i5 4690k Best CPU Cooler Liquid vs Air!

[MhmmMarcus]

Hello guys,

First off I just want to thank you for stumbling across this forum post, I know this has been asked over and over again but all the forums I read only answered for air coolers it never considered water coolers also. So I am going to re-ask a question I am sure you have all seen multiple times.

What is the best CPU cooler for an overclocked i5 4690k. I am aiming for 4.5ghz overclock, but that all depends if I won the silicone lottery. I am not going to overclock until I get a great CPU cooler.

ABOUT ME/ ABOUT MY BUILD
- i5 4690k

- G Skill RipJaws Ram

z87-A Motherboard

GTX 960

- ATX FullTower Case
( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353059 )

The things I listed is just to give you an idea of how much room I have to play with.
Budget is about 200 and noise does not bother me too much, But preference is the cooling to noise ratio!

Thank you all for reading my repetitive forum post and I am excited to be apart of this community! I love computers and I am thankful my brother got me enthused by them
Solutions and discussion are both appreciated!!

Much Love,
MhmmMarcus

 

[RobCrezz]

Both the high end air coolers and 240mm AIO liquid coolers will perform about the same. The main reason to go for a liquid cooler is convenience of installation and accessibility of ram etc (not having a huge metal lump in the middle can be convenient), and also many people prefer the looks of the AIOs.

But for performance and noise, you wont really notice any difference, with the high end air coolers potentially being quieter.


I would consider the following:

Air:
Noctua D14/D15
Phanteks TC-14PE

AIO:
H105
H100i GTX
Kraken X61

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

Air is cheaper and quieter. Water coolers do look cool though. Really something else if you have a window case.

 

[MhmmMarcus]

Awesome thanks for the speedy replies!! I would assume that liquid cooling gets lower temps by a few celcius.
I do have a window case and my color scheme is White and Blue with touches of black here and there

 

[RobCrezz]

Awesome thanks for the speedy replies!! I would assume that liquid cooling gets lower temps by a few celcius.
I do have a window case and my color scheme is White and Blue with touches of black here and there

Not really, the best air coolers are pretty equal with the best AIO liquid coolers.

Custom liquid cooling is another matter.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I got to 4.8Ghz on an i5 4690K with a RAIJINTEK Pallas and run it at 4.6Ghz 24/7 at reasonable temperatures and voltage. It costs about $40.00 in the USA.

A Noctua NH C12 or C14 would be plenty unless you get a cruddy chip.

 

[synphul]

Big air cooling has always been my personal preference. Whether it's a low risk or not, liquid coolers can (and have) leaked on people's systems. Air coolers simply cannot leak. My 4690k tops out around 4.6ghz, I can get it to 4.7ghz but it's hitting the physical limits of the chip where it requires much higher core voltage. All chips will hit a wall at some point. The vcore to reach 4.7 is closer to 1.35v and I'm not comfortable running my cpu that high. I can reach 4.6ghz under 1.3v which is more realistic for fulltime use.

It's true that big air coolers can block the ram slots, mine does. In reality how much are people fiddling with their ram? It's not as if it's a weekly or even monthly upgrade requiring regular access. Assuming you start with 8gb of ram, move to 16gb and then move again to 32gb (the limit for lga1150) that means only having to remove the cooler twice aside from the initial install. Not really a big deal and most people won't need 32gb of ram so that's one less removal for upgrading.

I'm running the dark rock pro 3 and I love it. It's silent even under load. Even my case fans are louder, and they're pretty quiet. One variety being the phanteks 140mm and the other being noctua redux 140mm, all three running under 7v so they're much quieter than their specs (max dba). The noctua's are rated to around 25dba and the phanteks to around 19dba at full speed (12v) so it gives an idea of how quiet it is. Hard to imagine water cooling being that quiet and in a best case scenario, hard to get any quieter than near silent. Meaning I have to take the side cover off the case, shut down the other fans and get my ear within 4-5" of the cooler to even hear a soft whisper.

Other large air coolers perform similarly, I'm not saying the cooler I use is the only one to consider. It does give an idea of the capabilities of large air cooling though. Even though the drp3 is a large cooler it's less restrictive when it comes to ram height than other larger coolers. Others may require raising up the front fan or removing it. Bequiet opted to use a smaller 120mm fan up front so no adjustments have to be made and it fits easily over ripjaws x ram which aren't exactly low profile. Really tall heatspreaders like corsair vengeance may be an issue. Gskill's trident ram have tall heat spreaders but they're removable.

Liquid cooling is still an option and some prefer the look. Some prefer the look of air cooler towers, it's down to personal preference there. I just don't see justification for the cost. Dual aio's like the h100i gtx or similar tend to run $100-120, an equally performing noctua nh-d14 runs around $70. The cooler I'm using is pretty expensive ($90), I would have probably passed it up had it not been on sale for $50. If your case has the room, the thermalright true spirit 140 power performs on par with the nh-d14 for around $60. It's 170mm tall though so requires a somewhat wide case.