Air cooler for 5800X3D

Hey everyone! I’m probably switching from a 3700X to a 5800X3D cause I’ve found a good deal. Not sure yet, but might happen.

Thing is I’m in doubt with cooling. I know the 5800X3D runs hot. I’m currently using an ID Cooling SE 224 XT with dual fans (single tower 4 heat pipes), which is rated for 180W, and the 5800X3D is a 105W CPU. I have to admit that the ID Cooling SE224XT has performes amazingly for what it is.

Per paper it should work, but I know the 5800X3D is a hard to cool CPU, basically because it generates the majority of heat in a single spot and not spread among two or more chiplets.

Personally I want avoid a liquid solution. The computer has costed me a lot so I wouldn’t like liquid around it. I know this could be objected, it’s just some piece of mind I need.

So, I wanted to know how you people are cooling your 5800X3D. I’m also asking because though the 5800X3D runs hot, the max temp according to AMD website is still 90°C, which is way lower than what I expected (expected it to be max 105°C so I could run it at 90) and means I need to find a way to keep it around 80-85°C in summer or less (summer here reaches 40°C easily) and I’m thinking that might be particularly hard.

Any advice would be great. Thanks a lot!
Seb

I’ve got two machines with a 5800X3D, one with a 280mm liquid cooler and one with a Noctua NH-U12S air cooler (my wife’s machine). The Noctua did surprisingly well in my testing when I set it up, neck-and-neck with the liquid cooler. (A 360mm liquid should do better still, though.)

Summer is indeed a rough time though thanks to ambient heat! Consider flying in the morning when it’s cool – just like real GA pilots do! :wink:

I have a NR200 ITX case with Fuma 2 on 3700x and now 5800X3D and shoehorned a 4090 in that case too and in VR Ultra on HP reverb it all works fine. There’s a Rev 2 version with higher speed fans worth considering. My brother runs a Dark Rock Pro 4 on 7900X3D.
I do get the occasional spike to 90c but if I look at general long runs, 1Hr +, and avg on HWinfo64 I’m well below that, 50-70c so I’m not concerned.
As for ambient 40c! well the delta is a delta…

No need to be concerned about Liquid Coolers, the AIO’s are even nicer!

I’d just try using your existing cooler and see how it goes.

I use a 240mm AIO, which came with my 10850K system, to cool my 5800X3D and it is fine. Temps only get in to the 70’s during MSFS loading and with high speed flight (eg. M2.0 in Concorde), otherwise it sits in the 60’s while flying.

I also use PBO2 Tuner to run a -30 offset on all cores and this keeps things 5-10C cooler.

I have a noctua D15S. No complaints :slight_smile:

I just built a PC for a friend and used the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 and it is awesome - and less than $40 at Amazon.
Peerless Assassin 120
This CPU cooler has been given excellent reviews - here’s one of them:
Peerless Assassin 120 review

I keep my 5800X3D in the 60s with a Noctua NH-U12A. It should be noted, that I leave the side panel off and have a 3-speed 225mm fan blowing up at the GPU and CPU coolers. Interestingly and importantly, their temps don’t vary much when I forget to turn on that external fan.
Unlike you, I had a 5800X before the 5800X3D. It was air cooled quite easily with the Noctua, and I’d never read that the X3D is more difficult to cool, so I was pretty confident that air cooling would suffice for it in MFS. And it is.

If I had it to do over again, I’d probably go with a Thermalright Peerless Assassin. The not-yet-released Noctua 7-heat-pipe variant of the NH-D15 should be the best air cooler when it becomes available.

I also have the Noctua NH-U12A. Came from the 5800x which in my experience is much hotter than the X3D version. Currently using Lian Li Air Mini with 9 case fans,intakes 2 140mm front. 3 120mm bottom, Exhaust 3 120mm top and 1 120mm rear.
Typical Room Ambient is 35C without A/C. Internal case temp is around 51C and Cpu temp below 80s

I’m using a Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 dual tower air cooler and it’s working ok. Running benchmark tests kept it at around 85°C. I don’t remember exactly what it could do while simming, but pretty sure it was low 70’s to high 60’s. I know it wasn’t high enough to throttle, which is the goal. This was with a -30 PBO offset.

I’m also using a Be Quiet! 500fx case with 3x120mm fans in the mesh front. The case can play a big role in cooling, and this setup keeps things cool enough and barely audible even if the fans are at full speed.

