[SOLVED] My new CPU + cooler sounds like an angry jet engine. Is my cooling situation not good enough or is it something else?

[Uraneum]

Recently I upgraded my CPU from an i7 6700 to a Ryzen 7 5800X with a basic cooler.

I've noticed that when I'm playing games on my PC or performing various high demanding tasks, this thing sounds like an AC unit ready to go supernova. It gets loud. Louder than any home PC I've ever heard and I'm not overclocking it at all. Sometimes I can even hear the fan kick up when I do something simple like open up Chrome or other similarly demanding programs. This never happened with my old i7 cooler (which was also a basic heatsink and single fan), that thing was super quiet.

To my knowledge, everything was installed correctly. I've built and upgraded PCs quite a few times in the past all without this kind of issue.

As for temperatures, I can't really tell what is good or bad for a 5800X as google gives me mixed opinions. But here are the temps I got from CPUID while running a high demanding game. I have no idea how accurate those readings are, but fan RPM is listed as well.


So my question is: Is this an issue with the cooler being too basic for a 5800X, my default fan settings being wonky, or a temp issue with the CPU? I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. Thank you in advance.

 

[CountMike]

Recently I upgraded my CPU from an i7 6700 to a Ryzen 7 5800X with a basic cooler.

I've noticed that when I'm playing games on my PC or performing various high demanding tasks, this thing sounds like an AC unit ready to go supernova. It gets loud. Louder than any home PC I've ever heard and I'm not overclocking it at all. Sometimes I can even hear the fan kick up when I do something simple like open up Chrome or other similarly demanding programs. This never happened with my old i7 cooler (which was also a basic heatsink and single fan), that thing was super quiet.

To my knowledge, everything was installed correctly. I've built and upgraded PCs quite a few times in the past all without this kind of issue.

As for temperatures, I can't really tell what is good or bad for a 5800X as google gives me mixed opinions. But here are the temps I got from CPUID while running a high demanding game. I have no idea how accurate those readings are, but fan RPM is listed as well.


So my question is: Is this an issue with the cooler being too basic for a 5800X, my default fan settings being wonky, or a temp issue with the CPU? I'm open to any ideas or suggestions. Thank you in advance.

OEM cooler is adequate temperature wise as that CPU is allowed up to 90c without dropping (much) performance but as you noticed it comes with appropriate sound effects.
Smart money says; get much better cooler if you want it quiet.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Your old i7 was a 65W CPU so the cooler you had on it didn’t have to do too much work.

The 5800x is a 105W CPU so your cooler is having to do nearly twice as much work to remove heat.

The wraith cooler is a downdraft cooler with a big plastic shroud and LED lights all over it. It has been built mostly for looks, not performance.

The Ryzen 7 series are very thermally demanding and for the official stock cooler to be so bad at cooling them was a really interesting choice from AMD.

The fact it spins up so high so often and the fact you say that this is an older PC you’ve upgraded a lot over the years tells me that the airflow in your case must be bad as well.

I would recommend a good 120mm “front to back” air cooler such as the Scythe Fuma (just an example there’s many to choose from).

It’s probably also time to upgrade your case to a high airflow model. Something like the Corsair 220T maybe (again just an example).

After that, Thermals are easy to solve, you just keep throwing fans at the case until you get to an acceptable range. In general under heavy load / stress test you want to be under 80C or maybe just over, and on idle you would want to see no more than 40C

Then simply enjoy the world of high power, high performance, high heat and high noise computing you get with AMD CPUs

 

[Uraneum]

Your old i7 was a 65W CPU so the cooler you had on it didn’t have to do too much work.

The 5800x is a 105W CPU so your cooler is having to do nearly twice as much work to remove heat.

The wraith cooler is a downdraft cooler with a big plastic shroud and LED lights all over it. It has been built mostly for looks, not performance.

The Ryzen 7 series are very thermally demanding and for the official stock cooler to be so bad at cooling them was a really interesting choice from AMD.

The fact it spins up so high so often and the fact you say that this is an older PC you’ve upgraded a lot over the years tells me that the airflow in your case must be bad as well.

I would recommend a good 120mm “front to back” air cooler such as the Scythe Fuma (just an example there’s many to choose from).

It’s probably also time to upgrade your case to a high airflow model. Something like the Corsair 220T maybe (again just an example).

After that, Thermals are easy to solve, you just keep throwing fans at the case until you get to an acceptable range. In general under heavy load / stress test you want to be under 80C or maybe just over, and on idle you would want to see no more than 40C

Then simply enjoy the world of high power, high performance, high heat and high noise computing you get with AMD CPUs

Thanks for the reply. I suppose you're right, this thing doesn't seem to be up to the task at all.

I should note that, although my PC was running an old i7, it was by far the most outdated part in the computer. The chassis is actually quite large and has good airflow.
The Scythe Fuma you recommended definitely seems like a better fit for my CPU, though my one concern is my stupidly high-profile RAM. It seems it would get in the way of the cooler, but I'm not certain. I've thought about getting a basic liquid cooling unit with a 2-3 fan radiator, something like this. Do you think this would be viable? Overkill? Or is it sort of a gimmick? I'm definitely a noob when it comes to cooling, so thank you for the advice.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Thanks for the reply. I suppose you're right, this thing doesn't seem to be up to the task at all.

I should note that, although my PC was running an old i7, it was by far the most outdated part in the computer. The chassis is actually quite large and has good airflow.
The Scythe Fuma you recommended definitely seems like a better fit for my CPU, though my one concern is my stupidly high-profile RAM. It seems it would get in the way of the cooler, but I'm not certain. I've thought about getting a basic liquid cooling unit with a 2-3 fan radiator, something like this. Do you think this would be viable? Overkill? Or is it sort of a gimmick? I'm definitely a noob when it comes to cooling, so thank you for the advice.

