Ready to buy the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X? If so, this article will give you guidelines on what parameters you need to consider in order to properly chill – and get the best performance out of – your new CPU.

The Ryzen 5 7600X has a TDP of 105 Watts, which is quite the leap from the previous generation’s 65W requirement. This means you’ll need substantially better performance from your cooler, which is more akin to the last gen’s higher-end processors, like the R9 5900X.

There is more than one way to properly cool the CPU. The two main methods are AIO (All In One) liquid cooling and HSF (HeatSink and Fan) – more commonly known as ‘air’ or ‘tower’ coolers. When considering which to choose, you need to take into account the following:

1. How much available space does your case have?
2. What does your budget allow?
3. How good is the cooling in your case?
4. What’s the threshold of noise you can tolerate?
5. Which type of CPU cooler is compatible with your case?
6. Are your workloads primarily active or passive?
7. Are your rig’s aesthetics important to you?

Air coolers take up more space (generally) but are cheaper than their AIO counterparts. They also produce less noise on average and are easier to install. AIOs don’t clutter the space around the CPU, can be more pleasant to look at, and provide better cooling for extended periods – as opposed to the cooling in bursts of the HSF. Of course, the R5 7600X is designed for active (gaming, editing, modeling, etc.) rather than passive (rendering) workloads, so the HSF does have the advantage in terms of performance for the price. Still, the AIO cooler allows more thermal headroom for those looking to consistently overclock the 7600X.

To help you decide which to choose for your setup, let’s look at the best CPU coolers to pair with the Ryzen 5 7600X – for both cooling types.

Best Coolers for Ryzen 5 7600X – Our Recommendations

1. Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Noctua NH-U14S

The NH-U14S is a U-type air cooler (it only has a single vertical tower/heatsink) and comes with one NF-A15 140mm fan. 

It is an excellent choice for the R5 7600X because it provides more than ample cooling even at extreme thermal loads (according to Anandtech’s benchmarks). In fact, at a 340 W load, it outperformed even dual-tower coolers like the Dark Rock Pro 3. 

Another favorable aspect of the NH-U14S is that it is upgradeable. You can add a second 140mm fan and have a push-pull fan configuration around the heatsink. This allows for further cooling potential, especially if you have a smaller rig with fewer case fans.

Pros: 

• Slim design that’s easy to install and compatible with most cases.
• Can assist with proper airflow in the case.
• Benchmarks prove barely audible noise emissions.
• Excellent for active workloads and overclocking, especially with a second fan. 

Cons: 

• Even as a U-type CPU cooler, it is still rather tall.
• Rather expensive at $79.95.
• Does not have the most stylish look.

2. Best Budget Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE

Moving on to a D-Type (dual tower) HSF cooler, we have the Peerless Assassin 120 SE. Despite its low price, it offers exceptional performance even for high CPU power limits. Tom’s Hardware proved it averages only 61 degrees over ambient at 200W, which is very impressive for an air cooler. At 140 Watts, temperatures went down to 42 (50% fans) and 47 degrees Celsius – beating or tying with 360mm AIO coolers.

The same benchmarks show a noise level of only 34.5 dbA produced with the fans working at maximum speed, which is incredibly impressive for an under $40 CPU cooler. If you’re looking for a cheap cooler, the Assassin 120 SE truly is Peerless.

Pros: 

• Quiet operation.
• Great for active workloads and low TDP performance.
• More than sufficient cooling for overclocking.
• $36 price tag.

Cons: 

– Can be unappealing visually.

– Large dual-tower design may translate to compatibility issues. 

3. Best Low-profile Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: Big Shuriken 3 Rev.B  

Next, we have a top-flow, low-profile (L-Type, or LP) CPU cooler: the Big Shuriken 3 Rev. B. 

Of course, each SFF (small form factor) case will benefit differently from various low-profile coolers. This is why it is always best to check CPU cooler benchmarks specifically for your SFF case.

There are, however, reasons why the Big Shuriken 3 Rev. B is an excellent pick for almost any build. The most important reason is that it has high cooling potential, as proven by OptimumTech’s benchmarks. Within these benchmarks, you’ll notice another selling point of the Big Shuriken 3: it is upgradable (given you have the clearance). With a 25mm fan attached to it, it can cool your R5 7600X even while overclocking. Also, it allows for full-sized RAM, something that its competitors, like Noctua’s L12-S, cannot guarantee.

Pros:

• Quiet operation that maxes at 35 dB, according to TweakTown.
• Excellent compatibility with most cases and RAM sticks.
• Upgradable with a 25mm fan. 
• Great price at under $50.
• RGB variant for those looking for some extra flare.

Cons: 

• It is not quite at the level of cooling performance as some of its competitors, like the Noctua L12-S.
• Though upgradeable, doing so will increase the price significantly.
• Requires adequate case cooling, as the top-flow configuration will push the CPU’s hot air into the case.

4. Best AIO Cooler for Ryzen 5 7600X: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 240

Last but not least, we have the liquid cooling category. All things considered, the best choice here is the Liquid Freezer II 240. It has excellent thermal performance, proven by several benchmark tests like those carried out by Tech4Gamers and EnosTech, low noise output (especially for an AIO cooler), and costs under $100. In fact, out of the 17 240mm AIO coolers EnosTech tested, Arctic’s model performed the best in the noise normalized (44 dBA) thermal performance tests.

What makes the Liquid Freezer unique, when compared to its competitors, is the 40mm VRM fan (PWM controlled) that cools the base and voltage transformer. This extra feature can be crucial when overclocking the R5 7600X.

Pros: 

• Excellent price for an AIO cooler.
• No maintenance water loop.
• VRM cooling.
• Low noise output for an AIO cooler.
• Thermal performance that rivals 360mm AIO coolers.

Cons: 

• Can be tricky to install due to the 40mm fan. 
• Not as visually appealing as other AIO coolers, especially on the pump. It does, however, have a variant with A-RGB lit fans for $14 extra.

The post 4 Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 7600X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s latest Zen 4 chipsets are finally here – with their flagship model, the Rzyen 9 7950X, being marketed as the ‘fastest’ desktop processor for 2023. Whilst being fast, this new Zen 4 generation really runs hot, with a reported operating temperature of 95 degrees under load. With a raised 230W TDP from 170W of the Zen 3 line, AMD now recommends to cool this flagship Zen 4 processor, you’re going to need a beefy cooler to dissipate all of that heat, and a liquid one at that – with a 240mm AIO cooler being the minimum official recommendation for the Ryzen 9 7950X. Going for a better cooler you necessarily won’t get better temperatures with this Zen 4 processor, but you can squeeze more performance out of it.

Having had time since their release to analyse and understand the thermal performance of the Ryzen 9 7950X, we are able to offer you our recommended CPU coolers to pair with the 7950X, and which coolers to avoid! Our selections will include the best AIO cooler, 240mm cooler, 360mm cooler and 420mm cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X.

Before we begin, I would like to note that although the official recommendation is a minimum of a 240mm AIO, we will offer an Air-cooled CPU cooler pairing for the 7950X for those who don’t want to run a AIO system. However, when possible, we recommend going for a liquid cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X for 2023.

240mm vs 280mm vs 360mm vs 420mm for Ryzen 9 7950X?

Before we go into our AIO recommendation for the Ryzen 9 7950X – it is worth considering which size AIO you would fit your requirements and demands out of your 7950X system – as the different AIO sizes offer different benefits and drawbacks. If you’re looking for maximum performance but don’t mind a higher noise output, go for the 420mm AIO for the 7950X. If you are looking for the overall best performance-to-size ratio and relatively quiet operation – opt for the 280mm size – this has 90% the surface area of the 360mm AIO size and utilises 140mm fans rather than 120mm fans you see in 240mm and 360mm AIOs. If you’re looking to build an ITX system with the Ryzen 9 7950X, then a high performance 240mm AIO cooler will be your best bet. There is a great amount of useful discussion and advise on /r/BuildAPC on Reddit we would recommend checking out on this topic, too.

Best CPU Coolers for Ryzen 9 7950X – Our Recommendations

1. Best AIO Cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X (240mm, 280mm, 360mm, 420mm): Arctic Liquid Freezer II

Whether we’re recommending a 240mm, 280mm, 360mm or 420mm AIO for the Ryzen 9 7950X, our answer for the best AIO to pair with this CPU will always the be same – go for the Arctic Liquid Freezer II series. The Arctic Freezer II is hands down the best CPU cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X thanks to its best-in-class thermal performance and competitive price – making it a no brainer for any builder. It does feature a no-thrills design which is optimised for cooling performance, but if you are looking for something a bit more blingy, then go for the ARGB version of the Liquid Freezer II – it will make for a great aesthetic Zen 4 build with impressive performance. As mentioned above, its worth considering the AIO size for the 7950X based on your personal needs and how much performance you want to squeeze out in sacrifice for noise and case size – but we think the best AIO size for the Liquid Freezer II is the 280mm or 360mm option.

2. Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 7950X: Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.Black

If you’re not wanting to put an AIO cooler in your new Ryzen 9 7950X system, despite AMD’s official recommendation of using a 240mm AIO or above, then you’ll be relieved to hear that there are some air coolers that will be sufficient for pairing with the Ryzen 9 7950X. Techpowerup posted an informative article outlining that a decent air cooler will offer enough performance for the Ryzen 9 7950X. As mentioned in many of our other part recommendation articles, by far the best air cooler and the best tower cooler for the Ryzen 9 7950X is the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black. This best-in-class cooler from Noctua offers the best cooling performance of any tower cooler on the market, at a competitive price and a sleek all-black design. If you’re looking to game with the 7950X, the NH-D15 would be perfect – but for any intensive workloads you might be better off with an AIO instead for the 7950X, this is because you may gain up to 3% in clock speeds using an AIO vs the NH-D15.

