Question Best 240mm water-cooling for an i5-13600KF ?

[naguib nader]

i m planning to upgrade

ASUS ROG Strix Z790-F Gaming WiFi 6E LGA 1700
Intel Core i5-13600KF
CORSAIR Vengeance DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 5200
with my old GPU rtx 2080

my case thermaltake lvl 10gt only support 240mm
so i m seeking your advice to the best water cooler out there

 

[Karadjgne]

EKWB 240mm AIO https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-aio-240-d-rgb
ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 https://a.co/d/d97R1I7

 

[geofelt]

An interesting looking case.
I like it.

With a 200mm intake fan, you have a good case for air cooling.
a Noctua NH-D15 or similar is going to cool about as well as a 240 aio.

 

[Karadjgne]

Can go either way for sure. With 190mm of clearance for cpu cooler, there's very few aircoolers that will not fit. It's a Beast of a case with excellent thermals and noise levels, the fans definitely don't require being run at max, so either air or liquid is good.

Just hope you have room to put it, it's slightly on the massive side. And be careful of the data cables in the hdd bays, they can be a tough fit with the rear panel proximity.

 

[naguib nader]

EKWB 240mm AIO https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-aio-240-d-rgb
ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 https://a.co/d/d97R1I7

from most of reviews available about 13th gen the temps are quite high with those cooler would be enough to keep the temps at acceptable level

 

[naguib nader]

An interesting looking case.
I like it.

With a 200mm intake fan, you have a good case for air cooling.
a Noctua NH-D15 or similar is going to cool about as well as a 240 aio.

thnx for the advice bro
but i would prefer 240 aio as the temps seems to be high without loading from most reviews around so i think water aio would be better option right now

 

[Karadjgne]

The NH-D15 and most 240mm aios are the same 250w class of cooler. There's no difference in that respect, same capacity.

What Can be different is the efficiency between fan and radiator which Can give a slight temp advantage to some 240mm aios over the NH-D15, but that's not true of All 240mm aios.

Liquid cooling isn't magic. It's not really any better than air coolers, in their respective ranges. A NH-D15 is considerably better than Any 120mm AIO because that's comparing a 150w aio to a 250w air cooler.

I'm a big proponent of liquid cooling, just as much as geofelt feels about aircooling, but we both agree that each has advantages, just as each has drawbacks.

In this case, a 13600k falls in the range of 250w maximum simply because that's the case limitations on liquid cooling and size limitations of big air. The 13600k is also a 200w cpu, so falls under the limits of either. Granted it would be better off with a 280mm aio, or 240mm custom loop, but that's not a possibility that's available.

 

[naguib nader]

The NH-D15 and most 240mm aios are the same 250w class of cooler. There's no difference in that respect, same capacity.

What Can be different is the efficiency between fan and radiator which Can give a slight temp advantage to some 240mm aios over the NH-D15, but that's not true of All 240mm aios.

Liquid cooling isn't magic. It's not really any better than air coolers, in their respective ranges. A NH-D15 is considerably better than Any 120mm AIO because that's comparing a 150w aio to a 250w air cooler.

I'm a big proponent of liquid cooling, just as much as geofelt feels about aircooling, but we both agree that each has advantages, just as each has drawbacks.

In this case, a 13600k falls in the range of 250w maximum simply because that's the case limitations on liquid cooling and size limitations of big air. The 13600k is also a 200w cpu, so falls under the limits of either. Granted it would be better off with a 280mm aio, or 240mm custom loop, but that's not a possibility that's available.

unfortunately liquid cooling is not available at my country & it will cost me kind of big amount of money to order items & materials required to make costume cooling

regarding my current case i don't think that 280mm would fit but is it worth to change the case with a new one thats support even 360mm or maybe bigger size to get bigger aio cooler

or the difference not worth to make such a change & save it for later upgrade

in case of keeping my current case your advice is which one should i pick air vs water aio

 

[Karadjgne]

Games run @ 70% power load, on a 200w cpu, you'd be looking at closer to 140-150w, well under the 250w capacity of big air or a 240mm AIO.

You don't need to change the case for better cooling, your cpu isn't going to require it. A 13700k or 13900k, then yes, but not for a 13600k.

I'm biased, I'll take liquid over air pretty much most times, geofelt is just as biased, he'd take air over liquid just as often. For you, it's a personal choice since you are limited to the same capacity, 250w.

Liquid or air, makes no difference except to you, there's no restrictions either way.

 

[naguib nader]

Games run @ 70% power load, on a 200w cpu, you'd be looking at closer to 140-150w, well under the 250w capacity of big air or a 240mm AIO.

You don't need to change the case for better cooling, your cpu isn't going to require it. A 13700k or 13900k, then yes, but not for a 13600k.

I'm biased, I'll take liquid over air pretty much most times, geofelt is just as biased, he'd take air over liquid just as often. For you, it's a personal choice since you are limited to the same capacity, 250w.

