[SOLVED] Is my CPU running hot? which AIO would best fit?

[Daniel Youssef]

Hello, recently I have upgraded and switched from intel i7-8700 to AMD ryzen 7 5800X processor, before switching I had an AIO cooler Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer C 120mm AIO , which was keeping the temps pretty well below 75 degrees with gaming load (max 80 with heavy load), now I'm running temps with like 75 if I'm playing just a game like Lost Ark (goes to 80-82 in loading screens), and also had an incident where I was playing metro exodus and changed my settings from ultra to high and had to re-adjust graphics so my cpu was going to 90 degrees while re adjusting graphics. So I was wondering are these temps okay? if it's too hot which AIO cooler would you recommend me?

Note: I was searching for AIO coolers that would best fit the 5800X for its heat and had a suggestion of ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240 , I also was thinking about the Cooler Master ML240L V2

My Case : Bitfenix Nova Mesh TG Black

 

[geofelt]

You have a fine case for air cooling if you populate the front intakes with either 3 120mm or two 140mm front intakes.
It has 160mm headroom for a good air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15s.
The cooling effectiveness is about equivalent to the proposed 240mm aio.

 

[Daniel Youssef]

You have a fine case for air cooling if you populate the front intakes with either 3 120mm or two 140mm front intakes.
It has 160mm headroom for a good air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15s.
The cooling effectiveness is about equivalent to the proposed 240mm aio.

I do have 3 intake in the front panels, 1 outtake in the back and 1 (the radiator's fan) outtake uptop but again with all what I've said, these temps are fine?! I don't need a new AIO?

 

[geofelt]

I do have 3 intake in the front panels, 1 outtake in the back and 1 (the radiator's fan) outtake uptop but again with all what I've said, these temps are fine?! I don't need a new AIO?

Your setup is good.
Run HWmonitor while gaming.
You should see 10-15c. over ambient when idle for individual cores.
Look at the max temperature for each core.
I think the max throttle temp for ryzen is 95c.
At that point, the cpu will slow down or turn off to protect itself.
If you see the max temp in red, it indicates that the core throttled and recovered.
That is not all bad.

In time, you will need to replace the aio. Think 5 years.
What happens is that air will intrude through the tubes and cooling becomes less effective.
Or, the pump being a mechanical device will fail or accumulate clogging debris.

 

[Phaaze88]

Folks have this terrible habit of installing 120mm AIO/CLC as an exhaust - literally the WORST setup to use them in, as their capacity isn't much better than more affordable 120mm air coolers.
-all the heat from EVERYTHING in front of it - most notably the gpu - would pass through it.
-or if there were any other exhaust fans nearby, it would fight with those for air.

Loading screens = high fps(it's mostly static imagery), so that's not really a surprise.

 

[Daniel Youssef]

Your setup is good.
Run HWmonitor while gaming.
You should see 10-15c. over ambient when idle for individual cores.
Look at the max temperature for each core.
I think the max throttle temp for ryzen is 95c.
At that point, the cpu will slow down or turn off to protect itself.
If you see the max temp in red, it indicates that the core throttled and recovered.
That is not all bad.

In time, you will need to replace the aio. Think 5 years.
What happens is that air will intrude through the tubes and cooling becomes less effective.
Or, the pump being a mechanical device will fail or accumulate clogging debris.

I was running afterburner, playing a simple game which is lost ark, here are the temps of cores

Folks have this terrible habit of installing 120mm AIO/CLC as an exhaust - literally the WORST setup to use them in, as their capacity isn't much better than more affordable 120mm air coolers.
-all the heat from EVERYTHING in front of it - most notably the gpu - would pass through it.
-or if there were any other exhaust fans nearby, it would fight with those for air.

Loading screens = high fps(it's mostly static imagery), so that's not really a surprise.

What would you suggest? upgrade that to 2x120mm fans - 240mm radiator up top or what should be done?

 

[geofelt]

It does not look to me like you need to do anything.
You could always experiment, but to what purpose?

 

[Phaaze88]

What would you suggest? upgrade that to 2x120mm fans - 240mm radiator up top or what should be done?

IF I was there, I would:
1)Change the cooler to a front intake, and roll with it. No need to spend any extra cash when all the tools are already there.

IF the cooler does not reach the front, then:
2)Set a gpu power limit of 90-95% to cut back on some of the heat being soaked by the loop, and space the cooler further away from the rear fan, IF it's not already set up that way.

 

[Daniel Youssef]

It does not look to me like you need to do anything.
You could always experiment, but to what purpose?

I'm not sure, I mean I'm not quite used to these numbers, playing a game that consumes 40% of the processor only and get 75C, if I play a game or do something that takes more usage then it'll go in the 80's, is that normal?

 

[geofelt]

A game that uses 40% of the processor may be one that is using two cores at 100% which will heat up the processor.
If you run a batch app that can fully load all cores, that is when the temperatures will maximize.
Try running the cpu-Z stress test which will load up all processing threads and see how you do.

 

[Karadjgne]

General rule of thumb is cooling potential 2x that of the cpu. That'll keep temps in check. Lower than that will see higher temps, more than that lower temps, reaching a break point either way after a certain amount, where the efficiency of the cooler either exceeds the cpu output or the cpu output exceeds the efficiency of the cooler.