The post Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 9 7950X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The Ryzen 3000 series of CPUs can still offer competitive performance for the budget-conscious builder. The Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6 core 12 thread processor that boasts clock speeds ranging from 3.6GHz all of the way up to 4.2GHz with some tweaking and simple overclocking. With a rock-bottom TDP of 65W, this fast CPU can deliver high frames and speedy workstation performance without spiking your internal case temperature. That low power draw makes this previous generation CPU an alluring buy for those looking to get enough power out of an SFF (small form factor) build or those looking to save additional cost on their PSU. 

Enthusiasts can take further advantage of this powerful little processor with new generation motherboards that can support the newer PCIe 4.0 technology. While those differences may be minimal at this price and performance bracket, builders will find the Ryzen 5 3600’s vast compatibility options and robust feature set a solid pairing with new generation B550 and previous generation B450 motherboards. This guide lays out the four best motherboards for the budget, enthusiast, mini-ITX, and micro-ATX builds with the Ryzen 5 3600.

Related: List of AM4 Motherboards with USB BIOS Flashback (for Zen 2 compatibility)

Best Motherboards for Ryzen 5 3600 – Our Recommendations

Award	Model	Design	VRM
Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	MSI B450 Tomahawk		6 Phase (4+2)
Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wi-Fi		12 Phase (10+2)
Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	ASRock B550M-ITX		8 Phase (6+2)
Best micro-ATX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600	ASRock B550M PRO 4		8 Phase (6+2)

Best Entry-Level Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

The MSI B450 Tomahawk; this board offers excellent price-to-performance, at just under $100, given its range of features, connectivity, and best-in-class VRM quality.

MSI has nailed their B450 lineup, with the B450 Tomahawk leading its price bracket with the best VRM cooling of any B450 motherboard out there – which makes it ideal for overclocking the Ryzen 5 3600 on a budget. Only its bigger brother, the MSI B450 Gaming Pro Carbon AC, has better VRM cooling than the B450 Tomahawk. Still, considering the low TDP of the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X, either of these motherboards is almost overkill.

Connectivity-wise, the B450 Tomahawk has USB Type C, 6 SATA ports, and 4 DIMM slots supporting up to 128GB of 3466MHz memory.

Drawbacks here are small but present nonetheless, with no VCore offset function, and only a single M.2 slot where most other B450 ATX motherboards have at least two.

Best High-Performance Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

It’s not necessary to take the leap directly from a B450 board up to a premium board with an X570 chipset like the MSI MPG X570 Gaming Pro Carbon Wi-Fi. However, this board comes with a premium feature list that sets it well above the other contenders on this list. Not only does this full ATX motherboard support PCIe 4.0 technology, but it can also deliver exceptional LAN and Wi-Fi speeds with both Wi-Fi 6 and 2.5G networking built-in. 

This premium-class board supports GPU SLI, custom water cooling, dual Gen 4 M.2 drives, up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory, and it has a jam-packed I/O with all of the connectors an enthusiast needs. The I/O has five USB 3.2 ports, a USB C port, high-definition audio connectors, a handy BIOS flash button, and a couple of additional USB 2.0 ports. This board is equipped with Mystic Sync RGB that can, as the name implies, sync with any other RBG device or fans you may have in your rig. The extended heatsink and onboard “Frozr” fan ensure that your components operate at optimal temperatures. With a steep price set at right around $179, this premium board is meant for only the most serious gamers and professionals out there.

Best mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

Building a small form factor machine doesn’t mean that you can’t take advantage of the same premium features that come with full-sized ATX boards. Well, unless you plan to rig up a GPU SLI configuration, but that technology is on the way out in terms of support anyway. ASRock’s B550M-ITX motherboard offers an impressive feature set in a compact size. The B550 chipset means that this motherboard can take full advantage of PCIe 4.0 as well as run the newer 5000 series CPUs with a simple BIOS flash for those that plan to upgrade down the line. 

With form factor in mind, this board offers dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and gigabit LAN, which makes it easy to pick the system up and take it on the go. This B550 board even supports Gen 4 Hyper M.2 and has an included heatsink. Those features are often seen on higher-end X570 boards, so having those features on this B550 board is luxury. 

The I/O has six USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a rear type-C port, and ports for 7.1 CH HD audio. While it may lack some of the more expansive features that full ATX boards offer, the ASRock B550M-ITX packs a lot of punch at the low price point of $129.

Related: Best mini ITX cases for Small Form Factor builds

Best mATX Motherboard for Ryzen 5 3600

ASRock knows how to make a high-quality and affordable small form factor board. The ASRock B550M PRO 4 supports PCIe 4.0, Zen 2 & 3 Ryzen CPUs, SLI GPU configurations, and it has four DIMM slots capable of handling DDR4 memory with speeds over 4700MHz. Packing all of those features into an mATX board was no easy feat. The sleek white and black metal finish will make this board look at home in any micro-build. 

Unfortunately, this board does lack Wi-Fi. It has speedy gigabit LAN built-in, but enthusiasts on the go will want to pick up an external Wi-Fi card. Thankfully, this board has plenty of room for those expansions with the additional PCIe connection. 

The ASRock B550M PRO 4 also supports dual 4.0 M.2s that can be kept running fast and cool with the included heatsinks. Builders will be able to enjoy Nahimic audio with optional HDMI output, Polychrome RBG, and an impressive array of I/O connections. You get 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a USB C port, and a solid array of eight USB 3.2 GEN 1 ports. This board has plenty of options for expandability despite its small size and even smaller price point at just $109.

Summary

The Ryzen 5 3600 is a bit of a game-changer, as it opens the door for a lot more users to 6c/12t processors than ever before. With this level of price-to-performance supported by platforms that are just as feature-filled and low-cost as the unit that drives them, it’s hard to say “no,” to Team Red these days.

Best Entry-Level: MSI B450 Tomahawk – Excellent VRM and feature-set at an extremely modest price.

Best High-Performance: MSI MPG X570 Gaming PRO Carbon Wi-Fi – One of the most robust VRM solutions in the X570 lineup, coupled with a comprehensive feature set and USB Type C support – this is a great motherboard pairing for the Ryzen 5 3600 in high-end builds.

Best mini-ITX: ASRock B550M-ITX – this ITX B550 motherboard packs a lot of punch at just $129 – with a decent feature set, VRM, BIOS flash inbuilt as well as type-C support.

Best mATX: ASRock B550M Pro4 – A great feature-set micro-ATX motherboard for the Ryzen 5 3600. Plenty of expansion options, RGB, a decent I/O – this board has plenty of options despite its small size and even smaller price point.

Have you recently built a system with the Ryzen 5 3600? Let us know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

• Related: Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 5 3600
• Related: Best Graphics Cards to Pair with the Ryzen 5 3600
• Related: Best RTX 2060 Super Aftermarket Cards

The post Best Motherboards for Ryzen 5 3600 Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

So, you think you want to build a decent PC? 

Well, you probably do, especially if you’re reading this article.

However, what might not be so clear is whether you should build a Ryzen-based rig or use one of the more recently-released Intel chips. With the new Zen 4 chips not due out until the second half of 2022, the latest offerings from AMD have now been on the market for well over a year. 

With that said, they still pack some punch. Today, we’re going to see how the i5-12600K, which is around a year younger than its counterpart, stacks up against the Ryzen 7 5800X. 

We’ll be comparing the specs, affordability, feature set, power consumption, and the benchmark results of both chips, before making a recommendation which will hopefully make it clear exactly where you should be putting your cash.

Specifications

1. Specification Comparison

The 12600K has ten cores and sixteen threads, while the 5800X has around 20% fewer cores (eight) and the same number of threads (sixteen). Working in AMD’s favour, though, is the fact that it does have a smaller processor manufacturing node, meaning that there is a shorter distance between transistors (7nm, as opposed to the 10nm distance on Intel’s new chips).

The 5800X also has a significantly larger L3 Cache, and lower TDP. This is all good news for the Ryzen line, but Intel – having the newer product on the market – have made the wise decision to include support for DDR5 and LPDDR5 in their Alder Lake range. And, while the 12600K definitely draws more power between these two, it also is capable of a higher boost clock speed.

Verdict: Despite all of the good intentions of AMD to make a much more energy-efficient chip here, the fact that Intel have the more powerful product (on paper, at least), and have included support for the next generation of memory, makes it hard to justify picking the 5800X (except, maybe, for gamers particularly concerned about their ecological footprint).

2. Price & Availability

The 12600K, as with most of Intel’s processors right now, is only available on Amazon via third-party sellers. When we last checked, the cheapest you’ll be able to find it for is $349, which is around 16% higher than its list price.

The 5800X paints a much more appealing picture for buyers, being readily available at a discount of just over 21% ($427.99). Also working in the favour of this Ryzen chip is the fact that it will be compatible with many older motherboards (those with AM4 sockets), while anyone picking up an Alder Lake CPU will also find themselves an extra couple of hundred dollars down due to the need for a new LGA 1700 board.

Verdict: The fact that buying a 12600K means having to deal with scalpers is off-putting. Having to buy a brand-new motherboard with it will only compound that. On the other hand, the 5800X could actually save you a significant amount of cash, especially if you already have an AM4 mobo. So, if money is a serious factor you need to consider, go with the 5800X.

3. Included Features

The 12600k belongs to the Alder Lake line, which brings with it some very interesting new features. Perhaps the most notable of these is the Golden Cove architecture, which has been designed from scratch and combines two different types of cores (“Performance Cores” and “Efficiency Cores”). In theory, this allows for better scaling in power-consumption according to how the PC is being used.

Additionally, DDR5 and LPDDR5 compatibility provide a significant head start for Intel’s offering. AMD have now announced that their AM5 chips will support the next generation of memory, but their release has now been put back to at least “2H 2022” (so expect them in the summer at the earliest).

