Question Cooling (Liquid or Air) and radiator placement ?

[CrytoxXD]

Hello Folks,

I built my second PC a while ago. (To clarify, I built my first one in December 2021, but now I want to build a high-end system for working with UE5, Blender, and similar applications.)

Here are the components:

• PSU: be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER 12 850W
• Motherboard: MSI Gaming Plus WIFI AMD
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
• GPU: ASUS TUF RX7800XT OC
• RAM: 2x 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 NEO DDR5-6000
• CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock PRO 5
• Additional Fans: 6x Alpenföhn Wing Boost 3 (140x140x25)
• Case: ASUS ROG Strix Helios

Currently, I have three fans on the front drawing air in, two fans on the top, and one fan at the back pushing air out. Overall, this setup seems to work; my GPU rarely exceeds 65°C even under 100% load. However, the CPU appears to be struggling. Under full load on all cores, it reaches its throttle point of 90°C. Under lighter loads, it reaches up to 5.50GHz but starts throttling and drops below 5.00GHz.

The CPU cooler has a significantly higher TDP than required by the CPU, but this doesn’t seem to make a difference. I have already reapplied thermal paste (tried different brands as well), but this hasn’t improved the situation.

I'm beginning to wonder if my airflow setup is incorrect or if an AIO (All-In-One) cooling system might be a smarter choice for this kind of build.

I don’t have much experience with cooling systems, so any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lutfij]

How about you try out something. Take the front fascia off the case and see if your temps improve. If it does, then your airflow in the case is fine, the fascia is impeding the case from drawing in cool air into the case. If you do go for an AIO, it'd have to be mounted at the top of the case if the pump is located on the CPU's block. If the pump is in the radiator or in the tube, then you can mount the radiator to the front.

 

[bill001g]

You would have to look your cooler up in the comparison charts but many air coolers do just as well or better than many AIO systems. Most times you have to go to a 360 or large aio to beat good air coolers. I would avoid a AIO unless you were running overclocked intel cpu the extra stuff that can go wrong with a AIO just is not worth it.

As mentions above it is likely the case. Maybe leave all the panels off and see what your best temp can be.

There are very inexpensive coolers from thermalright that get top marks for cooling. Most can even keep a 14900k under control as long as you are using intel recommended default settings.

 

[Zerk2012]

I agree nice looking case but little front intake air coming in not something I would consider using.

 

[Paperdoc]

A few suggestions.
1. Remove all three dust filters and make sure they have been cleaned so air flow is easy.
2. Consider removing entirely the TOP air filter. It is essential IF your top fans are intakes, but assuming they are exhaust fans, the filter can be removed.
3. Regarding the re-application of thermal paste, three thoughts.
a) Did you get the cooler fastening back onto the CPU top tightened down evenly and tightly?
(b) For every CPU there is a "just right" amount of paste. Too MUCH is just as bad as too LITTLE. Did you use the web (paste makers' website?) to find out exactly how much to apply and do just that?
(c) Did you clean off the cooler's bottom and the CPU's top thoroughly before adding new paste?

 

[CrytoxXD]

First thanks for all replies so far!

How about you try out something. Take the front fascia off the case and see if your temps improve. If it does, then your airflow in the case is fine, the fascia is impeding the case from drawing in cool air into the case. If you do go for an AIO, it'd have to be mounted at the top of the case if the pump is located on the CPU's block. If the pump is in the radiator or in the tube, then you can mount the radiator to the front.

Tried that, it improved it a little bit. Would you have any recommendations for AIO? Only ever used one for building a rig for a friend, so I am not quite confident in choosing an appropriate product.

You would have to look your cooler up in the comparison charts but many air coolers do just as well or better than many AIO systems. Most times you have to go to a 360 or large aio to beat good air coolers. I would avoid a AIO unless you were running overclocked intel cpu the extra stuff that can go wrong with a AIO just is not worth it.

As mentions above it is likely the case. Maybe leave all the panels off and see what your best temp can be.

There are very inexpensive coolers from thermalright that get top marks for cooling. Most can even keep a 14900k under control as long as you are using intel recommended default settings.

Looked it up and normally it should be able to cool my cpu, but yeah I agree it seems to be the case, because leaving the panels off does improve the temps a bit. But leaving them off is not an option I would like. And normally I would agree that using an AIO is not worth the trouble but considering that circumstance, I think an AIO pushing the air out the top would lead to better temps.

I agree nice looking case but little front intake air coming in not something I would consider using.

