Question Why does most reviews say that the 7800X3D requires water cooling?

[klavs]

Why does most reviews say that the 7800X3D requires water cooling for optimal performance?

Does it mean we wont get optimal performance from the 7800X3D in a case optimized for air cooling with a cooler similar to or better than the Noctua NH-D15 / NH-D15S?

If so, how much performance do we lose? Will we get stuttering in some games? What are the drawbacks of using air cooling with the 7800X3D?

Have you tested or do you have a link to a test that compares water cooling and air cooling for the 7800X3D?

 

[Eximo]

Boost algorithms tend to like beefy coolers. Just to get the most out of it you are going to want a high end air cooler or liquid cooler.

Doesn't mean you have to spend a huge amount of money for a D15.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hBgFf7/id-cooling-se-207-xt-slim-snow-7616-cfm-cpu-cooler-se-207-xt-slim-snow

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/K6sV3C/thermalright-ft120-82-cfm-cpu-cooler-ft120

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9T92FT/deepcool-ak620-6899-cfm-cpu-cooler-r-ak620-bknnmt-g

And by that point you are into low end 240mm AIO coolers, which are perfectly fine as well.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I don't get it either, since the 7800X3D doesn't boost as hard as the non 3D cache models. Take for instance TechPowerUp's review, the 7800X3D uses less power overall than the 7600X and in terms of energy efficiency for gaming, is the best by a large margin.

Heck even further in the review where they look at the temperatures, they used a Noctua NH-U14S and while the application performance (i.e., running Cinebench) did get up to 80-90C, gaming was around 65C. I bet you could get away with a 120mm dual-fan cooler if you undervolted the thing.

I would argue the CPU doesn't need a water cooler for "optimal performance," whatever that means. If it's absolute max performance in trying to get the all-core boost clock speeds close to the max advertised 24/7, sure, I guess. Even then, you're not going to lose any real appreciable amount of performance between say 5.0GHz and 4.6GHz

 

[GarrettL]

It's the local density of heat produced by the very small chiplet designs. How quickly the heat can be dissipated is relative to the surface area.

We aren't using 10nm-12nm chips anymore.

 

[klavs]

And by that point you are into low end 240mm AIO coolers, which are perfectly fine as well.

I don't want the maintainance that water cooling requires compared to air cooling with proper pasting.

 

[klavs]

It's the local density of heat produced by the very small chiplet designs. How quickly the heat can be dissipated is relative to the surface area.

I know, but I am asking why an air cooler can't handle it too. Which tests have shown that the cpu can't perform optimally with the top air coolers?

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I'm about to find out myself. I've decided to go with AMD for the first time since my Athlon XP 1800+ back in 2001.

Just ordered the 7950x3D and am pairing it with the Noctua D15. Air cooling a CPU is something else I haven't done in many years but now is as good a time as any. I'm also in Washington state where the ambient temps stay mild year round. My CPU regularly idles in the low 20's C.

I've personally had no issues with water cooling... just want to give air cooling a try and have heard nothing but good things about Noctua.

Switching to AMD now at the early stages of AM5 makes more sense than going with the 13900k and needing a new mobo (again) next generation. Another thing that makes sense is the Ryzen won't heat up my home nearly as bad as the 13900k.

 

[Firestone]

Watercooling is a meme, fueled by Intel's over-wattage CPU line and then carried over to Ryzen

If your CPU's TDP does not exceed the Noctua NH-D15, then just put a D15 on it (or something even lower spec) and call it a day

 

[kognak]

I know, but I am asking why an air cooler can't handle it too. Which tests have shown that the cpu can't perform optimally with the top air coolers?

They can. Some just think bigger is automatically better which isn't true in every case. I've seen tests 30 bucks 4 heatpipe direct contact cooler slightly beating Noctua D15 at 100W(OCed 5600X) however Noctua completely demolishes it at 200W(OCed R9s and intels) and beyond as cheap one gets overwhelmed. 7800X3D is 100W class CPU, a decent air cooler with good contact is all you need. Equation is different when going to high wattage, coolers need to have a lot of area for heat dissipation.
Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 has particularly good contact with Ryzens according to GamerNexus, base is very flat which is beneficial with flat IHS of Ryzens. And it's very affordable despite being larger double tower air cooler. It would be my 1st choice for Ryzens, any of them.