And, as with the other chips in their ‘K’ range, the 12600K comes with an integrated GPU (the UHD 770). While it’s modest – much more modest than a good dedicated GPU, and significantly lower-powered than the iGPUs of the Ryzen’s ‘G’ series – it does provide a fall-back option that the 5800X does not. If you do choose to rely on the 770 while shopping for a more powerful graphics card, we’d advise you to temper your expectations; it’s absolutely fine for Rocket League and other eSports games, but it’s not going to provide impressive visual results by most measures.

The 5800X, being part of Ryzen’s newest generation of chips, has a much less eye-catching list of features this time around. However, one of the most talked about inclusions on this chip is the entirely new architecture design which takes the emphasis off of the Infinity Fabric. This is due to the Core Complex Dies (CCD) now being able to hold eight cores rather than four; consequently, AMD have significantly lowered the need for IF as each of the eight cores can access the 20MB L3 Cache without any inherent latency. Their higher-end chips still support IF (for example, on 12-core chipsets), but there’s no need for one in this case.

Verdict: Intel have really outdone themselves with their latest generation of chips. By taking a much more forward-thinking approach, their support for PCIe 5.0, DDR5, and LPDDR5 has given them the much stronger feature-set on paper. If your main concern is whether or not your CPU can support the latest technologies, it’s hard to recommend against the 12600K.

4. Power Efficiency

One of the most interesting shifts Intel have made is to redefine the power consumption of their Alder Lake processors. Rather than using the TDP definition, they’ve now moved to two separate terms; the first is PBP (which stands for “Processor Base Power”), and the other is MTP (“Maximum Turbo Power”). What they have kept fairly quiet is that these chips can scale up their power toward the MTP without the user really being aware of it.

The 5800X has a base TDP of 105W, which is a 16% decrease compared to the 12600K’s base clock. Even when overclocked, any AM4 chip won’t be able to pull more than 142W, which is still lower than the MTP of Intel’s chip (150W).

Verdict: Again, AMD have always done a good job of making their chips power efficient. With the latest Ryzen line, this has continued to be the case, and the 5800X is capable of providing staggering gaming performance while using significantly less juice than its competitor. Definitely worthy of consideration for any eco-minded gamers out there. 

5. Benchmark Comparison

To get the best possible understanding of how these two chips stack up against each other, we’ll be pulling the benchmarking results from several different sources. These should help us to not only understand which chip has better processing capabilities on paper, but also how that actually carries through into real-world usage.

The first source we’ll look at will be UserBenchmark, which attempts to compute and analyse “millions of benchmarks”. Their results tend to be good for getting a rough overview of what to actually expect from these chips. 

Based on their generated report, the 12600K appears to be the vastly superior product. It outshines the AMD in just about any area most gamers are likely to be concerned with; things like faster single, dual, quad, and octa-core speeds (whether at base clock or overclocked). The 5800X, on the other hand, has slightly better memory latency and looks to be more energy efficient.

Thankfully, we can also get some actual game-performance scores, thanks to Tom’s Hardware. Their comparison of the two CPUs (as well as the 5900X) allows us to see exactly how they each handle some of the most demanding titles on the market today.

The first of these is Horizon Zero Dawn, which was tested at 1080P with the Ultra graphics preset. In that test, the 5800X was the marginal victor with an average FPS of 178.7; ever so slightly beating the 12600K, whether it was paired with DDR4 (176.4 FPS) or DDR5 (176.5 FPS).

With the resolution bumped up to 1440P, something a little interesting happens. The 5800X still churns out a perfectly good 153.3 FPS on average, but the 12600K with DDR5 now out-performs it with an average of 154.4 FPS. However, pair the 12600K with DDR4 and you’ll see a fairly inconsequential drop to 152.3 FPS.

One of the most startling gaming tests was their comparison of both chips while running Microsoft’s Flight Simulator at 1080P and Ultra settings. In that matchup, the 12600K with DDR4 pulled a very impressive average of 143 FPS. Switch that memory to DDR5, though, and there is a somewhat severe reduction of just under 19 FPS. The 5800X sits more-or-less right between them, with 135.6 FPS on average.

Likewise, the Red Dead Redemption 2 comparison (at 1080P with the Ultra preset) had somewhat surprising results. The 5800X managed an average of 171.9 FPS, beating the 12600K with both DDR4 (162.1 FPS) and DDR5 (160.1 FPS) RAM.

With results like these, it’s a good idea to bring in a third set of benchmarking results. For that, we looked at CPU Monkey, which looks at the results of benchmarking utilities like Cinebench and Geekbench, allowing readers to easily compare them.

In almost every single Cinebench test, the victory went to the 12600K. Sometimes this was by a fairly narrow margin (like 1% with Cinebench R15), while it grew to as large as 15% in others (R23 Single-Core, R23 Multi-Core, and R20 Multi-Core). The one W for the 5800X was the Cinebench R15 Multi-Core test (where it was the better-performing chip by 1%). 

Even in the Geekbench Single and Multi-Core tests, the 12600K was the clear victor (by 12% and 7%, respectively).

Verdict: It was very surprising to look at these results. Based on Cinebench, Geekbench, and User Benchmark scores, you could hardly be blamed for expecting the 12600K to be the superior CPU. However, it looks like the 5800X has genuinely better real-world performance, despite being limited to DDR4 memory.

6. Verdict

Consumers looking to put together a workbench machine should look no further than the 12600K. The Cinebench and Geekbench scores alone were enough to settle our minds in this regard, and the fact that this chip can also support the latest and greatest technologies is just another reason to invest in it. It might be more expensive initially, but we have a feeling that its longevity is going to make it a worthwhile investment.

For gamers, both of these chips will do a great job. However, the clear winner is absolutely the 12600K. While some of its wins over the 5800X were a little marginal, we feel that future titles are going to make much better use of DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 technology. Again, the initial overheads of getting set up with the processor are going to be higher, but we have a feeling that it’s going to be well worth it if it means you can get an extra year or two out of your machine.

If you’re only looking for a general use machine, we’d recommend going with the 5800X. It’s still going to churn out impressive performance during heavy multimedia editing work and gaming, and the cost (especially when you factor in the more affordable motherboards) make it an absolute no-brainer.

The post Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: Which is Best Value? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Intel’s 12^th Generation CPUs have impressed across the board with their performance. To get the most out of them, it makes sense to pay close attention to your choice of RAM. In this article, we’ll explain how RAM specification can help improve CPU performance, show you our testing which demonstrates the effect of different RAM speeds, and then make our recommendations as to the RAM that will help you get the most out of an Alder lake 12^th Generation Intel CPU. 

DDR4 Vs DDR5

One of the features of the 12^th generation CPUs is their support for DDR5 RAM. This is dependent on the motherboard you choose, with your motherboard choice tying you to either DDR5 or DDR4 RAM.
The Case for DDR5 isn’t made out in this generation: DDR5 ram boasts impressive headline frequencies, but the timings show that it’s not a clear cut picture. This is borne out in testing, with DDR5 outperforming DDR4 in certain high memory bandwidth-intensive tasks like file compression and video rendering. DDR4, particularly well-specified faster DDR4, holds its own, particularly in gaming tests. Of course, there’s also the fact that DDR5 is three to four times as expensive as even high-quality DDR4 kits. We’re safe to say that for the 12^th generation, you should opt for a DDR4 kit unless you have excellent reasons to need DDR5, and very deep pockets as well. 

Once you’ve decided DDR4 is right for your Alder Lake Build, what then? Which is the best DDR4 RAM to choose from with this platform? We conducted a number of tests to find out the best RAM for the Intel Core i5-12400, i5-12600K, and Core i7-12700K for 2022 builds.

Testing Set up:

All of our testing was conducted on the MSI Tomahawk Z690 DDR4 motherboard (B09GLD72QH). We used an Intel i7-12700K (B09FXNVDBJ) at stock/default settings. This was paired with an EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra. Cooling was provided by an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240 AIO (B07WSDLRVP). The power supply is a Fractal Design Ion+ 860W platinum PSU.

RAM used was: 

• Crucial Ballistix 3200Mhx CL16 2x8GB, (XMP and JDEC) (B083TRRT16)
• G.Skill Ripjaws V 3600MHz CL16 2x8GB (XMP and JDEC) (B07X8DVDZZ)
• Patriot Viper Steel 4400Mhz Cl9 2x8GB (XMP and Manual OC) (B07KXLFDL6)

Firstly, let’s define a few terms so that we can interpret our results.

MHz speed is often the headline specification of RAM, but it’s somewhat misleading in that on its own it’s not particularly helpful in determining RAMs potential for performance. It’s the frequency the RAM runs at, but more correctly should be ‘MT/s’ or Million Transfers per Second, as RAM is Double Data Rate – it is accessible twice on every clock cycle. Therefore DDR4 3200Mhz RAM actually runs at 1600MHz, which is the speed you will see in various RAM diagnostic utilities. Faster RAM has the potential to perform better, as the rate of access increases. This primarily increases Bandwidth, and to a degree also lowers latency since the memory controller is waiting less time for an available access window to transact with the RAM. However, faster isn’t always better. Very high-speed RAM (greater than 4000MHz) is difficult for memory controllers to run, and may not be stable particularly in larger capacities. If you’re looking for 32GB or 64GB of RAM, you may find you need to reduce speeds for stability.

CL timings or CAS latency are the numbers you see quoted in listings for RAM: 16-16-16-32 or similar. These lists the primary timings and they are the number of clock cycles it takes to perform certain important functions. Lower numbers are therefore better. By multiplying clock speed with CL, you gain an indication of the ‘first word’ latency of the RAM in nanoseconds. Since it’s measured in time, again lower is better.

