Question Question about 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 wanted 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?