 

[Firestone]

yea you can definitely go smaller than the Noctua NH-D15, but keep in mind that one of the advantages for a bigger cooler is that your fan speeds should stay lower at comparable loads. If that is something that matters to you. Personal preference. Another nice bonus is getting one or more (?) Noctua fans for "free" with the D15 (cant remember how many fans they include but its at least 1), so in that sense its not so crazy to spend $100 on it. Also Noctua has a good reputation for giving out free accessory kits like CPU socket mounting brackets and such, I just got a free extra set of cooler fan brackets from them myself since I had gone with the D15S which only included one fan and no extra bracket to put a second.

not trying to fanboy Noctua or anything but its hard get mad at their price tag for D15 when they do such a good job with pretty much everything

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

not trying to fanboy Noctua or anything but its hard get mad at their price tag for D15 when they do such a good job with pretty much everything

I agree... as said in my previous comment I'm going with the D15 for my new Ryzen build... my first air cooler in many many years. I've heard nothing but good things about Noctua so chalk up my purchase based on word of mouth because that's exactly what it was.

Never had a problem with water cooling but I think now is the time to swap with the move to team red.

 

[bniknafs9]

whater cooling is slow to cool but it cools for a longer time period .

 

[Eximo]

Water cooling is fast to cool as the water has a much higher thermal capacity than air. You might be thinking it takes a long time for the water to heat up overall, but the energy transfer is happening much faster.

Water coolers generally perform better once you reach a certain size. 240mm is roughly equivalent to large air coolers, though 280mm/360mm is needed to outperform them noise wise in most circumstatnces.

AIO Water coolers aren't so much a meme as they are useful in certain situations. Many people buy them because they also buy RGB memory and want to show it off.
But they are far superior when it comes to shipping (no heavy weight on the CPU socket).
Are good in small form factor builds with strict limitations on cooler height.
And of course the big all copper AIO certainly top the performance charts of non-custom water cooling components.
The downside is many additional points of failure.

Right now mid-range AIO will struggle with the high power output CPUs available. To that I say don't get them. Locked CPUs boost nearly as far as the overclockable ones, no need to double the power consumption for a 5-10% performance boost. Coming from someone with a custom loop on a locked processor.

 

[xx12amanxx]

Another big thing people seem to ignore when talking about AIO liquid coolers vs Air is the ambient temperature of the room the computer operates in. As the ambient temperature rises air coolers are going to struggle more then liquid coolers. Warmer air passing through the fins on an air cooler will dissipate less waste heat as the air is already heated and has a lower ability to conduct more heat as a result. This results in the air cooler losing varying amounts of its cooling ability.

For example in my home during the summer it routinely gets 105-112 degrees outside with an ambient temperature in the range of 80-90 degrees in the room the computer sits in. Having a 360 AIO liquid cooler attached to the cpu, it's much better at carrying away the waste heat and dissipating it. Liquid conducts heat and dissipates it at a much higher capacity then air and is less affected by ambient temperature. An air cooler even a high end one will not only run hotter in the case but won't carry the waste heat away as efficiently.

Now if it's cold in the room the computer sits in then the cold air will pick up the heat easier from the warm fins of the air cooler and will dissipate the heat just as well or better then the liquid coolers. So it really depends on the environment you intend to use the rig in. Since mine is pretty warm a liquid cooler is the best tool for the job.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I don't know what review that you're talking about because I haven't seen any review that says you must use liquid. Sure, liquid cooling would be beneficial if you're running all-core productivity workloads, but that's not what the 7800X3D was designed for. The R7-7800X3D is a CPU for GAMING and games don't create nearly as much heat as productivity apps. An air cooler would work just fine for that.

The TDP of the 7800X3D is 120W, the same as the Phenom II X4 940 and the FX-8350. System power consumption using both of those CPUs was higher than what was measured with the R7-7800X3D (credit to Techspot):

Phenom II X4 940: 229W

FX-8350: 254W

R7-7800X3D: 207W

I have personally owned and used BOTH the Phenom II X4 940 and FX-8350. I have only ever used an AMD stock air cooler on them and they have both worked just fine.

Any review that says that liquid is a requirement is LYING to you. Also, I have read and/or seen reviews from the following sites and NONE of them say that liquid cooling is a requirement:
Tom's Hardware
Techspot
Gamers Nexus
Guru3D
TechPowerUp:

Note that Techpowerup shows that the R7-7800X3D doesn't even reach 70°C when gaming. Their testing is done with the Noctua NH-U14S CPU cooler which is an air cooler:

So, I must ask again, what do you mean when you say:

Why does most reviews say that the 7800X3D requires water cooling?​

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

So, I must ask again, what do you mean when you say:

Why does most reviews say that the 7800X3D requires water cooling?​

Great write up!

