This review was a real money-saver, I suppose. Not particularly interested in the Enermax AiO, but seeing relative performance of all the different solutions tested, it really made me re-think my plan to upgrade my AiO.
I run a 240mm Lian Li Galahad (rev2, I *think* - but not *gen* 2) which I had bought when I built this PC last year. Originally it was cooling a 12600K - but I just upgraded to a 14700KF.
I don't have experience with more high-end CPUs (never had anything bigger than an i5), so I was a bit taken aback when that i7 drew more than 300W peak in Cinebench and, after a minute or two, reached 100°C on some of the P-cores. That was with my Z690 Tomahawk's default settings, BTW which have open PL1 and PL2 and pushed VIDs into mid 1.4V territory.
After reading up on how to configure these things in the BIOS (not just PL1/2 but also MSI's auto Vcore offset function), it now will stay between 200 and 250W in CB and temps are very manageable with my 240 Galahad. While gaming in more CPU-heavy titles, peak temps will be in the low to mid 50°C-range and CPU-power draw is never higher than 75W.
Seeing that this AiO is pretty close to (or, in some cases) even better than some of the 360mm products, I don't really feel like I need to spend even more money to go 360 and throw out a ~15 month old, kinda, sorta "premium" 240mm AiO. Seems to me that a few degrees temp-reduction is all I could expect from replacing the 240 with one of the better 360 AiOs.
Since the setup as I run it now will still let the CPU hit max boost frequency, while temps on all P-cores are staying in the high 70s to mid/high 80s *and* manages excellent benchmark results ... I don't think I will be spending money on a larger AiO anytime soon.
What I will say is that another factor that really helped the 240 being able to cope with the i7 (I think) is that I did change my case from a bequiet Pure Base 600 to a Fractal Design Pop Air XL RGB. Not only is the Fractal's front *much* more open than the bequiet's, its added internal space and "cleaner" interior seems to really benefit airflow and temps. My chipset heatsink for example is covered almost completely by my graphics card, but: In the bequiet-case, chipset temps would reach the low 60°C-range while gaming - on the Fractal with only the 240mm in the front, they never exceeded the low/mid 50s and since I added a third 120mm fan to the front, they're staying in the mid to high 40s. And that's with the same number of fans and all of them mounted in the same spots on both cases except for the added front 120mm intake I just threw in (2x140 top exhausts, 1x120 rear exhaust, AiO mounted in the front as an intake).
S.
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