[SOLVED] Want CPU Air Cooler for i9-12900K

[Rgcraig]

This is my first build from scratch and I need help understanding that an Air Cooler will handle cooling my i9-12900K CPU. I would prefer having an air cooler so I don’t worry about leaks and this is the last piece of my new build, which currently includes:

CoolerMaster NR600P ATX Mid Tower Case (CPU Cooler Clearance: 171 mm)
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G6, 80 Plus Gold 750W
ASUS PROART Z690-CREATOR WIFI motherboard
Intel i9-12900K (LGA 1700)
Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 Internal 1TB SSD
AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 Video Card
CORSAIR - VENGEANCE 32GB (2Pk 16GB) 5.2GHz DDR5 DIMM

Conveniently, I am an old man so not much into gaming. Heavy into AutoCAD, and processing movies, music, etc. My first choice was the Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.black Dual-Tower CPU Cooler but not yet comfortable with adjusting one side fan up to clear the Ram. I can do that if necessary. Maybe I could replace the 140 mm fan with a 120 mm fan. The Noctua website on LGA 1700 shows that I can mount the plate according to the desired final orientation of the cooler. I think I like this because I can force the air out the top of the case and not have the fans on the side with ram. Looked at the Noctua NH-D5S Chromax.Black which appears to be workable. Can anyone comment on this?

Looking at MasterAir MA624 Stealth cooler.It seems to have good performance with two 140 mm fans and comes with a 3rd 120 mm fan for ram clearance.

Looked at the be quiet! Pure Rock 2 Black. Seems to be less performance and has only 4 pipes and 120 mm fans.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated and please comment if you think they will sufficiently cool the i9-12700K.

Thank you.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

Ive watched some tech vids cooling the i9-12900k and the general advise is DO NOT use an air cooler, it can't handle it and will throttle the CPU.
If you want to go air, then the recommendation is at most the i7-12700k.
Hope that helps.

 

[Rgcraig]

Thanks, I will look at the videos.

 

[Phaaze88]

The biggest air cooler you can fit that isn't blocked off by ram, plus tune the cpu so it doesn't suck up as much voltage.
Unlike the other 12th gen, the 12900K runs 240w out of the box for turbo short and long, practically allowing for no power limit.

There's at least one member here(@geofelt) with a 12900K on air. It's doable, but if you're going to leave everything on auto, then yeah, I could see air - and even liquid - struggling in more extreme scenarios.
One of the main reasons to get a K cpu and Z board is the wide range of tuning. To get them and not tune the voltage+power limits would be kind of criminal.

 

[Rgcraig]

Thanks. That helps. I can tune things to improve, but have never done that. I will need to learn the process. I expect I can find details here.

 

[Phaaze88]

There's no Alder Lake specific guides here, if that's what you're asking.

Vcore mode
AVX offsets
Turbo short and long got coined to power max and power base for Alder Lake
Disabling Multi Core Enhancement(MCE) if enabled
Those options likely haven't changed in years, and likely are in the same places in Advanced Mode.
EDIT: Vcore mode, AVX offsets, and MCE can all be found under the Ai Tweaker tab. Power limits are further within another section called Internal Power Management.


NH-D15 non-S and Deepcool Assassin III are also options, but you'd have to do pull-pull(fan behind the towers instead of in front) with the fans.

 

[Rgcraig]

Thanks. My case is mesh top & front. There are two 120 mm fans on front & one in back. There is room for three more on top. I was thinking of pulling air in the front and exhausting back and top. Also, I am not normally a gamer, so will not overclock. This should give me a temperature advantage. The case is a mid tower and will not take a 360 mm water radiator. If I stick with air, it looks I need to go with Noctua as they have higher flows and adjust the second fan.

Again, thanks for your help.

 

[Phaaze88]

Argh, bloody internet went down.

Top fan exhaust is to the benefit of graphics cards that dump their waste heat into the PC. Having some up there is slightly detrimental to a tower air cooler, but the benefit of getting the gpu's exhaust out faster overshadows it.
Your Radeon Pro WX 7100 is a blower/turbo card which dumps its heat right out the back. Top exhaust fans aren't a necessity at the moment.

 

[geofelt]

Your title says 12700K, your text says 12900K.

No matter, for either, I would suggest the noctua NH-D15s Chromax black.
It will come with LGA1700 mounting.
It is a high compatibility version of the NH-D15 that clears tall ram up to 65mm.
It is about as good at cooling as the NH-D15.
I use the NH-D15s with my 12900K. Running a CPU-Z stress test, I see core temperatures in the 95c. range. Earlier in the summer when my room ambient was higher, I did see 100c. on a few cores, but the test kept on working fine.

Air is not a problem. My case has 2 140mm front intakes and one 120mm exhaust which is what your case specs say you have. This processor is so crazy fast that it will be hard to find any app that can keep all 24 threads fully busy.

As to mounting, I think the normal orientation that sends air out the rear exhaust is best.
That insures that the motherboard vrm coolers get good airflow.

 

[Inthrutheoutdoor]

The Chromax is a well built and good performing air cooler for sure, whether or not it will adequately cool your cpu & gpu is something that can be determined only through daily use and observation of the temps when running your favorite apps.....

Since you don't overclock, your gpu sends it's heat out through the pcie slot, and you have 3 other fans in the correct locations, chances are that you may be able to get acceptable temps.

Worst case is that you start with the air set-up, see what happens, and if necessary, upgrade to a 240mm AIO (instead of a 360mm).... then sell your air cooler to get back some of the $$ you paid for the AIO.....

 

[Rgcraig]

Thank you. That is what I am thinking, but without the experience, I wanted to here confirmation.