120mm vs 140mm Fans for CPU Cooling?

[KingOfComputing]

I am planning a new Ryzen PC build with the 1800X CPU, I know this has been knocked off top spot by the 2700X but I got a good price on it (£170) so figured I might as well have the best of the last generation. Anyway as the 1800X has no stock cooler, and I would like the headroom to dabble at least with mild overclocking, I decided to get an aftermarket cooler for it.

I went for the dual fan Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED Turbo one as here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071D3RQC3/ Upon looking around for reviews on it I noticed from the QA section on the Amazon product page above someone asked if the 2 x 120mm fans included could be swapped for 140mm ones and a couple of people confirmed they could as the cooler has mount points for either type.

This got me thinking, could using 2x 140mm fans boost the cooling performance of this CPU cooler? I was thinking maybe with the 140mm fans having a larger surface area they might push more air over the heatsink or result in more air flowing over the motherboard e.g. to keep the VRMs cool?

However, 140mm fans are generally slower spinning I think. Which may reduce the cooling performance?

The fans I was considering using were a set of two identical Fractal Design Dynamic X2 GP-14 that run at 1000rpm, as here: https://www.amazon.com/Fractal-Design-Dynamic-GP-14-Computer/dp/B01KIUF8BC/ the fans are brand new still in their box as I bought them for my case but hadn't gotten round to fitting them.

So basically, should I just use the cooler as it comes, with the 2x 120mm fans included? or swap them for the two 140mm fans I have instead?

I would be really interested in getting peoples thoughts on this topic. While 120mm vs 140mm fan debate for case fans is fairly common I haven’t found much at all on 120mm vs 140mm when used for CPU cooling.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

The difference between 140mm and 120mm is not cooling, it is sound. The 140mm are larger and can move more air. Therefore 140mm fans don't need to spin as fast as 120mm. So the smaller the fan, the louder it is, in general. In the end, the 1800x hits a hard wall around 4ghz, regardless of cooling. So I would not go overboard on cooling because you wont get anything more out of it.

With that being said, I am not a big fan of the 212, I would go with the Cryorig H5 instead for about the same price.

 

[gasaraki]

100% agree with Froggy.

 

[KingOfComputing]

The difference between 140mm and 120mm is not cooling, it is sound. The 140mm are larger and can move more air. Therefore 140mm fans don't need to spin as fast as 120mm. So the smaller the fan, the louder it is, in general. In the end, the 1800x hits a hard wall around 4ghz, regardless of cooling. So I would not go overboard on cooling because you wont get anything more out of it.

With that being said, I am not a big fan of the 212, I would go with the Cryorig H5 instead for about the same price.

Did look at the Cryorig H5 but where I wanted to get it (Amazon) it was a good £20 dearer than the CM Hyper 212 LED Turbo, which strikes me as poor value, particularly when the CM Hyper 212 LED Turbo has an extra fan, which must count for something in terms of cooling performance.

Hang on a minute, the 1800X runs at 4GHZ anyway, at least on the turbo, so it doesn't overclock at all

Pretty poor IMHO for an X series chip that is supposed to have better overclocking. Thinking I might as well have just got the 1700 and overclocked that to 4GHZ...

Maybe I'm just used to Sandybridge era Intel chips that could easily give you up to 1GHZ+ free performance but the Ryzens seem really lousy for overclocking...

 

[SkyNetRising]

How exactly do you imagine putting 140mm fan on that cooler?
Screw holes are in completely different positions.

If you want cooler with 140mm fans, then NH-D15 SE-AM4 would be the choice.
https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-d15-se-am4

 

[KingOfComputing]

How exactly do you imagine putting 140mm fan on that cooler?
Screw holes are in completely different positions.

If you want cooler with 140mm fans, then NH-D15 SE-AM4 would be the choice.
https://noctua.at/en/products/cpu-cooler-retail/nh-d15-se-am4

I'm currently waiting for the cooler to be delivered so haven't actually seen it in person, I was just going from the question and answer section on Amazon.com where someone asked if 140mm fans could be used and they had two replies saying they could be used.

