Question Air Cooler for a 8700k.

[Samuel SC]

Good day, I don't want to go for liquid cooling, so I'll need an air cooler.
The price doesn't matter, the only thing I ask is that it does not interfere with my ddr4 (4 x 8 Corsair vengeance RGB pro).

These data can help:
Case: Corsair obsidian 500d rgb.
CPU: Intel core i7 8700k.
Motherboard: Asus rog maximus XI hero (wifi).
DDR4: Corsair vengeance rgb pro 4 x 8.

My main use is videogames and video editing. I don't plan on overclocking for a couple of years, until my processor becomes a bit slow for the new requirements of the games.

 

[parkour47]

I'd opt for BE QUIET!'s Dark Rock Pro 4. If necessary, the fan that sits above your RAM can be raised slightly for extra clearance, and you won't need to upgrade the cooler again when you decide to overclock.

 

[Eximo]

NH-U12S is a common recommendation for less interference with memory.

 

[Samuel SC]

I'd opt for BE QUIET!'s Dark Rock Pro 4. If necessary, the fan that sits above your RAM can be raised slightly for extra clearance, and you won't need to upgrade the cooler again when you decide to overclock.

Thanks, it looks amazing in black, the problem is that since my ddr4 are RGB, it hurts to have bought them and not be able to see them.

 

[parkour47]

Yeah. Unfortunately, most decent air cooling options are rather beefy. I think RGB RAM was generally designed with AIO liquid coolers in mind.

 

[Samuel SC]

NH-U12S is a common recommendation for less interference with memory.

Thanks, I haven't seen this cooler before and it seems very interesting, I Will look for its temperatures.
Since it seems of a similar size, do you think it's more efficient than the be quiet dark pro 4 normal or another of this size?

 

[Samuel SC]

Yeah. Unfortunately, most decent air cooling options are rather beefy. I think RGB RAM was generally designed with AIO liquid coolers in mind.

Yes, obviously, it would look better with an aio cooler because of the little space they use on the motherboard, in fact, I was about to buy a h115i pro, but it makes me very nervous to think about a posible leak.

 

[parkour47]

That's precisely why I don't like liquid cooling. Nor do AIO solutions perform significantly better than the best air coolers. In fact, the only air cooler that beats BE QUIET!'s Dark Rock Pro 4, in terms of performance, is the Noctua NH-D15. But that isn't winning any design awards for its aesthetics, and the Dark Rock Pro 4 runs, well, quieter.

 

[rhysiam]

Why don't you get the non-pro Dark Rock 4. It's a single tower cooler so shouldn't block your RAM, particularly if you swap the fan to a "pull" configuration. You do lose a bit of cooling capacity over the dual tower Pro, but unless you're pushing for a bleeding edge OC you should be absolutely fine with a beefy single tower.

Normally I'd suggest the Noctua NH-U14S, but if the goal here is to keep your RGB ram visible, I'm guessing aesthetics matter? In which case you're better with a BeQuiet! unit.

 

[parkour47]

That's another option, yes. The Dark Rock 4 also runs even quiter than its Pro variant, if that matters to you.

 

[Karadjgne]

Everything has a failure rate, from the cpu to the mobo to the aircooler. I've seen aircoolers (name brand, expensive aircooler at that) with warped bases, I've seen aircoolers with liquid leakage from the heat pipe. I've seen motherboards warped from excessive weight. Hang around pc's long enough (I've been at this for almost 40 years now) and you'll see everything and anything that can possibly happen.

Do aios leak? Yep, sure do. About 0.05% of all manufactured aios leak coming from the manufacturer. The other 99.94% of the 1% of all aios that leak comes from user abuse or installer abuse, usually the same thing. The tubing is flexible, but install stress placed by installers when trying to force the tubing to fit certain angles stresses the connections to the pump/radiator. And that's when leaks happen.

Corsair puts its name on over 1 million aios every year. You might be lucky to see 20 videos/reports from this year all expounding their dissatisfaction in a leaky aio that caused damage. What you don't see is the 999,980 videos of happy owners.

1 bad apple doesn't ruin the whole crop.

You have a far greater chance of buying a psu that will fail than an aio that will leak.

