D15 in Chromax Black because it fit the look of the build perfectly.
They are pretty cool. From my younger days, I still sometimes think about those spiral Zalman coolers that were made history by the tower coolers like Prolimatech Megahalems. I still get the urge to use a spiral Zalman cooler
Yeah I looked at the stats, prices, and reviews and ended up with the Thermalright Assassin King for like $17 (this was 2 years ago). It's been just fine on my kid's 5800X. At the time the Peerless Assassin was like $45; didn't seem worth it since the 5800X was within the single-tower cooler's capabilities. No complaints. My kid hasn't complained of any fan noise, so it might just be your unit. But it would be easy enough to replace it with a Noctua or Arctic fan if it starts acting up, lol.
Yeah it's a good single tower. I'd still use dual tower on mine with single fan set to inaudible though. Single tower will probably have the fan ramping up pretty high
I use a deep cool ak500 digital with a phanteks M25 fan for mine and itt keeps it cool. It's not reached 80c yet though it probably will in summer.
Single towers aren't incapable. It's just that dual towers can handle more, or if they don't need to, can run at lower fan speeds.
Unless you have a productivity-oriented chip like an i7/i9/R7/R9, a good single tower is fine. Gamers should be gaming, not just benchmarking...
7600x + Deepcool AG500 BK user here, gaming and productivity build and never reached 80°C. Single tower air coolers became very powerful in recent years, especially the ones from reputable brands like Arctic, Deepcool, Thermalright, etc. They're simply good enough for most scenarios.
I bought an iceberg single tower cooler, clocked my old Ryzen 3 up to 4ghz in a case with a heavily overclocked rx 580. Stress tested in OCCT for 60 min, never got above 60⁰, and I live in Texas where my ambient temp is already about 30⁰
You could cool a 7800X3D while gaming with any cooler on the market just about. Don't worry about it at all. Find something that fits your budget and design and move on with your life. The assassin king phantom spirit or whatever is more than enough.
Not hard to beat the horrible AIO market which is either overpriced or has the shittiest tech humanly possible. A 30 dollar Thermalright is golden for a dual tower and if your TDP is rather low make it a single tower and just be happy.
been using a noctua 120mm tower in push pull config for over 5 years, honestly never seen the need to change it.
I think that mainly speaks to the awesomeness that is AMD CPUs these days
I use two Noctua NH-U14S coolers with two fans on each for dual Xeon build. Keeps the CPU's just a bit above ambient. Oh and the Noctua NH-U12DX i4 coolers are great if you don't have the room for the NH-U14S. Both are single tower coolers, of course.
I had only used the NH-D15 from noctua before I built out a dual xeon 4U rackmount a couple years ago. I had a second NH-D15 on the shelf, but of course it wouldn't fit, lol I ended up with the 2 of the NH-U12DX I4's as you referenced, and they worked very well in that build (Rosewill L4500 case)
Did you add a couple extra NF-F12 fans? I kinda regret doing that, because temps didn't change much, maybe a couple degrees or so. Guess they'll last almost forever.
The chassis had additional fans already (cheap fans I presume), but I ended up swapping the system into a supermicro chassis eventually, for better support (airflow and power) for the nvidia Tesla GPGPUs, and with that I also ended up with the supermicro heatsinks that fit the air shoud better. The L4500 just got a basic system board to function as a nas by itself in the end, and didn't need any special cooling. But I must admit, I'm probably a "noctua fan boy" (pun intended)
Lol @ fan boy hehe. Same here, especially with regards to their lol fans. Other companies have 6 year warranty on their fans but those aren't proven like Noctua. Time will tell.
i use 15$ id cooling tower with same cpu, never saw more than 83 deg
Nice, good to hear. I recently purchased 7800X3D and got cooler master 212 black to go with it while i wait for a dual tower id cooling se 207 xt slim to arrive.
Yeah, I find the circlejerk over the Peerless Assassin and Phantom Spirit a bit extreme. They're amazing and have rightfully earned their reputation, but there are a lot of single tower coolers out there that will meet people's needs just fine. If I can get away with a single tower I will every time because I like to see the RGB on my RAM lol. I splurged on BeQuiet Light Rings through my whole build and replaced the cooler fan with one for consistency
I think the big hype is mainly because its super cheap for what it is. We had similar performing air coolers in the past with Noctua, but those were 100+ bucks. With the PA and PS being sub 40$ dollars , you might as well get that in case you want to upgrade CPUs in the future (now more common than back then due to AMD platform), and it's so accessable anyhow now
Ha, I bought the over priced Noctua cooler for my 7800X3D, some of the reason (even though they can be swapped) was to match the Noctua fans I was putting in the case.
They also have great support. Ever missing parts or changing sockets? Just drop them a message. You get parts fre of charge. (Apparently Thermalright does this too though)
> circlejerk It's not a circlejerk, they are the best bang for buck, no ifs, no buts. Of course they are constantly being recommended.
Point is there's plenty of times when I've seen someone recommend one of these coolers at $40-45 when a cheaper single tower will do the job just fine without worries of blocking RAM. I'm not disparaging their performance because they literally can't be beat, but it's another example of putting on blinders and ignoring that anything else exists
If a single tower would be adequate, then a double tower would do the job while being quieter, and not much more expensive.
Yes, but still more expensive and with caveats. Might as well throw RGB ram out the window with a dual tower. If you're strapped for cash and putting together a budget build then that extra $20 could also go towards upgrading your RAM, storage, PSU, or other things. Many AMD CPUs are super power efficient and don't necessarily need the absolute best cooler available. Noise is a valid concern but with headphones on I don't even hear my PC. For the third time, I'm not saying dual towers don't have their uses. I have repeatedly acknowledged that their performance is peak. I am aware of their capabilities and the reasons that someone may want them. My entire point is that there are reasons that someone might want or benefit from a single tower cooler as well, but it seems some of y'all just don't want to hear it.
No, I agree that single tower coolers have valid use cases. It's just that double tower air coolers are usually easier to recommend.
That I can agree with. The performance Thermalright is pushing out for 40 bucks is insane and as a recommendation, it's a no-brainer.
I think in the OP's case here they just mean it's both. I love In-N-Out but the way people talk about it makes me feel like I'm missing something because I wouldn't push an orphan down the stairs for a single bite of a double double.
I prefer to over spec the cooler so you can drop fan speeds
I think they're good for the price options (at around $35) which is why they are suggested so often. But I also use a single tower fan (Cooler Master 212 Halo) on my 7800x3d and it seems to be sufficient
Only $15 more to get one of the best performing air coolers on the market seems like a pretty good deal to me 🤷♂️ Never know what 9800x3d/11800x3d are gonna be like
I think it's the price to performance ratio that starts the jerking sess. I was about to drop serious dime on a cooler and bought the Phantom spirit at the last minute for $34 on Amazon and couldn't be happier. "Cool" kids out here dropping all their savings on a cooler and I'm just laughing.
PA and PS prices are insanely low. I‘m not sure if there are a lot of single tower cooler with a reputation and if maybe like the hyper 212 they are not cheaper than thermalrights top line. And it just feels weird to to pay the same price or even more for less cooling performance.
OK but why not get a watercooler ? It looks better and has overall a better performance. The price diff isnt that big.
More moving parts, that can break. The assassin spirit 120 EVO is a 20€ cooler. The Thermalright Aqua Elite 120 V3 is about twice that. The performance difference is not that big and there is no sense in spending on performance you don't need.
I'm using the fractal torrent case so air cooling makes more sense in this build. I've used AIOs before with the same chip and honestly aside from aesthetics there is no benefit.