Gear 1 vs Gear 2. This is Intel’s naming for the ratio of your memory controller speed to the RAM speed. Ideally, for the lowest latency, it should be 1:1 and this is known as ‘Gear 1’. If your RAM frequency exceeds the stable speed of the CPUs memory controller, then ‘Gear 2’ may be employed, halving the memory controller speed in relation to the RAM. This induces a latency penalty. For Alder Lake, the memory controller appears to be happy in Gear 1 up to around 4000MHz, but individual CPUs may vary. 

1. Synthetic Benchmarks

The CPU test in Time Spy is highly Multithreaded, using our 12700K to the full. As it turns out it’s also sensitive to memory speed. You can see here how detrimental to performance running 2400MHz CL16 RAM is – the score is 1,500 points down on the next set of results. This is what happens if you fail to set XMP, your RAM runs at these basic ‘JDEC’ defined speeds and that can really hurt performance.  Both 3200Mhz and 3600Mhz CL16 RAM kits are commonly available and currently cheap. You can see they perform identically in this test returning 16,000 points each.

Looking at the ‘high performance’ RAM kit, this is a 4400 MHz RAM Kit, using Samsung B-Die chips, that we tweak to further improve performance.

Firstly, at XMP settings this kit runs at 4400Mhz CL19, but in gear 2. This, combined with the looser timings, offsets the higher frequency operation. Tweaking further brings us to a 4400Mhz CL17 settings and our third-highest result. Finally, Tightening timings to 4000Mhz Cl15-16-16-36 brings us to our best score of 17026, but it’s by a marginal 100 points. All three configurations perform near identically.

Rendering is another task that can be memory intensive, but is it dependent on memory speeds? We ran a couple of tests to check.

Cinebench R20 uses a tile-based renderer to complete a scene as fast as the CPU allows.

Ordered by result, we can see that there is essentially no trend here. 60 points are well within the margin of error for Cinebench R20 and we can see that the ‘worst’ RAM specification, 2400Mhz JDEC settings are butting up against one of the best: Manually tuned RAM at 4000MHz Cl17. 2600Mhz CL16 ties 3600Mhz Cl16 as well. This test doesn’t demonstrate any coherent scaling with RAM Speed. The lesson here is that many tasks simply aren’t dependent on RAM speed, and also that you shouldn’t use Cinebench to look for performance improvements if you’re tweaking RAM!

Cinebench R23 shows similarly unhelpful results. Again, this is all within the margin of error for this test and there’s no clear trend aligning with RAM performance.

And finally, another rendering test, this time Blender, a popular 3D Creation platform.

We rendered out two scenes on the i7-12700K, with the following results:

We’ve put a bit of a spoiler here in the form of some DDR5 testing as well. You can see that the results in all three instances, 2400Mhz, 400MHz optimised, and even DDR5 at 6000MHZ is the same: This is another task that does not scale with RAM speed to any appreciable degree.

2. Gaming Benchmarks

So, some synthetic tests show memory scaling, and some don’t. But what about gaming?

Well, games as a rule respond very well to reduced RAM latency on previous intel platforms. Getting data to the CPU with less delay allows it to process the game world faster, returning higher frame rates.
We can demonstrate this using a number of tests.

1. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Firstly, Shadow of the tomb raider makes things easy for us by showing the effects of RAM speed on the game engine thread itself, in the in-game benchmark.

Using the min, average and maximum framerates, we can see a clear trend in performance as we move up to faster RAM specifications. Whilst JDEC specification 2400MHz RAM languishes behind at 202FPS average, the 3200MHz Ram improves to 227FPS, the 3600 MHz kit to 239FPS, the 4400 MHz kit to 244FPS, and the manually tweaked 4000 MHz kit run to 257 FPS on average. Note that minimum and Maximum frame rates increase accordingly. 

Now, this is all well and good but is it representative of anything in the real world? Well, the overall FPS results of this benchmark confirm the Ram speed scaling and demonstrate the extent to which it can help:

Here, we can see that the 4400MHz Kit actually returns the highest results, with the 4000MHz RAM kits actually trailing slightly behind. The XMP 3600Mhz kit is also close to the peak result. You can again see the clear detriment of slow RAM, with 2400Mhz a clear 10% slower than any of the better options.

As for the reversal of fortunes for the 4000MHz manually tweaked ram? – Well, XMP has settings for a number of timings that we did not have time to optimise for this testing. The Render thread often acts as a limiting factor and depends more on Ram Bandwidth than latency. Overall, you can see the broad impact of tweaking RAM, but also the subtle nature of changes in timings and settings that can add noise to the results.

Nonetheless, this test demonstrates how faster RAM assists CPU performance and allows games to run with less restriction from CPU limitations, resulting in higher frame rates.

2. Rainbow 6 Siege

Again in Rainbow 6 Siege, we can see a broad trend favouring faster RAM, with 2400MHz the slowest at 500FPS, the 4000MHz and 4400MHz options posting similar results from 530-540 FPS average, and the 3600Mhz CL16 RAM kit posting the best results at 564 FPS. Again, XMP likely takes optimisations to tRFC and other secondary and tertiary settings that deliver more consistent all-round performance here. Nevertheless, such is the performance of the i7-12700K we’re really splitting hairs looking at RAM speed impacts on this benchmark.

3. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Flight Sim is a Game, or simulator if you want to be serious about it, that places unique importance on the CPU performance. It’s often the limiting factor in frame rates in this game, and lifting CPU capability directly translates to more frames on screen in a lot of circumstances.

In this test, we fly a Daher at a low altitude across Manhattan and log frame rates for 3 minutes.

Here again, we see the detrimental effect using slow ram, or not setting XMP on your RAM, has on performance. 2400MHz languishes at 98 FPS. Faster RAM scales near linearly across the speeds on test, with 3600Mhz bringing a decent lift to 107 FPS, and 4400MHz and faster continuing to increase performance. Remember, with gear 2 and loose timings this 4400MHz kit isn’t the fastest RAM on test here. The effect is subtle, but the trend is clear: Faster RAM helps this title, which is unsurprising given the CPU heavy nature of performance limits in Flight Sim 2020. 

4. Forza Horizon 5

This modern AAA open-world racer has a detailed inbuilt benchmark that lets us peek under the hood and see how performance is impacted.
Firstly, we can see that the sim engine itself benefits hugely from improving RAM speeds:

This is pretty unequivocal. Going from 2400MHz JDEC specification to 3600Mhz Cl16 nets you a huge 70FPS average gain. Pushing to optimised 4000MHz RAM at CL16 makes that a 110FPS margin, over a third faster again.
Once the game has processed the world, it prepares the render to pass to the GPU, this is the CPU render stat also shown in the results:

Here we see a less dramatic but still significant performance trend: The rendering process gains around 20 FPS or 10% going from the slowest RAM to moderately well optimised 3600Mhz Cl16 RAM.

And finally, do these under-the-hood numbers make any real-world difference? Well, they can do yes, as shown by our results:

Optimising RAM sees an easy gain of around 15FPS in the overall benchmark score. 

Conclusions:

Throughout these tests, we’ve seen an overall trend of faster ram assisting performance, both in some synthetic tests and also in games. We hope you’ll excuse the somewhat ‘messy’ nature of the data. It is what it is, this is real data, and the nuances of RAM speed and timings and how they interact with different software performance is a complex web. There is no one best set of RAM for all circumstances, but you can certainly pick RAM that will give you better results more of the time. As our results consistently show, you can also pick bad RAM or fail to set it up correctly, and this can bring tangible harm to your system’s performance.

We’d also like to address the issue over the gaming benchmarks. We’ve purposefully run these tests at 1080p, High settings, to bring you data that is at least somewhat relevant. But we are still using an RTX 3080 at 1080p. It’s quite correct to say that at 1440p and up the limiting factor becomes the GPU making these results less relevant. However: What is important is that RAM speed sets a baseline for performance in many games. You buy yourself more headroom by choosing better RAM. And that’s important in demanding CPU bound situations or as a system ages. A system with bad RAM may well show performance problems where one with well-chosen RAM won’t, and that could mean the system as a whole survives another generation of graphics cards upgrades.

Alder lake CPUs are exceptionally high performance, and it would be a real shame to limit their potential with poorly chosen RAM.

Recommendations

Overall, on the basis of cost, availability and ease of set-up, we still recommend 3600Mhz CL16 RAM for Alder lake CPUs. This RAM brings you the bulk of performance improvements with a minimum of money and time invested. There are Crucial Ballistix and G.Skill Ripjaws V kits available in 2x8GB Format at under $100. They’ve got decent timings, and represent great bang for buck.

If you need 32 GB, around $150 to $180 gets you G.Skill or those Ballistix kits in 2x16Gb Format.

There are also currently Crucial Ballistix Max 4000Mhz Cl18 Kits available at around $90 for 16Gb. They also represent a nice option, as they run in Gear 1 mode and give roughly the same total latency as a 3600Mhz Cl16 kit. Grabbing those and tweaking timings downwards could yield some pretty impressive results, but they’ll work just fine at XMP.

The post Best DDR4 RAM for Intel ‘Alder Lake’ CPUs (i5-12400, 15-12600K, i7-12700K) appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The MSI Tomahawk brand gained a huge reputation with its B450 AMD offering, at the time a good value motherboard that supported high-end Ryzen CPUs at a lower cost. Each iteration since has grown in both price and features, and today we have the Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 Wifi. This board makes the most of the Z690 platforms innate strengths with a wide range of connectivity, storage options and expansion slots, as well as a good foundation specification. But it’s $300 and that’s a lot of anyone’s money.

We’ve used this board throughout our evaluation of the Intel i7-12700K, giving us insight into the performance and features of this motherboard, so let’s discover whether it’s the right board for your Intel 12th generation PC build.

Features and specification

The MSI Tomahawk sits right in the middle of the Z690 specification. Overall this is a ‘high end’ chipset, and most boards have four M.2 slots at PCIe 4.0, six SATA ports, plenty of USB connectivity, and strong Voltage delivery circuitry.