Your issue with coolers isn't going to be easy to fix. That ram is 51mm tall, which precludes bumping most aircooler fans up as that'd put total height at @ 180mm. So any cooler cannot broach even the first ram slot since you have 4x8Gb sticks. The Noctua NH-D15S would physically fit in its single fan mode, at 64mm clearance, but the heatsink overhangs the first slot. As will almost every dual tower.

Which leaves single towers as overhang coolers like the Noctua NH-C14S will cover everything. Out of all the single towers, with any decent cooling ability, the only one that has 0 ram interference I could find or know of, is the Cryorig H5 Universal, which uses a slim fan, not a standard 25mm thick fan, thereby not overhanging the ram at all and still pulling decent numbers.

It's that or an aio.

 

[Karadjgne]

That's precisely why I don't like liquid cooling. Nor do AIO solutions perform significantly better than the best air coolers. In fact, the only air cooler that beats BE QUIET!'s Dark Rock Pro 4, in terms of performance, is the Noctua NH-D15. But that isn't winning any design awards for its aesthetics, and the Dark Rock Pro 4 runs, well, quieter.

Are they supposed to? Don't think so. Air coolers and aios perform the same function, the same. In their respective brackets. A 120mm AIO has the same limits as a 120mm aircooler, @ 140w ability. A 240mm has @ the same 250w+ limits as the vaunted Noctua NH-D15. But thats where that aircooler possible superiority ends. There isn't a aircooler made for pc's that has the same headroom as a 280mm, 360mm aio. You ate talking about anywhere upto @400w capability,

The only time an aircooler can possibly get better performance is inside its own limits. I dare you to put a hyper212 up against my nzxt x61 in any catagory. It'll lose every time. Even the NH-D15S can't keep up..

 

[rhysiam]

Which leaves single towers as overhang coolers like the Noctua NH-C14S will cover everything. Out of all the single towers, with any decent cooling ability, the only one that has 0 ram interference I could find or know of, is the Cryorig H5 Universal, which uses a slim fan, not a standard 25mm thick fan, thereby not overhanging the ram at all and still pulling decent numbers.

It's that or an aio.

What about my suggestion of the single tower Dark Rock 4 (non-pro) in pull configuration? It's still a decent cooler perfectly capable of handling a mid-range OC on an 8700K. That's all the OP is looking for judging from his post.

Everything has a failure rate, from the cpu to the mobo to the aircooler.

RE Reliability: Without wishing to get too off track, surely you'd concede that the pump in an AIO adds an extra point of failure? A dead pump means end-of-life for a standard AIO too. I'd contend that a compact water pump is a substantially more complex piece of engineering. I don't have stats on it or even much anecdotal experience, but I'd be willing to wager a fair amount that the MTBF on AIO pumps is far lower than anything but the cheapest of fans (which can be easily replaced anyway). If you move your PC around then the weight of air coolers adds risk, but for static desktop PCs, I'd argue strongly that reliability and longevity are "pros" for air cooling, just as high end performance, portability and aesthetics are "pros" for water cooling. Building custom PCs is great because we make our purchases based on our own priorities.

Here's an example: My trusty NH-D14 has been trundling along without issue for 7 years now. With an AM4 mounting kit (which Noctua may well send me for free) I intend to move it on to a new 3900X in the coming months. For me, that's exactly what I expected from the D14 when I bought it, I don't consider myself "lucky", and I fully expect the D14 to continue its faithful service for the planned 4-6 year life of my new 3900X build. At worst I need to replace the fans, but that's not something that worries my in the slightest. There's no way I'd feel the same with a 7+ year old AIO (let alone a 12-13yr old one when I expect to be finally retiring the D14).

So can I ask, would you recommend someone put a 7yr old AIO on top of a brand new, $500 3900X? While I totally agree that the reliability "issues" with AIO coolers are often overblown, I'd also point out that you can expect to get many more years of service from a quality air cooler. That's not a priority for everyone of course, but it deserves mention when considering a purchase.

 

[Bearmann]

I don't think the Noctua NH-U12a overhangs the RAM, and it's one step above the NH-U12s in performance. It would be fine for that future overclock.