So you'd not want to use a 100w tiny cooler on a 105w cpu or it'll easy reach 100°C, just as using a 400w 420mm AIO will do nothing more than the same results as a 300w 280mm AIO on a 65w cpu.

With a 150w class 120mm AIO on a 105w cpu, your temps are right in line for 1.5x. If you want to bring them down, (which is favorable for a Ryzen) , any of the larger capacity 200w towers like the Noctua U12A, beQuiet DarkRock 4, Deepcool AK620 will be good. The biggest air, like 250w Noctua D15/S, beQuiet DarkRock Pro4, Deepcool Assassin 3 will do better, but not by much.

A 240mm AIO runs @ 250w, same as big air, the Arctic slightly higher with its slightly deeper radiator offering better efficiency.

So you are OK as is, it's a personal choice to change, but that choice will disappear at @ 5-6 years on the AIO.

Usage is very misleading and iffy as there's more than one thing happening, but only one mark. Cores have bandwidth. Doesn't matter if you use 1% or 99% of that bandwidth, usage only counts the core as 'used'. For simplicity, if your gpu has 1000 cores and usage is 50%, that means at any given time period only 500 cores saw use. Got nothing to do with power use or temps. If all 500 cores saw a 1% bandwidth use, you'd have extremely little power usage and very low temps. But conversely if those cores were 99% saturated bandwidth, you'd see very high power use and very high temps. For the same 50% usage.

 

[Daniel Youssef]

General rule of thumb is cooling potential 2x that of the cpu. That'll keep temps in check. Lower than that will see higher temps, more than that lower temps, reaching a break point either way after a certain amount, where the efficiency of the cooler either exceeds the cpu output or the cpu output exceeds the efficiency of the cooler.

So you'd not want to use a 100w tiny cooler on a 105w cpu or it'll easy reach 100°C, just as using a 400w 420mm AIO will do nothing more than the same results as a 300w 280mm AIO on a 65w cpu.

With a 150w class 120mm AIO on a 105w cpu, your temps are right in line for 1.5x. If you want to bring them down, (which is favorable for a Ryzen) , any of the larger capacity 200w towers like the Noctua U12A, beQuiet DarkRock 4, Deepcool AK620 will be good. The biggest air, like 250w Noctua D15/S, beQuiet DarkRock Pro4, Deepcool Assassin 3 will do better, but not by much.

A 240mm AIO runs @ 250w, same as big air, the Arctic slightly higher with its slightly deeper radiator offering better efficiency.

So you are OK as is, it's a personal choice to change, but that choice will disappear at @ 5-6 years on the AIO.

Usage is very misleading and iffy as there's more than one thing happening, but only one mark. Cores have bandwidth. Doesn't matter if you use 1% or 99% of that bandwidth, usage only counts the core as 'used'. For simplicity, if your gpu has 1000 cores and usage is 50%, that means at any given time period only 500 cores saw use. Got nothing to do with power use or temps. If all 500 cores saw a 1% bandwidth use, you'd have extremely little power usage and very low temps. But conversely if those cores were 99% saturated bandwidth, you'd see very high power use and very high temps. For the same 50% usage.

That's a very detailed and well explained answer, appreciate your insight in this, so you don't think it'd make much difference if I were to replace or upgrade my AIO to say... something like 240mm AIO, would only bring cooling efficiency from 1.5x to 2x?


PS: Usage is indeed strange, I was playing spiderman the remastered version and was actually paying more attention to the power usage (usually it averages 60-80 watts but with spiderman I was seeing a little bit of increase in power going from 80-95 sometimes a 100 but the temperatures was still as is, going around 75 degrees which is quite a good spot I believe.

 

[Phaaze88]

PS: Usage is indeed strange, I was playing spiderman the remastered version and was actually paying more attention to the power usage (usually it averages 60-80 watts but with spiderman I was seeing a little bit of increase in power going from 80-95 sometimes a 100 but the temperatures was still as is, going around 75 degrees which is quite a good spot I believe.

This is an elephant in the room, and has been one for a long time. It's also related to my comment on 120 AIO/CLC exhausts.

Games do not utilize that much power. One of the reasons users can still see core temperatures get up there every now and then is some of the energy from the other components - the gpu being one of the major ones - disperses into the case and passes through the cooler.
80w should be easy for a 120mm AIO/CLC to deal with. But if it's used as an exhaust, it's not just 80w anymore.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes. Even running @ 80w, that 150w cooler is 2x capacity, so temps will be @ 70ish °C.

The biggest difference between air and liquid coolers is time. Metal heatpipes strapped to a metal base and metal fins transfer heat extremely fast, the higher the efficiency of the cooler means the lower the temps, almost immediately, certainly within seconds. It's then that going up to 100w for a few seconds will see a large jump in temps, maybe upto 80°C. Liquid coolers have a far greater capacity to absorb wattage, and it's also far slower to change temps. What that means is the cpu will see a smaller jump in temp because the coolant hasn't changed temp at all. To see the same 80° takes roughly that 100w for a half hour or so.

Aircooling temps jump all over the range, heating up or cooling off very quickly. Liquids don't jump as much or as quickly which makes them seem better, in the very short run, but really are no better or worse, just different. That can be confusing to some, they think there is something wrong with the pc because after a few minutes of gaming they are at 72°C but half an hour later they are finally reaching equilibrium at 80°C and they see the temps constantly climbing with the load.