Yes viable, kind of overkill, yes a gimmick.

All in One water coolers (AIOs) have been around for a decade now and while they enjoyed a bit of popularity back in the unlocked multiplier days of the 3rd and 4th gen Intel, these days they’re kind of pointless and you should not spend more than the cost of a good air cooler ($100) on one. Allow me to explain:

The main reasons why you would have wanted an AIO back in the day are performance and noise. For noise, air coolers have now overtaken AIOs and are now quieter, so that’s changed in the last 5 years.

For performance, a very good air cooler like the Fuma now will match any AIO performance at stock speeds. Which is to say they will keep it below 70C under full load and stay very quiet. The AIO might keep it at a lower temp, 60 rather than 70, but it will do so at a higher noise level and much higher price, and ultimately at stock speed those 10 degrees are meaningless.

It’s only when overclocking your CPU that you will see the benefit of having an AIO, in which case you could see those 10 degrees below 70 as your “overclocking headroom” and you could increase the clock speed until you got there.

However, overclocking in 2021 is stupid, it no longer works like that. Overclocking a 5800x is particularly dumb. The reason for this is that newer CPUs have speed boost, core boost and speed step technologies built right into them which overclock each individual core to the max it can go, but only for the exact duration required. The majority of the time your CPU idles at 800MHz or so, but when you open up a new tab in chrome your CPU determines how many threads are needed for that task then boosts that many cores up to as fast as they can go, just for the split second it takes to finish rendering the new tab, it all happens totally seamlessly.

So what you do by overclocking a CPU with those features is generally disable that functionality, and peg all cores as high as they can go 100% of the time. Perversely, this normally SLOWS DOWN how fast your CPU can deal with typical workloads like gaming or browsing, since the all-core OC you can achieve tends to be slower than the single core boost the CPU achieves at stock.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying: An AIO cooler louder than a good air cooler, is only useful for overclocking, and you shouldn’t overclock a 5800x.

On top of that they wear out way, way faster than an air cooler ever will. The pump bearings are low quality and start to rattle after only a few years, the seals on the hoses slowly let air into the system leading to bubbling or buzzing noises, and the radiators are very easy to dent and ding so they look pretty ghetto pretty fast.

I speak from experience, I’ve owned 5 of the damn things over the years and I have vowed to never buy another.

 

[Uraneum]

Yes viable, kind of overkill, yes a gimmick.

All in One water coolers (AIOs) have been around for a decade now and while they enjoyed a bit of popularity back in the unlocked multiplier days of the 3rd and 4th gen Intel, these days they’re kind of pointless and you should not spend more than the cost of a good air cooler ($100) on one. Allow me to explain:

The main reasons why you would have wanted an AIO back in the day are performance and noise. For noise, air coolers have now overtaken AIOs and are now quieter, so that’s changed in the last 5 years.

For performance, a very good air cooler like the Fuma now will match any AIO performance at stock speeds. Which is to say they will keep it below 70C under full load and stay very quiet. The AIO might keep it at a lower temp, 60 rather than 70, but it will do so at a higher noise level and much higher price, and ultimately at stock speed those 10 degrees are meaningless.

It’s only when overclocking your CPU that you will see the benefit of having an AIO, in which case you could see those 10 degrees below 70 as your “overclocking headroom” and you could increase the clock speed until you got there.

However, overclocking in 2021 is stupid, it no longer works like that. Overclocking a 5800x is particularly dumb. The reason for this is that newer CPUs have speed boost, core boost and speed step technologies built right into them which overclock each individual core to the max it can go, but only for the exact duration required. The majority of the time your CPU idles at 800MHz or so, but when you open up a new tab in chrome your CPU determines how many threads are needed for that task then boosts that many cores up to as fast as they can go, just for the split second it takes to finish rendering the new tab, it all happens totally seamlessly.

So what you do by overclocking a CPU with those features is generally disable that functionality, and peg all cores as high as they can go 100% of the time. Perversely, this normally SLOWS DOWN how fast your CPU can deal with typical workloads like gaming or browsing, since the all-core OC you can achieve tends to be slower than the single core boost the CPU achieves at stock.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying: An AIO cooler louder than a good air cooler, is only useful for overclocking, and you shouldn’t overclock a 5800x.

On top of that they wear out way, way faster than an air cooler ever will. The pump bearings are low quality and start to rattle after only a few years, the seals on the hoses slowly let air into the system leading to bubbling or buzzing noises, and the radiators are very easy to dent and ding so they look pretty ghetto pretty fast.

I speak from experience, I’ve owned 5 of the damn things over the years and I have vowed to never buy another.

Wow, thanks! It seems you really know your stuff. I'll be going with that Scythe Fuma. I took a closer look, and the asymmetric design seems to account for high profile RAM which is great.

And that's some really nice insight on modern overclocking. I had no intention of overclocking, but now I'm really gonna steer clear of it as it will serve me no use at all. And I'm definitely not a fan of high-maintenance parts, so I'll cross AIO off my list as well. They look flashy, but it certainly sounds like it's not worth it. Thanks again!

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Wow, thanks! It seems you really know your stuff. I'll be going with that Scythe Fuma. I took a closer look, and the asymmetric design seems to account for high profile RAM which is great.

And that's some really nice insight on modern overclocking. I had no intention of overclocking, but now I'm really gonna steer clear of it as it will serve me no use at all. And I'm definitely not a fan of high-maintenance parts, so I'll cross AIO off my list as well. They look flashy, but it certainly sounds like it's not worth it. Thanks again!

You can get the same looks with a couple of RGB fans and none of the hassle