 

[rigg42]

https://www.newegg.com/p/13C-0004-00085?Item=9SIA9ZH97B9538

 

[Karadjgne]

Mtbf as far as I know is usually 50k hrs. That's 5.7yrs, which is also as long as the coolant usually lasts before evaporation and thermal breakdown catches up to it far enough to no longer circulate reliably. It's also roughly as long as a regular fan will last. I had a nzxt x61, well still do, that ran 24/7 for 6 straight years only being shut down for cleaning. Wanna take a guess as to what failed. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the pump or the coolant.

Granted some fans, like those Noctua make, have mtbf of upto 150k hrs, but that's the exception, not the rule.

Most ppl change coolers with the cpu when it gets to a 7yr update. It can be for looks, performance, whatever, sometimes they just want something new or a different color. Very few would keep even a great cooler like the D14, maybe the new case only fits 153mm heatsinks or maybe it's htpc or mITX and doesn't fit, maybe they just like the RGB on the Wraith. So getting usable life out of a cooler is quite often different than used life.

My next build will be mITX for sure, I already know this. Whether my current Cryorig R1 Ultimate will fit that is a different story, if it doesn't, no biggie, I'll just get something that will.

Very few ppl buy a brand new car, and run it till it dies. After a few years they'll get something else, doesn't matter if there's nothing wrong with the old car, it could still be mint, they just want it gone. Coolers are no different.

 

[Karadjgne]

I don't think the Noctua NH-U12a overhangs the RAM, and it's one step above the NH-U12s in performance. It would be fine for that future overclock.

Yes, the Noctua NH-U12A would be great, and does clear the ram, however, the last time I saw one in a retail store it was $139 and that was over a year ago. Brand new on EBAY, $149.

 

[Karadjgne]

https://www.newegg.com/p/13C-0004-00085?Item=9SIA9ZH97B9538

This looks very promising, I like the Fuma Rev. B a lot, but it can have fitment issues. Since I don't read Japanese, that's the only indepth review out so far, I'll wait, but 85°C on a maxed out 5GHz 9900k is seriously impressive.

 

[Samuel SC]

What about my suggestion of the single tower Dark Rock 4 (non-pro) in pull configuration? It's still a decent cooler perfectly capable of handling a mid-range OC on an 8700K. That's all the OP is looking for judging from his post.

Hi I think I've found an image of the configuration you´re referring to with the be quiet! dark tower rock 4 and it looks perfect. Is this what you were referring to?
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/be_quiet_dark_rock_4_cpu_cooler_review,5.html

I have 2 questions,
Do you think that the temperature reached by this cooler and the noctua nh-u12a is very different?
If I make the decision to buy dark rock 4, Is there any termal paste that recommends a better quality that reduces a few degrees or that the one that brings the package is good?
Greetings.

 

[Samuel SC]

Everything has a failure rate, from the cpu to the mobo to the aircooler. I've seen aircoolers (name brand, expensive aircooler at that) with warped bases, I've seen aircoolers with liquid leakage from the heat pipe. I've seen motherboards warped from excessive weight. Hang around pc's long enough (I've been at this for almost 40 years now) and you'll see everything and anything that can possibly happen.

Do aios leak? Yep, sure do. About 0.05% of all manufactured aios leak coming from the manufacturer. The other 99.94% of the 1% of all aios that leak comes from user abuse or installer abuse, usually the same thing. The tubing is flexible, but install stress placed by installers when trying to force the tubing to fit certain angles stresses the connections to the pump/radiator. And that's when leaks happen.

Corsair puts its name on over 1 million aios every year. You might be lucky to see 20 videos/reports from this year all expounding their dissatisfaction in a leaky aio that caused damage. What you don't see is the 999,980 videos of happy owners.

1 bad apple doesn't ruin the whole crop.

You have a far greater chance of buying a psu that will fail than an aio that will leak.

Your issue with coolers isn't going to be easy to fix. That ram is 51mm tall, which precludes bumping most aircooler fans up as that'd put total height at @ 180mm. So any cooler cannot broach even the first ram slot since you have 4x8Gb sticks. The Noctua NH-D15S would physically fit in its single fan mode, at 64mm clearance, but the heatsink overhangs the first slot. As will almost every dual tower.