Now my GPU, on the other hand, it screams. XD

I use a 240mm top-exhaust rad and a CPU plate on a closed loop liquid system. My 5800X3d generally runs 55-60°C in the sim. I wouldn’t have any concerns about using a quality air cooler - except that I don’t want to add any more heat to my case. My RTX 3090 Furnace GPU fans already do a great job at that. :smile:

I also don’t worry about leaks. If you do a closed loop, use quality fittings and take care with the installation. AIO’s are even more foolproof, but a closed loop system gives you more volume of liquid, which increases the heat load capacity.

Coolermaster Hyper 212 is probably one of the best heatsinks on the market. Fits snuggly in my mid-size case and you add a 2nd fan to help pull air through the heatsink. I haven’t noticed any significant temperature differences with a pull-push style system. Usually about 60-70c under load. For me my idle is about 40c because i have a mid-size case and the two front 140mm fans very much need replacing.

I’ve had two of them and i only bought the 2nd one because the first one worked so well

Thanks a lot everyone! Don’t want to mention anyone in particular because a) I don’t want to forget anyone and b) all inputs were awesome.

I’m surprised to see so many people using the Noctua NH-U12A, which I would consider a basic cooler (and probably short) for the 5800X3D. Though, it’s a Noctua, it’s hard to find something that underperforms within the brand.

According to the reviews at Tech Power Up (I’m linking one but they’ve reviewed more than once), my current cooler (ID cooling SE 224 XT Basic) should perform pretty near the U12A, within a few degrees difference.

So, I guess I’ll keep the current one and see what happens. Also, in this part of the world is winter (a weird winter, 26°C yesterday, after a week averaging 6°C), so if I get the 5800X3D issues will come later, not now. I’m guessing sooner or later I’ll need to jump to something bigger, either an AIO or something like the Peerless Assasin, or the D15, but seeing so many not using a two pound brick to cool it I’m more at ease.

@TimewornGem6923 I used to run the box in the same way, side open, but changed it and now I have 3x120 front intake fans, 2x140 top exhaust fans and a 120mm rear exhaust fan (it’s a cheap Tecware case but it performs really well, on par with my friends Corsair 4000D Airflow). Temps are overall fine and I never thermal throttled.

@ResetXPDR If you could help me a little bit with PBO (just a link to a starting point) would be great. I’ve read in several placed that undervolting the 5800X3D not only cools it but it also runs more stable, so I’m pretty sure I’ll go for it. Nevertheless as I also use the PC for work, I’m also worried about stability.

And @SprungNickel427 thanks a lot for adding ambient temp. I always read reviews and so many lack that info (or have it shoved somewhere) that comparing becomes pretty hard. By the way, I honestly have no clue on how you managed to fir that 4090 in that case. That alone deserves an applause.

I just followed this guide, including setting up task scheduler to have PBO2 Tuner automatically run with my desired settings at system startup.

U12A a basic cooler? It’s the cooler with 120mm fans that “performs like an AIO water cooler.” Unlike the competition, it features 7 heat pipes and may have been the 1st air cooler to do so. At this time the Deepcool Assassin III has 7, and Noctua has announced a D15 variant with 7, but I think the A variant of the NH-U12 was the first, and it’s always acquitted itself will against AIOs. Not so basic, but you actually said “basic for a 7800X3D,” so that might be the case,

Yeah of course. No Noctua is basic, but yeah the U12A looks basic compared for example to the D15 for a 5800X3D (which also was mentioned in this thread). That’s why I also said that it’s hard to find anything Noctua that underperforms :-). We’re on the same page about Noctua, no worries. Just would like them to be cheaper here (consider that here prices generally duplicate or triplicate US prices).

@ResetXPDR thanks for the heads up about adding it at boot. I’ve seen that guide but wasn’t sure. If it worked for you then I can peacefully follow it, I think the rest of the system should go with it (X570 mobo).

Seb the U12A can dissipate over 200W of heat and 5800X3D is 115 W cpu peek. It’s well capable and you can cool a 5800X3D with $30 Thermalright Assassin 120SE. the steep price of Noctua gets you very good and quiet fans where other brands cheap out.

I have a Thermalright Assassin 120, works ok.

Yep, I have a Noctua NH-U12A on my 5800x3d on an Asus X570 Dark Hero MB and it runs at an average temp of 56-64 C - very cool and quiet - no matter what flight sim I’m flying so I can recommend this cooler for sure.

NH-U12A in combination with a -60mV undervolt for all core loads. The undervolt helps with DCS MT which can use up to 16 threads. My 5800X3D/4070TI system draws less than 400W peak (350W on average during flightsims).