The MSI Tomahawk is unremarkable in this regard, including all the features you’d expect to find.

There is a pleasing lack of conflicts, all M.2 Slots and SATA slots can be utilised at the same time. Whilst the additional PCIe slots do not boast the fastest specification, they also do not conflict with any other ports or slots. Whilst this Motherboard is not suited to multiple GPU setups (Except in rendering or non-bandwidth intensive applications where the PCIe 3.0 X4 slot is no hindrance to performance), for all common usage including gaming, production and general workloads it’s well configured and well-appointed.

The features notably missing really relate to more focussed overclocking usage: There’s a Flash BIOS button, but no Clear CMOS, power or reset buttons. A simple array of LEDs indicate boot problems (which we did not encounter at any stage) rather than a more informative segmented display. As for looks, there’s no RGB at all on this motherboard, although there is a handy switch to enable or disable attached RGB devices. Really these are features you wouldn’t expect to find on a mainstream board but at $300 we are looking for places MSI could have offered more value.

Our other slight criticism is the lack of USB ports at the rear and the fact that only a handful of them are high speed. Ideally on a board at this price point, we’d like to have seen a couple more USB A ports there.

Layout

The Tomahawk is pretty well laid out, maximising your ability to fit a wide range of additional cards and storage options into it.

The second main PCIe slot is 3 slots below the primary GPU slot, meaning it’s still accessible even with one of the larger latest GPUs fitted. The PCIe X1 slot does get obscured by any GPU larger than pure 2 slots though. And that lowest PCIe Slot is handily placed for an audio or network interface card, but be aware it is just at PCIe 3.0 X1 bandwidth, so it’s not suitable for high bitrate capture cards, for example.
Our one misgiving is the slightly awkward SATA port placement, four of them are at 90 degrees to the board and down in the lower corner. Whilst it’s not a deal-breaker, it’s not the tidiest of solutions. We prefer to see them flat along the edge of the board.

Everything else is conventionally and conveniently laid out with no major oversights or issues.

BIOS

MSI use the ‘Click BIOS 5’ which is a relatively intuitive segmented BIOS with both ‘easy’ and ‘advanced’ modes. There’s not much to say here apart from that the BIOS is functional, practical, and depending on your affinity and familiarity, you’ll be able to do what needs to be done here without too much searching around. That said, the Alder lake CPU is complex, and there are a lot of options listed out and not all of them are intuitively titled. MSI claim a useful ‘legacy gaming mode’ which allows disabling of E-cores by using Scroll Lock. This can help in running some titles when anti-cheat or DRM software sees the unequal cores of Alderlake as two separate systems and refuse to run. However, we were unable to get this feature working within Windows 10. 

We also noted that after setting XMP the board likes to boot cycle once, before coming back up for a second boot with the settings and presumably memory training applied. This could be disconcerting for new builders but did not interfere with applying an XMP profile. Fan control is well laid out and easy to tweak. Memory overclocking is straight forwards and assisted by a number of saveable presets. Whilst these can be backed up to USB, sadly they get wiped in a CMOS Reset, which is a common occurrence during Memory overclocking. At least once you’ve settled on a set-up, it can be saved and applied as you please.

Overall, amongst BIOSes, MSI is still the one we get on best with, but we acknowledge that this is likely down to familiarity with the layout and settings on offer.

No BIOS update or tweaking of TPM, GTP, Boot modes or anything else was required to build this PC and in install and boot windows. Note that BIOS updates in future are likely to disable the ability to enable AVX512 following Intel’s mandate that this ‘quirk’ be erased in future BIOSes. 

Performance

Performance was tested as stock, without enhancement or ‘game boost’ mode applied. This board adheres to Intels Power limit specification of 190W PL1 for long term power limits, and the CPU performs accordingly. That is to say it’s bang on the performance of this CPU in any other board, including the more expensive MSI Z690 Carbon. Power limits can be removed entirely although the CPU itself will limit power draw. 

CPU overclocking was intuitive, and relatively successful, with a 5.0GHz all P- core clock easily applied along with a 50mV undervolt. This raised CineBench performance about 1,000 points to 23,000 and there was no detriment to stability.

We spent considerably more time exploring memory overclocking and found this board a flexible and stable platform to tune our Samsung B-die test kit. 4000MHZ CL16-16-16-36 was easily obtainable in Gear 1, without adjusting Memory or IMC voltages. The features and flexibility of this motherboard, and Alderlake, impressed us and with fast RAM being a big performance modifier it’s nice to be able to optimise with ease.

Overall, we had absolutely no concerns over the performance of this motherboard. It’s an excellent pairing with an i7-12700K, it has the power headroom to run an i9-12900K, and there’s plenty of latitude for some overclocking too. 

Value

This motherboard is available in both DDR4 and DDR5 formats. It retails at $300 in the US, Around 300€ in Europe, and a more attractive £249 in the UK at present. The DDR5 version ruins any sense of value by requiring RAM kits that currently retail for at least the same amount again, and confer no real performance advantage vs the DDR4 version with well-specified and readily available RAM.

We feel that this board marks a watershed price point for Z690. With the high performing and versatile i7-12700K costing $400, moving towards that price point for a motherboard does not feel like a sensible allocation of budget. From $200 upwards boards like the MSI Pro Z690-A, and Gigabyte UD or Gaming X provide a rock-solid platform for an i5 or i7 K series CPU.

As we approach $400, not only do boards add a few features besides Thunderbolt connectivity that seems worthy of the price, they also require DDR5 RAM. By that point, we’re looking at a $400 or more premium for very little return in performance or functionality. 

Therefore, given the feature set of the MSI Tomahawk, we feel that $300 marks the absolute threshold price for this motherboard. If it’s more expensive, look at better value alternatives. If it’s closer to $250 in bundles, deals or sales, then it represents good value.

Competition

In terms of MSI’s own products, the notable competitors are the MSI Z690-A Pro which sacrifices the Audio codec to an ALC 897, has a slightly weaker but still capable 14 phase VRM design, and makes do with fewer high-speed USB ports, but otherwise offers the same performance and feature set at around $80 less. The MSI Gaming Edge WiFi is $20 or so more and has a slightly more jazzy aesthetic, along with some onboard RGB and two of the rear panel USB ports are upgraded to the faster 10gbs spec. Otherwise, again, it’s identical.

The ASUS TUF Z690 Gaming offers a slightly reduced specification, with key features on par with the MSI Z690-A PRO. There’s a 14 phase VRM, Four M.2 Slots, Just 4 SATA slots, and an array of PCIe Slots consisting of two full length, two single length, and one X4 length slot. It’s got just 6 rear USB A ports and one USB C, and decently specified Realtek Audio. It’s a little light on fan headers for a board in this price range, with just 3 Chassis fans in addition to the CPU and pump fan headers. It’s a decent board and offers everything you need, but we feel the price point is more $250 than the $300 current asking price. The Gigabyte Aorus Elite is better specified and lower-priced, and the Tomahawk is better specified at the same money.

Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite AX DDR4 –This board is MSRP at $269 and offers a very well rounded specification. The VRM is on a par with the MSI Tomahawk, And it boards 2 more USB 2.0 Ports at the rear. It has an ALC 1220 Codec and a cut down 3 port rear audio output configuration. There’s some subtle RGB. Whilst early boards had some issues caused by the pre-release BIOS, these have now been rectified with the ‘F6’ BIOS update, and there’s a BIOS Q-flash function to allow easy updates. At a $30 saving over the Tomahawk, it’s a compelling motherboard for a PC built around the i7-12700K CPU. 

Conclusion

Overall then, there’s a lot to like about the MSI Z690 Tomahawk. It gets most things right, is a great pairing with the i7-12700K, and makes full use of the most attractive features of the Z690 chipset. The question really comes about value, and whether you’re better off with a cheaper board with near-identical features and specifications like the Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite DDR4, Or perhaps even the Gaming X or MSI’s own Z690-A. Those are the boards we’d choose to pair with the i5-12600K in order to get maximum value. The Tomahawk meanwhile makes the most sense with an i7-12700 or as a cost-effective platform for an i9-12900K.

Pros:

• All the features and connectivity offered by the Z690 Platform
• Discrete looks
• Excellent power delivery and performance
• Plenty of headroom for overclocking and tweaking memory settings.
• Well rounded overall specification and connectivity

Cons:

• Feels slightly expensive at $300
• No RGB
• Slightly compromised USB options at rear panel.

The post MSI Z690 Tomahawk WiFi DDR4 Review: The Definitive Mid-Range Z690 Motherboard? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

One of the most prominent specifications of a Power supply is its ‘wattage’, normally quoted as 500W, 600W and so on. Calculating how much wattage you need vs how much the power supply can provide can become a headache. This article will help you work out the best option for your PC build.

How much power can a Power Supply (PSU) deliver?

The rated power for a power supply is the power it can deliver for an extended period of time. It takes into account efficiency losses of the power supply itself – so there is no need to multiply the PSU power by the nominal efficiency rating of the power supply. If a Power Supply is rated at 600W, it can sustain a 600W load and likely a little more.

Efficiency ratings do not directly correlate to the quality of a power supply. A Gold rated 600W power supply and a Bronze rated 600W power supply will both deliver 600W to the system components but the Gold-rated supply will convert the voltages more efficiently, losing less energy to heat, and drawing less power from the wall.

When components, particularly power-hungry GPUs, experience a demanding workload they draw a significant amount of power for a very short period of time. This power demand has to be met by the power supply – and this normally occurs by drawing power from capacitors in the power supply which exist to smooth power delivery and supply these transient spikes in power. This is where lower quality power supplies often fail to deliver: they use cheaper, lower quality and lower capacity capacitors. They may also have ‘over current protection’ set at lower limits to protect a less robust design or to keep within limits of parts with a lower specification. If you demand too much of these power supplies, they will shut the system down to protect themselves. If you encounter a situation where your PC shuts down when loading a game, or after an extended period when things have heated up, the power supply is a likely culprit. This is why GPU manufacturers tend to ‘over quote’ recommended power supply wattages, to account for there is no guarantee of the quality of the power supply the end-user has in their system. 