Which leaves single towers as overhang coolers like the Noctua NH-C14S will cover everything. Out of all the single towers, with any decent cooling ability, the only one that has 0 ram interference I could find or know of, is the Cryorig H5 Universal, which uses a slim fan, not a standard 25mm thick fan, thereby not overhanging the ram at all and still pulling decent numbers.

It's that or an aio.

I understand what you say, anything can fail, and even before they do, a lightning could fall on the pc or give me a cardiac arrest to my haha.

My plan was to buy an air cooler to use my pc at stock values for at least 2 years (if a cooler like dark rock 4 is efficient to play videogames and edit videos), and when I decided to overclocking, change it for the h115i pro.
What do you think?

 

[Karadjgne]

If you look closely at that guru3d link, you'll notice that the rear i/o ports are facing the back of the case, yet the fan is mounted as push towards the front of the case, which is totally ash-backwards. To get that to function correctly they'd have to spin the fan around so that it's oriented as Pull instead. That orientation works fine at higher rpm, where the low pressure area in the front of the fan will reach even to the front of the heatsink, but at idle speeds, the air resistance between the fins will make more air draw from the rear area sides and end up costing performance. That doesn't usually affect slim tower designs nearly as much as the thicker designs.

 

[parkour47]

Are they supposed to? Don't think so. Air coolers and aios perform the same function, the same. In their respective brackets. A 120mm AIO has the same limits as a 120mm aircooler, @ 140w ability. A 240mm has @ the same 250w+ limits as the vaunted Noctua NH-D15. But thats where that aircooler possible superiority ends. There isn't a aircooler made for pc's that has the same headroom as a 280mm, 360mm aio. You ate talking about anywhere upto @400w capability,

The only time an aircooler can possibly get better performance is inside its own limits. I dare you to put a hyper212 up against my nzxt x61 in any catagory. It'll lose every time. Even the NH-D15S can't keep up..

That's not a fair comparison when a 280mm AIO costs significantly more than the NH-D15S, which is already significantly more expensive than the Hyper 212. The OP may not be concerned with price, but neither is he cooling a 9900K.

Also, what causes AIOs to leak is largely irrelevant. It happens, and they still have that extra point of failure. So, however low the incidence rate, where's the advantage in taking that risk, apart from aesthetics?

 

[Samuel SC]

If you look closely at that guru3d link, you'll notice that the rear i/o ports are facing the back of the case, yet the fan is mounted as push towards the front of the case, which is totally ash-backwards. To get that to function correctly they'd have to spin the fan around so that it's oriented as Pull instead. That orientation works fine at higher rpm, where the low pressure area in the front of the fan will reach even to the front of the heatsink, but at idle speeds, the air resistance between the fins will make more air draw from the rear area sides and end up costing performance. That doesn't usually affect slim tower designs nearly as much as the thicker designs.

Are you basically saying that if I leave the fan on the opposite side of the ddr4, should I change the orientation of the fan so that the air passes through the block?

 

[Karadjgne]

You want air going front to back. If you put the fan on the back of the cooler, it needs to suck air through the heatsink. If it is on the front, as standard, it needs to blow through the heatsink. Last thing you'll want is blowing hot air towards the front of the case.

That's not a fair comparison when a 280mm AIO costs significantly more than the NH-D15S, which is already significantly more expensive than the Hyper 212. The OP may not be concerned with price, but neither is he cooling a 9900K.

Also, what causes AIOs to leak is largely irrelevant. It happens, and they still have that extra point of failure. So, however low the incidence rate, where's the advantage in taking that risk, apart from aesthetics?

Both have advantages and disadvantages, that's what this post has been about. There's motherboards like the Sabertooth (the guru3d.com link above) that have a difficult time with many aircoolers. I can't mount certain aircoolers on my Z77, the heat pipes come into contact with the motherboard VRM heatsinks. The NH-D15 had to be redesigned into the D15S, which has a slight right offset because the original would come into contact with many gpu backplates. Many aircoolers, even the cheap hyper212, are too tall for many slimmer cases. Almost all scenarios with lga2011+if using quad channel ram require liquid cooling, aircoolers don't fit. If you want equitable performance, aesthetics aside, quite often the best solution is an aio or custom loop.