Yeah normally I wouldn't have taken that also, but sadly I was a bit under pressure, because my old rig was at that time not working and I was needing it for work. So yeah I kinda bought the one that looked the best, was available and had enough space for everything. I kinda now regret it, but well cannot change it really ^^

A few suggestions.
1. Remove all three dust filters and make sure they have been cleaned so air flow is easy.
2. Consider removing entirely the TOP air filter. It is essential IF your top fans are intakes, but assuming they are exhaust fans, the filter can be removed.
3. Regarding the re-application of thermal paste, three thoughts.
a) Did you get the cooler fastening back onto the CPU top tightened down evenly and tightly?
(b) For every CPU there is a "just right" amount of paste. Too MUCH is just as bad as too LITTLE. Did you use the web (paste makers' website?) to find out exactly how much to apply and do just that?
(c) Did you clean off the cooler's bottom and the CPU's top thoroughly before adding new paste?

1. Did and done, didn't really change anything.
2. Did and did improve it some.
3.
a) Yes. I was worried while building so I basically triple checked it and even let a friend of mine (who is more of an expert with pcs than I am) also check. It should be pretty much perfect.
b) Yes. I mostly follow the manufacturers instruction if doing something like that. They recommended 5 little dots. One on each corner and one in the middle.
c) Yes. Cleaned them both with Isopropanol very thourougly. I even waited a bit before reapplying because I though maybe let it dry a bit longer ^^

So again thanks y'all for giving advice. I'm pretty sure now that the problem seems to be the case itself. Considering that I don't really want to leave the panels off because of looks I think the only option would be to replace the cooler with an 360mm AIO to push the air out to the top. That way I think I should score better temps, right?

Going of that assumption, which AIO would you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance!

 

[ilukey77]

To start the zen 4 x series cpu's boost to 90c by default its not really dangerous as it by design the non x cpus are much better to cool with only a ever so slight drop in performance ..

That said you have a 7700x now so my advice is a arctic freezer 2 or 3 280 or 360mm aio they are best of the best price to performance..

But dont really be scared of the 90c temps its by design ..

when i first built my AM5 system i used a placeholder 7600x using a arctic freezer 2 420mm aio i could only keep the 7600x to 75c using cinebench r23 all core even with the overkill and diminishing returns using such a big cooler the 420mm still wasnt amazing but with like ive said with a by design boost to 90c even the 7600x is a hot little cpu!!

 

[CrytoxXD]

To start the zen 4 x series cpu's boost to 90c by default its not really dangerous as it by design the non x cpus are much better to cool with only a ever so slight drop in performance ..

That said you have a 7700x now so my advice is a arctic freezer 2 or 3 280 or 360mm aio they are best of the best price to performance..

But dont really be scared of the 90c temps its by design ..

Hey thanks for the reply!
I pretty much knew that they boost to 90c, so I am not really worried about that. I am rather worried about the throttling.

As it's my understanding the CPU starts to throttle at 90c to find a point where the temp won't increase further. In my case the CPU throttles to about 5.00GHz, which is still without a doubt enough, but considering it should be able to do 5.50GHz it's still quite a drop in performance. Especially if working with Unreal Engine 5 that can make a rather big difference.

That said thanks for the recommendation. I also looked at that but wasn't quite sure.

 

[ilukey77]

Hey thanks for the reply!
I pretty much knew that they boost to 90c, so I am not really worried about that. I am rather worried about the throttling.

As it's my understanding the CPU starts to throttle at 90c to find a point where the temp won't increase further. In my case the CPU throttles to about 5.00GHz, which is still without a doubt enough, but considering it should be able to do 5.50GHz it's still quite a drop in performance. Especially if working with Unreal Engine 5 that can make a rather big difference.

That said thanks for the recommendation. I also looked at that but wasn't quite sure.

there is diminishing returns as per my edited thread i didnt see any better performance using a arctic 420mm on my 7600x even at 75c

granted i dont over clock my cpu's really not sure how much performance your leaving on the table by it throttling and then it comes down to silicon lottery to not all 7700x will clock to 5.5

 

[CrytoxXD]

there is diminishing returns as per my edited thread i didnt see any better performance using a arctic 420mm on my 7600x even at 75c

granted i dont over clock my cpu's really not sure how much performance your leaving on the table by it throttling and then it comes down to silicon lottery to not all 7700x will clock to 5.5

Mh, so basically I would spend another ~150€ for having a cooler cpu but I would likely not get any real advantage in performance?
So it would be an "try it" thing ya?

 

[ilukey77]

Mh, so basically I would spend another ~150€ for having a cooler cpu but I would likely not get any real advantage in performance?
So it would be an "try it" thing ya?

I personally dont think your going to see massive gains in performance !!

BUT

That said putting a 360mm arctic freezer 2 cooler ( providing your case with fit it arctic use a thicker rad over most other AIO's ) it will keep the CPU cooler and ultimately be better than air cooler and ( maybe my weird thinking ) keep the cpu going longer as i have my own issues with running the cpu at 90c constantly even if by design !!

while its maybe not what your thinking of and its higher cost again but a 7900 non x could be a bigger win ..
( just another option if you using it for production work )