Working out how much power your system can draw

The power your PC draws depends on the components you choose. The most power-hungry components are the GPU(s), the CPU and then items like the Chipset itself, RAM, SSDs or Hard drives, and fans and any water pumps themselves also consume in the order of 10 Watts maximum each. Inefficiencies are inherent in all components causing energy to be wasted as heat, but these are accounted for in the total power draw given for any component. 

Components come with a nominal power draw, which can be equated to ‘TDP’. This is a less than perfect analogy because it’s really about the thermal design of the components, and also because the manufacturers sometimes misrepresent the actual power draw of components to appear more efficient. 

Allowing a 200W buffer gives you enough headroom to add multiple drives, more complex cooling solutions, or a more powerful CPU or GPU in future upgrades without having to replace the power supply as well. More powerful PSUs also tend to offer more PCIe and CPU power connectors, allowing you to run devices that require those connectors – two separate runs from power supply to the GPU for example, or an additional 4pin CPU EPS power connector to support CPU overclocking.

If you intend on Overclocking the CPU or GPU you will want to calculate significant headroom and consider the peak power draw of your components when overclocked, and this can be significantly higher than those run at standard settings – as much as double in some instances. High-end cooling solutions can also demand more power than a more basic PC set-up. 

A rule of thumb to calculate your Power Supply needs:

Maximum CPU Draw + Maximum GPU Draw + 200W = Recommended Power Supply Wattage. 

You can find the maximum power draw by searching for reputable reviews that indicate peak power draw during testing. As a rule, GPUs tend to closely follow their TDP power limits unless overclocked, and so do AMD CPUs. Intel CPUs frequently misrepresent their TDP and have a significantly higher peak power draw under demanding loads, so it’s wise to look at tests that demonstrate actual power use. Whilst an i9-10900K is nominally a 125W CPU for example, it can draw over 220W under all-core load and more when overclocked. An intel i5-11400 has a ‘TDP’ or 65W but will draw just over 100W under a demanding all core load.

To Summarize

• For most Gaming PCs with an i5, Ryzen 5 or 7 CPU, and a ~250W GPU a 650W Power Supply is adequate.
• For PCs including an RTX 3080, RX 6800 or Intel i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU, a 750W PSU is sensible.
• For PC’s including an RTX 3080 Ti, RTX 3090, RX 6900XT, and an Intel i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU, 850W or more is sensible.
• A more powerful power supply cannot harm your system the only downside is cost. An under-specified power supply may cause system instability or limit upgrade options in future. Therefore it makes sense to err on the side of a larger power supply but do not over-spend. 
• Quality is as important as power, and ‘efficiency rating’ cannot be directly related to quality. Search for hands on reviews to gauge the quality of a power supply you are considering.

The post How Much PSU Wattage Do I Need? How To Calculate PSU Wattage appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

The Intel i9-11900K was released at the end of 2020 and leverages Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ architecture to bring 8 cores and good overclocking potential to the flagship CPU of this generation. Whilst it offers undoubtedly high performance, it is a power-hungry CPU, particularly when overclocked or running stress tests, with power levels of 300W or more not out of the ordinary! Forming the core of a premium PC with the 11900K, it will usually be paired with a powerful Ampere or RDNA2 GPU, further extending the system’s demands for power.

If you are considering this CPU we’d recommend you assume a 250W power draw for the i9-11900K, add the TDP of your GPU, and then add a good 50% safety margin to ensure that your system can deal with transient loads and additional hardware such as storage, fans, and USB devices without any issues. In this guide, we’ve started with 750W PSU as a minimum for a system incorporating a high-end GPU and moved up where multiple GPUs or extreme overclocking headroom may be required. 

Finally, the ongoing supply and demand issues leave no sector of the PC market untouched, and Power supplies are no exception. This article encompasses the best options available at this time, taking into account those that have been out of stock for a long time or that are simply overpriced considering their specifications. 

Here are our recommendations for the best power supplies to combine with the i9-11900K to ensure a powerful, stable and reliable system.

Related: Intel Core i9-11900K Review
Related: Rocket Lake RAM Speed Analysis

Best PSUs for 11900K – Our Recommendations

1. Best Value PSU for 11900K

MSI may not be best known for its power supplies, having focussed on GPUs and motherboards in the past. However, the MSI MPG A-GF 750W has gained acclaim in reviews for its’ robust design, good performance and keen price. It also comes with an outstanding 10-year warranty indicating the confidence MSI has in the design and construction quality. It utilises all Japanese capacitors and uses the modern standard DC-DC topology. Electrical testing shows excellent voltage stability with minimal ripple, and it easily meets the gold standard efficiency standards. The fan is a quiet and high-quality design with a fluid dynamic bearing to keep the noise down even under load. It has fully modular cables which are flattened for easier routing, and of course, you only need to fit the desired cables to keep your PC as clean looking as possible. It is supplied with two 8 Pin EPS (CPU) power cables, and two PCIe cables to ensure that you can fully populate a Z590 motherboard’s CPU power sockets. MSI has clearly given careful thought to their entry into the competitive PSU market, and this quality and performance is a fantastic deal at $85.

2. Best All-Rounder PSU for 11900K

If you’re looking for a rock-solid PSU to run an RTX 3080, RX 6800XT or RTX 3090 then the Enermax Revolution D.F. 750W fits the bill perfectly. This 750W Gold efficiency rated PSU supplies ample power for the most demanding GPUs when used in combination with the i9-11900K. All the premium features you’d want are there: All Japanese capacitors rated to 105°C, Fully modular design, DC-DC secondary side circuitry and the full suite of protections. It comes with 2 PCI-E cables and 3 sockets, allowing it to power all but the most demanding single GPU setups with ease. It’s got a few neat features including a ‘Dust free’ button that raises the fan to maximum power, in reverse, to pull dust out of the unit as a maintenance task. It performs excellently under load testing with minimal ripple and strong transient load performance which is particularly important when powering high-end Ampere Graphics cards like the RTX 3080. A five-year warranty provides peace of mind. If you want some additional headroom for overclocking or potential future upgrades this unit will serve you well for years to come. 

3. Best PSU for Overclocking the 11900K

Corsair has long been the industry leader for high-end power supplies and the HX Platinum series represent their second-highest end Consumer option – with AX PSUs being unobtainable at the moment. Unfortunately, mining demand means that any PSU capable of powering multiple GPUs has become inflated in price and hard to get and the HX is no exception. This PSU, the HX Platinum 1200W, normally retails at $240 but is currently around $330 on Amazon. However, the core specification is as strong as you can hope for. There’s serious engineering behind this power supply with a semi-digital design and fan microcontroller. Electrical testing shows this to be a class-leading unit with absolutely no complaints or areas of concern. It easily achieves platinum efficiency standards ensuring minimal losses to heat, whilst fan noise remains low even under heavy load. Fully modular cables aid management whilst the use of Corsairs ‘Type 4’ Cable standards make sourcing custom cables easy. It’s topped off with a 10-year warranty to ensure long-lasting operation and peace of mind. 

4. Best PSU for 11900K Multi-GPU Build

If you’re running multiple GPUs on top of the Intel i9-11900K you need an absolutely top-notch PSU to handle the load. The Bequiet! Dark Power Pro is a flagship product from the German brand, with industry-leading engineering and design behind it. Rated for 1500W output at continuous load, and with Titanium power efficiency, this power supply is a great choice to run multiple GTX 3090’s or Radeon RX 6800XT’s for use in computation or rendering rigs. It’s also a good choice for multiple Quadro cards in a professional CAD or design workstation. It’s supplied with a pair of EPS power cables and five 600mm PCIe Power cables (each with twin 6+2 pin heads), to allow for a complex PC build even in full tower cases. It’s configurable between six 12V rails or they can be bridged into a single rail for extreme overclocking applications, whilst the Power supply is digitally controlled on all main rails to ensure stability and smooth power delivery. They’ve focussed on quietness with a frameless fan and gentle fan profile, and a whole side is given over to a mesh panel to aid airflow. Overall this power supply is exceptionally high quality throughout and provides the ideal basis for a hard-working PC with demanding components.

5. Best SFX PSU for i9-11900K

Lian Li are better known for high-quality PC cases but have recently released the SP750 SFX PSU. This compliments their cases like the Lian Li 011D mini which despite being a large case uses an SFX Power supply to reduce the overall size. This power supply benefits from Lian LI’s attention to detail in both design and engineering. It has slick alloy casing and top-notch manufacturing quality. 750W is a high power output for a small form factor design but Lian-Li and the manufacturer ‘Helly Technology’ have maintained excellent electrical performance with stable power output and very high efficiency, easily exceeding gold specification. Components are of high quality throughout. One downside pointed out by reviewers is that the fan can become loud at heavy load, And the 4 PCIe /CPU power sockets must be shared between motherboard CPU power and GPU power, so very high power draw GPUs requiring 3 PCI-E Plugs may require a larger power supply with more extensive connectivity options. Overall though this unit marks a strong entry for Lian Li into the SFX power supply market, and one that is well capable of supporting an i9-11900K in a range of interesting PC builds using unique and small form factor cases.

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1. Specification Comparison

VRAM

Looking at the key specification we can see how closely the RTX 3080 Ti matches the RTX 3090. The principal difference is the halving of VRAM capacity, from 24GB to 12GB. This is still ample for gaming, but reduces the cost of parts significantly with the Micron/Nvidia exclusive GDDR6X costing around 100$ per 10GB, and also the power draw with VRAM power consumption topping 100W in the RTX 3090. It uses the same 384-bit bus providing very high bandwidth access to VRAM and this is the real reason for the slight increase to 12GB over the 3080’s 10GB: The wider bus requires 12GB of VRAM or multiples of that.