And what does price have to do with performance? A $20 Raijintek Aidos 92mm gets 1° C better temps than a $30 hyper212 evo at 160mm. The $70 NH-D15 gets better temps across the board than the $150 NH-U12A.

Performance is a measure of the heatsink and fans combination, I get better temps with a Noctua NF-F12 pwm on my Corsair H55, than I do the stock Corsair fan. It's also quieter, not surprisingly. But my i7-3770K at 4.9GHz would see 72°C under Prime95 small fft, pushing just over 250w. Even a Noctua NH-D15 would be having a seriously hard time getting under 90°C ish with that wattage as it's at the coolers upper limit. Capacity is wholly different than temp performance and there isn't an aircooler available with the sheer capacity of the large AIO's.

In the smaller aios, capacity is equitable. The Corsair H60 gets identical temps to a hyper212 evo, both 140w coolers. You'd see the h80i/H90 neck and neck with any of the 200w coolers like the DR4 or H5. The NH-D14 is 230w, runs with the 240mm aios.

The problem with many reviews, even professional reviews is lack of top end. Frostytech had a good idea with split wattage, you'd see a 95w load and a 150w load, but for the larger coolers, both liquid and air, that's semi useless. They needed to be pushing 200/250w loads and taxing the coolers to the limits, just like cpu/gpu tests. How well a NH-D15 performs on a 95w load vrs a hyper212, yes the bigger cooler will be better but that's due to the fans, is an unworthy test. Bump that to 150w and the hyper212 temps will skyrocket, the NH-D15 won't even blink. All about capacity, very little about performance.

 

[rhysiam]

Can I just chime in here to say that I think our discussion/debate (and I contributed to this - I'm not blaming anyone here!) may have made this whole topic seem way more complicated to OP than it actually is.

OP just to simplify things a little: to run your 8700K at stock, any aftermarket air tower or water cooler from a reputable brand will do the job perfectly well. All of those coolers will also handle a mild overclock just fine.

If you want to push a moderate overclock, then it's worth stepping up to a mid-range cooler. Avoid the $30 units and budget more like $50-$80 for something a bit thicker, or look at a CLC. But again, just about any unit on the market with a 140mm fan and decent width will support a solid, moderate OC on an 8700K.

If you care about squeezing every last mhz possible out of your CPU, and/or you're prepared to do your research and part with money to absolutely minimise the noise output of your PC, then the sorts of discussions we've been having above are well worth engaging with. Alternatively, perhaps you're interested in learning anyway... in which case, great! As long as you remember that the min/maxing we're talking about above has very little impact unless or until you start pushing a hefty OC on your 8700K OR you care about reducing the sound output to the absolute minimum.

Here's my suggestion FWIW:
You seem like you're interested in aesthetics -> if that's the case I'd suggest either going all-in on a CLC right now (but that's expensive and overkill for stock operation),
OR
Go with my suggestion above of a Dark Rock 4 (non Pro) in Pull configuration.

Hi I think I've found an image of the configuration you´re referring to with the be quiet! dark tower rock 4 and it looks perfect. Is this what you were referring to?
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/be_quiet_dark_rock_4_cpu_cooler_review,5.html

Yep, that's the one. Though as @Karadjgne noticed, you'd want to rotate the fan 180 degrees so that it was pulling air through the cooler and sending it out towards the back of your case.

I have 2 questions,
Do you think that the temperature reached by this cooler and the noctua nh-u12a is very different?

I would expect this to be a bit better than the U12A as it's larger. Though having the fan in pull rather than push may reduce the efficiency slightly.

If I make the decision to buy dark rock 4, Is there any termal paste that recommends a better quality that reduces a few degrees or that the one that brings the package is good?
Greetings.

If you're not overclocking right away then just use the included paste. Honestly, even if you're OCing the included paste is probably just fine. This falls into the stuff I was talking about above. If you're willing to put time, effort and money in to eek out every last bit of performance then by all means get a better paste. But a few degrees is very unlikely to make any difference to anything.

RE getting the CLC to overclock down the track. That's certainly an option, but with a decent air cooler like the Dark Rock 4 you honestly don't need it.