Plus from the tower type coolers I have had previously you don't actually screw the fans to the heatsink, they instead attach with wire holders, which could conceivably have two mounting positions to suit 120mm and 140mm.

 

[Rogue Leader]

The difference between 140mm and 120mm is not cooling, it is sound. The 140mm are larger and can move more air. Therefore 140mm fans don't need to spin as fast as 120mm. So the smaller the fan, the louder it is, in general. In the end, the 1800x hits a hard wall around 4ghz, regardless of cooling. So I would not go overboard on cooling because you wont get anything more out of it.

With that being said, I am not a big fan of the 212, I would go with the Cryorig H5 instead for about the same price.

Did look at the Cryorig H5 but where I wanted to get it (Amazon) it was a good £20 dearer than the CM Hyper 212 LED Turbo, which strikes me as poor value, particularly when the CM Hyper 212 LED Turbo has an extra fan, which must count for something in terms of cooling performance.

Hang on a minute, the 1800X runs at 4GHZ anyway, at least on the turbo, so it doesn't overclock at all

Pretty poor IMHO for an X series chip that is supposed to have better overclocking. Thinking I might as well have just got the 1700 and overclocked that to 4GHZ...

Maybe I'm just used to Sandybridge era Intel chips that could easily give you up to 1GHZ+ free performance but the Ryzens seem really lousy for overclocking...

Yeah he is wrong about 4ghz.

I have good cooling and a good motherboard and XFR regularly takes my cpu to 4.1ghz no problem. I have oced all cores to 4.1 ghz and definitely had the thermal room to get to 4.2 . No you're not going to get monster overclocks from ANY Ryzen chips, but the "4ghz wall" he describes is wrong.

 

[SkyNetRising]

you don't actually screw the fans to the heatsink, they instead attach with wire holders, which could conceivably have two mounting positions to suit 120mm and 140mm.

There are no wire holders on Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED.
Fans are screwed on black plastic "thingies" and those are clipped onto cooler. They are not compatible with 140mm fans. See the image:

 

[KingOfComputing]

you don't actually screw the fans to the heatsink, they instead attach with wire holders, which could conceivably have two mounting positions to suit 120mm and 140mm.

There are no wire holders on Cooler Master Hyper 212 LED.
Fans are screwed on black plastic "thingies" and those are clipped onto cooler. They are not compatible with 140mm fans. See the image:

Fair enough, guess they had it wrong on Amazon.

Since the Ryzen has such a small overclocking range and temp doesn't seem to be the barrier I guess the 120mm fans won't be an issue anyway...

 

[feelinfroggy777]

I have good cooling and a good motherboard and XFR regularly takes my cpu to 4.1ghz no problem. I have oced all cores to 4.1 ghz and definitely had the thermal room to get to 4.2 . No you're not going to get monster overclocks from ANY Ryzen chips, but the "4ghz wall" he describes is wrong.

Perhaps you should go back and look at what I said. I said it hits a wall

around 4ghz

100mhz is 2% difference in clockspeed of 4ghz. I call 2%, "around", but maybe your definition of "around" is different from mine.

I think you missed the point. Ryzen CPUs are not limited by a thermal barrier like Intel CPUs. Ryzen CPUs are limited by their architecture. You even said yourself that you have the thermal head room to get to 4.2. Because thermals is not the issue. There is no point in spending a lot of $$$ to remove a barrier that does not exist.

XFR will take your CPU to 4.1ghz, on 1-2 cores. Because that is what it is designed to do. But as soon as you overclock, XFR is disabled. I think XFR fell kinda flat on the first gen. The idea is to really negate the need to overclock. However, on the second gen CPUs the XFR has a nice bump to 4.35, but only on a couple of cores. Although temperature is a bigger factor with the second gen Ryzen CPUs. I am excited to see where XFR takes us, it could be that by the time Ryzen 2 comes out, your CPU will overclock itself.

 

[william p]

I would try it with the original fan and see how it works. The 2nd fan won't do much because the air is already moving so to some extent it's just being pinwheeled by the first fan. There are 140mm fans with 120mm mountings.
https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=711&area=en
Or just get a 140mm cooler.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9ZH3S91415