Cores & Shader Units

The core itself loses just 256 of over 10,000 shader units vs the RTX 3090, and 8 Tensor cores and two RTX cores. This is a near-identical specification to the RTX 3090 which indicates that it should perform very similarly too. 

Of the other important specifications, we can’t compare ‘Shader units’ across the AMD card or the last generation RTX 2080ti as they’re different architectures, and the same goes for Ray Tracing cores. The RX 6800XT posts impressive theoretical fill rates, but from testing we know it matches the RTX 3080 incredibly closely in rasterised gaming performance.

Pricing

Finally, we come to pricing, and this is really where the controversy lies. The RTX 3090 was criticised for being too expensive at $1500, and not worth it for gaming where the 24GB VRAM went unused. Then of course everything went crazy, and the 3090 became a veritable money-printing machine thanks to its Ethereum mining capability.

$1500 doesn’t sound so bad when a card can earn $10 a day, but then of course prices rose to account for that with cards at well over $2,000 at retail and the second-hand market.

The RTX 3080 Ti launched at a nominal $1199 price point, but retail immediately saw that climb past $1500 except for the very few founder edition cards where retailers were bound to honour Nvidia’s pricing. So what we’re looking at here is a card that is retailing at around $1500 at this time. And, they’re all ‘Low hash Rate cards’ so you can’t mine as efficiently during downtime to recoup some of the cost. 

You can make a persuasive argument that no ‘gaming’ GPU is worth that, but that’s something we’ll consider after looking at the benchmark results. 

2. Benchmarks

We’ve divided the benchmarks up game by game, and run all resolutions so you can focus in on what’s most relevant to you. We’ll highlight at this point that none of the cards in this test should be run at 1080p, it’s simply a waste of their potential, but the numbers are there anyway.

Test Bench

We’ve maintained the same test bench of a Ryzen 5800X, B550 Motherboard, and 16GB of 3600MHZ CL16 RAM with infinity fabric and memory clock set 1:1. We ran a Fractal Designs Ion Platinum 860W Power supply to ensure adequate power. This is a high performance system with the 5800X the equal of any CPU available right now in terms of gaming performance. It’s optimised with good RAM speed, but not overclocked beyond PBO being enabled. 

 We want this test bench to represent the kind of system this GPU would actually be used with. In keeping with this, we run games at representative ‘high to ultra’ settings to show the kind of performance you can actually expect in-game. Simply cranking all settings to ultra often misrepresents a GPUs actual performance, through overburdening either it or the CPU with settings that haven’t been optimised and trash performance for little visual gain.

Synthetic benchmarks

First, looking at synthetic benchmarks through 3DMark testing, Firestrike is the Direct X11 test and renders in 1080p. The 6800XT excels in this, the RTX 3080 Ti still can’t beat its score, giving away nearly 5000 points. However, it does have a clear margin of performance to the RTX 3080 6,000 points behind it, and then the RTX 2080Ti is over 10,000 points behind the 3080 Ti overall.

Time Spy Shows the 3080 Ti leapfrog the RX 6800 XT in this DirectX12 based 1440p graphics test that’s more representative of current games. It’s 1,500 points ahead of the AMD card, and 2,500 ahead of the RTX 3080. There are over 5000 points lead above the RTX 2080 Ti.

Finally, to test Ray Tracing performance, we can take a quick look at the Scores in Port Royal. Here the RTX 3080 Ti uses it’s 12 Ray tracing core advantage to Romp home 2,000 points above the RTX 3080, and 4,000 points ahead of both the RTX 2080 Ti and RX 6800 XT. It’s the clear winner in this test. 

Gaming Benchmarks

Call of Duty: Warzone

Warzone is first up. This is tested by running a five-minute battle royale against Bots, and logging metrics. The recent update knocked performance back about 15% across the board, and I’ve had to omit the RX 6800 XT as we no longer have it available for testing – it performed near identically to the RTX 3080 so please take that as a proxy.

Warzone proves itself a stern test of both CPU and GPU, and can’t generate very high FPS as some other shooters can. The 3080 Ti only marginally outperforms the 3080 at 1080p, Scoring 221 FPS average to 213FPS. At 1440p again there’s only a 10 FPS difference, 180 FPS to 170FPS which isn’t in keeping with the on-paper specification difference. At Ultrawide 1440p we see a little wider gap, proportionally, with a 16 FPS difference. You can see the RTX 2080Ti is 30FPS behind throughout. And finally, at 4K we see the RTX 3080 Ti post just over 100FPS at 110, whilst the 3080 make 96FPS. Overall in Warzone, we don’t see a performance gap commensurate with either specification or Pricing of these GPUs.

Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege is much faster running across the board, and again re-testing means we omit the RX 6800 XT here. At 1080p, 1440p, 1440p ultrawide and 4K you can see the 3080 Ti posts about a 10% uplift versus the RTX 3080. There’s no yawning gap in performance here just a few more frames.

Doom Eternal uses Vulkan Drivers and is well optimised, and here we can compare the RX 6800XT which performs well at lower resolutions. The RTX 3080 Ti has a more commanding lead over the RTX 3080 in this title, particularly at higher resolutions. At 1440p it holds 337 FPS vs 273 for the RTX 3080, and at Ultrawide it’s 266FPS over the RTX 3080’s 238 FPS. At 4K the RT 3080 Ti manages 186 FPS in our testing, with the RTX 3080 and RX 6800XT tied at 160FPS. 

Red Dead Redemption 2

Moving on to the AAA titles in our test suite and looking at Red Dead Redemption 2, the RTX 3080 Ti again tops the charts but not by a huge amount. Just 10 FPS separates it from the RTX 3080 across the board, from 1080p to 4k. 

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider has always shown good scaling with hardware and isn’t particularly CPU limited for the bulk of the benchmark run – although it is in the final village scene to provide a good overview of system performance. Here it’s no different, with a good 20% advantage over the RTX 3080, 40FPS faster at 1080p, twenty FPS at 1440p and 1440p ultrawide, and 17 FPS better at 4k. Those are fairly impressive steps up in isolation. 

Flight Simulator 2020

This demanding but gorgeous simulator delivers a cautionary tale. Our custom benchmark is designed to fully tax CPU and GPU with a low level 3 minute AI-controlled flight over Manhattan. We’ve shown results for both average performance and 1% lows here to better illustrate the results: This GPU is NOT the performance saviour for Flight Sim 2020. You can see that this game is CPU limited with all of these GPUs at 1080p, 1440p, and 1440p ultrawide. Only at 4K does the RTX 3080 Ti pull ahead, but even then it’s matched by the RTX 3080 and we’re STILL CPU limited to around 48FPS average. The long story cut short here is that despite reputations Flight sim actually isn’t GPU dependent: You need a top-flight CPU to make this game run well.

3. Ray Tracing: A Subjective assessment

Looking at Ray tracing performance, This is more of a subjective assessment of the experience. That’s for a few reasons: First is the hand-and-glove nature of RTX and DLSS with the upsampling technology giving a massive boost to performance but also allows you to tweak settings to your preference of fidelity against frame rates. Secondly because of the fast-evolving nature of RTX implementations in games. Games like Control and Metro Exodus remastered really do show this feature off well, with naturalistic lighting and well-judged effects. We’ve been playing Metro Exodus remastered at 1440p ultrawide and RTX on, but no DLSS and play is fast, fluid and utterly gorgeous – but you’d hope that to be the case with a range-topping GPU. The long and short of it is that this GPU offers one of the best gaming experiences currently available utilising these technologies from Nvidia, and that’s as you’d expect. 

Taking a quick look at temperatures and power draw: Running default settings and Logging metrics through a Time Spy run to give a load representative of Gaming, we see the 3080 Ti Draw around 390W to 400 Watts under load. Temperatures on this FTW3 card remain acceptable, with the core reaching around 75 Celcius, and The GDDR6X Memory junction temperatures at 86 Celcius. This is pretty good, under heavy load we can expect temperatures to reach 95C and GDDR6X will run as hot as 105C under continuous heavy loads or when airflow is restricted. Many owners resort to modifying their cards with thermal pads to transmit heat away from the VRAM and into the backplate. Overall, the power draw of this card in particular will demand a very capable power supply to run it, and you may want to investigate under volting it to keep power draw and temperatures lower as well. Particularly when comparing it to the RTX 3080, which draws around 340W, this card consumes around 20% more power for 10% or so more performance – not a great result comparatively speaking. A good quality 750W power supply should be considered a minimum for this Card, we did test it with a high-quality 650W Power supply, the Antec Earthwatts Gold, and it forced system shutdowns on a few occasions.

Conclusions: Can you justify the cost of the RTX 3080 Ti?

What we inevitably come to is the question of value: Is this GPU worth the $1,500 they’re currently retailing for? The answer is an unequivocal ‘No’. It’s simply impossible to justify the price of this GPU on performance grounds. You lose virtually nothing by opting for an RTX 3080 instead and lowering just a few settings for an equivalent experience. It has all the same features, capabilities, and it uses much less power. The trouble is of course RTX 3080’s aren’t readily available at anything close to MSRP.

So we’re left with a couple of ways to look at this: First, you could criticise Nvidia for releasing a marginally better product at a substantially higher price – that happened with the RTX 2080Ti as well but they still sold well. This all stems from the first GPU shortage in 2017, when GTX 1080Ti’s were changing hands for well north of $1000. This set a precedent and sent clear signals that enthusiasts (or desperate gamers) would out-bid miners to get their hands on the current best in class GPUs. Nvidia stopped being shy about the four-figure threshold for their flagship GPUs. Some people see this as being ripped off, others that it’s just a function of market forces. The bad feeling originates from the fact that Nvidia are exploiting market conditions to elevate the price of this GPU by perhaps $200. Remember the cost of GDDR6X VRAM and how halving the quantity likely saves $100 or more in parts cost alone? That ‘saving’ clearly isn’t being handed on to the customer here.