Liquid or air, makes no difference except to you, there's no restrictions either way.

Thanks bro for ur help so far
i ll go for 240mm AIO
i wanna know your opinion about the below as the EK is not avalibale to be shipped to my country as its not exist in amazon

Thermaltake

ARCTIC

 

[Bazzy 505]

From personal experience a decent 240mm AIO can comfortably handle 13600K without being particularly noisy or running too hot IF a there's good enough positive differentian pressure maintained in the chasis. Doesn't even need to be anything flashy, Corsair H100i will do just fine there, which isn't much to look at RGB wise, but than again it's meant to cool rather than bling

However moving up to 13700K and beyond, 280mm is a bare minimum.

 

[Karadjgne]

Thermaltake, No. They used to be very decent, but pretty much most of their stuff has gone downhill as far as quality and reliability goes.

Arctic, in a heartbeat. Very good company service, excellent cooler results, has been in the top 3 for performance for a while, if not at the top. The small fan on the pump also works very well to alleviate airflow issues with VRM's, unlike most other AIO's which have no fan.

Corsair, nzxt, fractal design are also very good, can sometimes be cheaper, depending on region.

 

[naguib nader]

From personal experience a decent 240mm AIO can comfortably handle 13600K without being particularly noisy or running too hot IF a there's good enough positive differentian pressure maintained in the chasis. Doesn't even need to be anything flashy, Corsair H100i will do just fine there, which isn't much to look at RGB wise, but than again it's meant to cool rather than bling

However moving up to 13700K and beyond, 280mm is a bare minimum.

how to maintain differentiation pressure regarding my case TT lvl 10 gt
from your experience what temps did u get especially when processor under heavy performance

 

[Bazzy 505]

how to maintain differentiation pressure regarding my case TT lvl 10 gt
from your experience what temps did u get especially when processor under heavy performance

You push slightly more air in through the ventilators with mesh filters on intake than the fans on AIO can pull out of the case, granted not an easy task on something like TT lvl 10gt. AIO radiator has fair bit of air resistance on its own so CFM stated its fans is nowhere near what really gets pushed through the radiator. If the net tends to be negative you tend to also suck in through holes in the blind plates covering unused ports, introducing a lot more dust than the air going through filters, making the case dustier than it needs to quite fast and clogging the rad fins rather fast too as a result.

 

[Karadjgne]

Almost right. Air going through the rad doesn't change cfm as such, it's a giant diffuser, it changes the static pressure. With a decent rad fan (which should be used anyway) almost all the air is going to go through, it just won't go anywhere once it's in.

That puts the onus on the exhaust fans to create enough vacuum on the intake side of the fan to drag that block of air through the case, helped by any remaining pressure from the intakes.

Dust filters by their nature of allowing air through don't block all the dust, they only block the larger particulates, the smaller stuff still goes right in through. The difference is marginal at best.

A negative pressure case is more effective than a positive case with an aio, more vacuum applied to the back of the rad.

 

[Bazzy 505]

Almost right. Air going through the rad doesn't change cfm as such, it's a giant diffuser, it changes the static pressure. With a decent rad fan (which should be used anyway) almost all the air is going to go through, it just won't go anywhere once it's in.

That puts the onus on the exhaust fans to create enough vacuum on the intake side of the fan to drag that block of air through the case, helped by any remaining pressure from the intakes.

Dust filters by their nature of allowing air through don't block all the dust, they only block the larger particulates, the smaller stuff still goes right in through. The difference is marginal at best.

A negative pressure case is more effective than a positive case with an aio, more vacuum applied to the back of the rad.

that's as a very OLD argument of suck or blow that's been going on for as long as active cooling has been a thing in PC compatibles
as for filters themselves it really depends on filters,what is your average run time is and how often do you actually feel bothered enough to clean them

 

[Phaaze88]

Just run tests and see how much any of it really matters...

 

[Karadjgne]

I run my pc, 2x240mm rads, 24/7/364. No filters at all. Cleaning 2x a year, takes 20 minutes ±.

And yes, it is a very old argument, and yet there's never a really satisfactory solution because there's so many variables. Some cases even do far better with a fully negative pressure setup, like the nzxt H510 series (non-flow).

Linus did a year long test with 5x fractal design R5's at idle uninterrupted in his basement, next to a renovation, so plenty of drywall dust to be found. Those 5 cases had all different layouts, from full positive to full negative and 3x in between.

End result was similar amounts of dust, it was just in different areas of the case, depending on where actual airflow was and where it wasn't.

Filters are nice if your pc is subjected to large amounts of dust, like next to an open window or you have 5 cats and a dander/shedding problem etc, but for the most part you really don't see much of a difference (if any) between regular maintenance periods whether you do or don't have filters.

Having filters in place doesn't mean you get to extend the time between cleanings...