[SOLVED] Air cooler vs AIO for 10900K OC

[czaajecs]

Hello guys,
so i already bought Noctua NH-D15, but today i started reading some posts here or on reddit and literally in every one of them someone was saying something slightly different regarding AIO vs Air on 10900k and i'm losing my mind here. Some people were saying that Noctua will be enough for OC, some were saying that Noctua won't be good enough even for stock, some were saying that there is no difference between "high end air coolers" and AIO's, etc.

10900K should arrive to me next week(i RMA'd it, because of broken factory seal) so i have some time to eventually return the Noctua and buy for example Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360.

I want to do some OC on the 10900k, not sure yet how much i want to push it, but i guess something around 5.0 would be my goal.

Rest of my setup:
CASE: Coolermaster H500M
MOBO: MSI Z490 ACE
GPU: RTX 2080
RAM: G.Skill TridentZ 4000Mhz CL17

PC used mostly for gaming.

Noise is not really a big deal for me(within reason, don't want to run fans on 100% rpm whole time)

Should i return Noctua and buy AIO? If so which one? Is a Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 good choice?

Regards.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Either will work but for the sake of cleanliness and aesthetics, I'd personally go with a 360mm AIO. Some people tend to move their system's in the same room a lot, so less stress on the motherboard helps.

 

[czaajecs]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Wither will work but for the sake of cleanliness and aesthetics, I'd personally go with a 360mm AIO.

Thanks for your welcome!

Honestly i much more prefer the bulky look of Noctua than AIO's, but appearance differences for me are negligible, all comes down to that performance aspect. If by buying AIO i could avoid some thermal throttling or whatever, i would choose it despite the looks and me being dead ass scared that AIO will leak. But if Noctua would be enough for that 4.8-5.0 OC in gaming, i would rather stick with it.

 

[Phaaze88]

1)The NH-D15 is fine for the 10900K stock, not overclocked though.
It just draws too much power with the power limits removed. Intel's stock power limits are very conservative; that's why it runs very cool in independent reviews that didn't OC it.

2)The 10900K, 10850K, and 10700K have next to no OC headroom. Intel already squeezed the crap out of these chips for you. You'll get a lot more power consumption for very little or no increase in clocks.
If you really want a great OC experience, the 10600K has more headroom to be pushed.

3)The 10900K has the exclusive Thermal Velocity Boost, completely defeating the purpose of overclocking it. The better the cooling, the higher it will boost on its own.

4)The 'big cpu cooler on motherboard' was debunked years ago. Today's coolers with their backplates spread their weight around the entire motherboard, which is also shared with the chassis that it is mounted to.

5)Hybrid coolers leaking are rare now, and weren't that common even when they first launched.
The people who had bad experiences were more often due to user error, and less likely a manufacturing defect. But sheep caught on and spread the negativity like wildfire...
Out of like 10million sold in one year, 10000 of them would yield a leak.
I won't refute that the possibility is still there - just be careful when handling one. Use both hands.

 

[czaajecs]

1)The NH-D15 is fine for the 10900K stock, not overclocked though.
It just draws too much power with the power limits removed. Intel's stock power limits are very conservative; that's why it runs very cool in independent reviews that didn't OC it.

2)The 10900K, 10850K, and 10700K have next to no OC headroom. Intel already squeezed the crap out of these chips for you. You'll get a lot more power consumption for very little or no increase in clocks.
If you really want a great OC experience, the 10600K has more headroom to be pushed.

3)The 10900K has the exclusive Thermal Velocity Boost, completely defeating the purpose of overclocking it. The better the cooling, the higher it will boost on its own.

4)The 'big cpu cooler on motherboard' was debunked years ago. Today's coolers with their backplates spread their weight around the entire motherboard, which is also shared with the chassis that it is mounted to.

5)Hybrid coolers leaking are rare now, and weren't that common even when they first launched.
The people who had bad experiences were more often due to user error, and less likely a manufacturing defect. But sheep caught on and spread the negativity like wildfire...
Out of like 10million sold in one year, 10000 of them would yield a leak.
I won't refute that the possibility is still there - just be careful when handling one. Use both hands.

By stock you mean with TurboBoost enabled, right? If so, i think i will keep Noctua, if i ever need more power for some reason i'm gonna just buy AIO and swap it.

 

[Phaaze88]

By stock you mean with TurboBoost enabled, right?

Yes.