I'll just say this... I went with an air cooler for my 7950x3D because Noctua was recommended by many and because where I am (PNW in case it wasn't obvious) my ambient temps are mild year round.

Nothing bad to say about water cooling... but glad I'm not reliant on a radiator/pump anymore.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Great write up!

Thanks!

I'll just say this... I went with an air cooler for my 7950x3D because Noctua was recommended by many and because where I am (PNW in case it wasn't obvious) my ambient temps are mild year round.

Yeah, I'm intimately familiar with that climate (I lived in Vancouver for two years). Honestly though, I've purchased one aftermarket air cooler (CoolerMaster Hyper 212) and one AIO (Zalman 120mm) in my life and neither of them made any discernible difference compared to the stock cooler. To me, it was just a lesson to be learned because they were both on some crazy sale when I bought them (H212 was $15CAD and the Zalman AIO was $40CAD). They weren't inferior or anything, they just didn't give me enough of an improvement to matter. This was the stock AM2+ cooler that I used for both my Phenom II X4 940 and FX-8350:

I continued using it for my FX-8350 because the AM3/AM3+ cooler that AMD released was pretty much the same but LOUD as hell:

I call them "Wraiths before the Wraith" because they look remarkably similar to my current cooler, the Wraith Prism:

I use the Wraith Prism on my R7-5800X3D. The heatsinks themselves look pretty much identical, eh?

Nothing bad to say about water cooling... but glad I'm not reliant on a radiator/pump anymore.

Sure, water cooling has its place but I see so many people using it needlessly and it's not exactly cheap. The only mainstream (non-HTPC) CPU that I can imagine actually needing liquid cooling would be the Intel i9-13900K because it draws more power and runs hotter than the previous champion, the FX-9590. It is literally the hottest and most power-hungry CPU ever made.

 

[Eximo]

AMD's high end stock cooler has been pretty good since they released it with the Athlon X2 125W way back. First stock cooler with heatpipes if I am not mistaken. Still made by Cooler Master and hasn't changed much.

The lower end coolers are made by Foxconn if I recall.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Sure, water cooling has its place but I see so many people using it needlessly and it's not exactly cheap. The only mainstream (non-HTPC) CPU that I can imagine actually needing liquid cooling would be the Intel i9-13900K because it draws more power and runs hotter than the previous champion, the FX-9590. It is literally the hottest and most power-hungry CPU ever made.

LOL... Yeah I'm setting up my software and stuff now and I ran an all core CPU burn last night for 30 mins... 86C maxxed, D15 was at 1480rpm and the power draw was something like 125w.

Yay for efficiency. That's the biggest reason I went Ryzen... that and future upgradeability with AM5.

 

[Avro Arrow]

AMD's high end stock cooler has been pretty good since they released it with the Athlon X2 125W way back. First stock cooler with heatpipes if I am not mistaken. Still made by Cooler Master and hasn't changed much.

The lower end coolers are made by Foxconn if I recall.

I didn't know what Cooler Master made it. That's got to be why it was so good. I used the AM2/AM2+ cooler for eight years. I got it with my Phenom II X4 940 and then used it with my FX-8350 because the AM3/AM3+ cooler looked similar, but sounded like a jet engine.

 

[Avro Arrow]

LOL... Yeah I'm setting up my software and stuff now and I ran an all core CPU burn last night for 30 mins... 86C maxxed, D15 was at 1480rpm and the power draw was something like 125w.

Yay for efficiency. That's the biggest reason I went Ryzen... that and future upgradeability with AM5.

Yeah, I went Ryzen back in 2017 for the long-lived platform as well. Now I have an R7-5800X3D on an ASRock X570 Pro4 motherboard with 32GB of RAM. I'm honestly not sure when I'll have to upgrade because CPUs are starting to stagnate when it comes to gaming. This is because they've essentially mastered current game engines and with the super high-end graphics in games like Hogwarts: Legacy, the GPU is always the limiting factor if you have a CPU as potent as the R5-3600 or better.

Maybe I'll be on AM4 for over a decade. That would be pretty sweet from a cost perspective!

 

[TerryLaze]

This is because they've essentially mastered current game engines and with the super high-end graphics in games like Hogwarts: Legacy,

Yeah no, they didn't master anything they just code everything for the anemic PS4, like hogwarts is even made for the switch and android, they aren't different versions of the game either they just use different graphics settings.