You can also look at products like the RTX 3080 Ti as a luxury good: they clearly are. But like an expensive watch, car, or handbag the price isn’t justified in any way by the features of the product. They’re prestige items, as much about proving you can afford ‘the best’ as actually need the performance. When viewed like this objective metrics break down: No-one cares that the latest limited edition Porsche is just 0.1 seconds faster to 60 for an additional $50,000. They just want the fastest Porsche, and there will still be a waiting list to buy them. 

How you feel about this is likely down to your own personal assessment of value. It’s absolutely gutting at the moment that products like this exist when there are no affordable options for gamers. If this card existed alongside $450 RTX 3060 Ti’s and $700 RTX 3080’s, it wouldn’t feel like such an egregious situation. It’s the fact that people feel compelled to spend this amount just to get a card that leaves a  hint of exploitation in the air. In short, you should only consider the RTX 3080 Ti if money literally isn’t a thing to you – in which case, presumably the RTX 3090 is also in reach. But that 24GB VRAM is still wasted on games.

I absolutely love the way this card performs in VR, in the most demanding titles, at high resolutions. I absolutely hate the price and the state of the market. Hopefully, the market will correct in time and we are seeing signs of that already. So unless you absolutely need a card of this calibre right now, my advice would be to wait – prices are only going to come down from here.  

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When you’re looking to cool a more demanding CPU like the Ryzen 7 5800X or 5900X, or the Intel i7 or K series variants, you might want to consider a high-end air cooler. These CPU coolers offer the advantage of lower noise and increased reliability over ‘all in one’ liquid cooling systems thanks to their large fans and simple but effective design.

We decided to obtain a range of examples from the market leaders Noctua and BeQuiet! In order to assess them for compatibility, ease of fitment and take a look at the performance they offer – to give you a comparison of the best air coolers for high-end PC builds in 2021.

Starting out with more compact options we take a look at the Noctua NH-U12S, and the bequiet! Dark Rock 4. These coolers offer the best compatibility and clearance thanks to relatively compact designs. The NH-U12S uses a 120mm Fan whilst the Bequiet Dark Rock 4 uses a 135mm fan.

Then there’s the option of splitting the difference between the compact and dual fan coolers, the Noctua NH-D15S, which uses just one 140mm fan and a split heat sink – offset to assist in compatibility.

Finally, we pit the two dual-fan options against each other: the Noctua NH-D15 is the most powerful air cooler on the market, and the huge heat sinks and pair of 140mm fans promise great things. Up against it is be quiet’s Top offering, the Dark Rock Pro 4. Again with two fans but differing in size, this cooler blends great looks with low noise.

Best Air CPU Coolers – Our Recommendations

1. Noctua NH-U12A

The Noctua NH-U12A is a high-performance tower cooler with 7 heat pipes, a single fin stack, and a pair of 120mm fans in a push-pull configuration. It comes supplied with a wealth of high-quality fitting equipment, including thermal paste, fan splitters and ‘quiet fan adaptors’, and nicely produced instructions. There’s a robust metal backplate supplied for Intel.

Fitting is easy, with the exception of some confusion over the correct bushings to use: there’s white, beige and black bushing supplied, and it’s the black ones that are used for intel LGA1200 and LGA1155 fitment, but we had to check this with Noctuas online fitting videos as the instructions aren’t clear, mentioning a part number when stating the colour would have been far more helpful. The brackets are robust, and you can fit them horizontally or vertically according to preference. There are no compatibility issues with RAM, or the GPU on an mATX motherboard so it’s versatile, whilst the total height of 158mm means it’ll fit into a wide variety of cases.

Cooling performance is excellent as you’d expect and the fans are barely audible although they run at 1200 RPM, faster than the 140mm fan coolers in this test. This isn’t intrusive despite 120mm fans thanks to the exceptional fan quality. Temperatures are on a par with the larger coolers, sitting at 60C. Noctua suggests using one of the fans to replace the case exhaust, and in most configurations, we’d second that as a great low noise alternative to a supplied case fan. Moving from push-pull to a single fan barely affects temperatures at all. 

Any criticism of the U12S is either personal preference or splitting hairs: The instructions could clear up the bushing confusion with a single mention of the correct colour. The colour of the fans is entirely down to preference, but they are somewhat love or hate, and hard to integrate into a more showy build. There are chromax adaptors to cover the heat fin stack, but they’re extra. It also feels a little expensive, largely down to the quality of fans included which are unrivalled.

Ultimately, this cooler is all about performance, and it nails that. If you need a top tier solution with reliability and engineering a priority, and don’t mind the looks, then this is the cooler for you.

2. Be Quiet! Dark Rock 4

The Bequiet! Dark Rock 4 is a six heat-pipe heatsink with a single 135mm fan. This cooler is supplied with a bar-style retainer and high-quality bracketry, as well as a really high-quality long reach screwdriver that you can use for the rest of the PC build. Assembling the metal backplate and pins for intel applications is fiddly but other than that fitting is straight forwards. The fan does interfere with the first RAM slot for all but the lowest profile RAM, so if you’re planning four sticks you might want to look elsewhere, or else ensure the case has clearance for the fan to be mounted higher. This configuration negatively impacts the clean looks of this cooler.

The Dark Rock 4 is another largely silent cooler with good thermal performance. In our testing fan speed is amongst the lowest at just 800RPM, whilst it allows temperatures to sit a little higher at 70C. Adjusting fan speed allows you to strike the balance that’s right for you. It’s well suited to higher performance AMD CPUs, and it’ll handle Intel’s latest i5 CPUs, and the i7 non-K CPUs too. If you’ll looking at cooling an i9, the 10850K or 11900K for example, we’d recommend something with more cooling power as those CPUs can overwhelm even this cooler. For everything else, it’s recommended as a compatible, well made and good looking cooler with great reliability and performance.

3. Noctua NH-D15S Chromax.black

Straddling the gap from single fan to dual fan coolers, the Noctua NH-D15S is a split heatsink cooler with six heat pipes. It’s supplied with a single 140mm fan. The cold plate is offset to provide more versatile compatibility with GPUs. It fits on an mATX motherboard, unlike the larger NH-D15. There’s also a notch in the radiator fins to allow for higher RAM, although we’d advise checking RAM height for clearance (it should be less than 62mm) before purchase. 

As you’d expect given Noctua’s attention to detail, the bracketry is blacked out on this Chromax version, to match the cooler. Fitting is easy enough though we’d recommend working out whether you’re better off fitting the cooler when the motherboard is inside the case, or outside – this really depends on the access into your case around the cooler once fitted and it’s even more of an issue on the larger dual fan version. 

Under test, the NH-D15S produces excellent thermals sitting at about 62C CPU temperature, and as you’d expect, virtually zero fan noise with the 140mm fan at about 850 rpm under load. The NH-D15S an excellent cooler, and usefully addresses some of the compatibility issues of its bigger brother making it a great all-rounder performance cooler for a high-end CPU. 

4. Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4

The Dark Rock Pro 4 sits at the top of Be Quiet’s product lineup. It uses a split fin stack with a 135mm fan in the centre and a 120mm fan at the front face to drive air right through in a push-pull configuration. The smaller improves compatibility with RAM but you are going to want to carefully check RAM height before ordering this cooler, it does overhang slots and will obscure RGB RAM. It will not interfere with GPU’s on ATX or MATX motherboards. 

The fitting equipment for the Dark Rock Pro 4 is high quality, and the fitting procedure is well explained but tricky. The included screwdriver is absolutely necessary to reach the screw positions through the facing plate. Securing the fan retention clips can be tricky if the case doesn’t allow good access, whilst if you choose to fit the cooler prior to fitting the motherboard, you can run into problems screwing down the upper motherboard screw or fitting power and fan plugs. Plan your build process carefully around this cooler. 

Once assembled the cooler gives one of the cleanest and most impressive appearances of any air cooler, and thermal and noise performance is top-notch. This cooler will handle anything short of overclocking the most demanding consumer CPUs, for which you’ll want a water cooler with a large radiator, or a custom loop anyway. Thermal performance matches all but the Noctua NHD15 in our test, whilst fan speeds remain low at 850RPM. It takes our recommendation due to the combination of performance, compatibility and low noise.

5. Noctua NH-D15

The largest air cooler in this test is the Noctua NHD-15. This is a split heat stack cooler but despite only one letter difference in the name from the NH-D15S, there are some considerable physical differences. The cold plate is not offset, meaning this cooler is only compatible with ATX motherboards – it obscures the top slot in an mATX motherboard making it impossible to fit a GPU. It’s supplied with 2 fans of equal 140mm size, so the front fan will interfere with RAM unless mounted higher, or at the rear of the cooler not the front. Fitting is straight forwards but careful planning needs to go into order of operations: You’ll need to fit RAM before the cooler itself, and ensure that you plug in motherboard plugs before fitting the cooler. Access to do up the fan clips can be hard too. You’ll need a large case and some serious planning to fit this cooler into your build. 

Once fitted, this cooler excels in performance testing: It’s silent and powerful. It kept temperatures the lowest of any cooler on the test, at 58C, with fan speeds matching the other high-performance coolers at 850rpm.

The downsides are really the cost, and the compatibility ‘cascade’ you need to consider to incorporate this cooler into your PC. The motherboard type, case size and ram selection all hinge on this Cooler. If you were planning a full-scale ATX build anyway that’s not a compromise, but it does preclude more tightly packaged builds. The looks are down to personal taste, but if you prefer a less distinctive colour scheme there’s also a ‘Chromax’ black version for $10 more. Noctua also supplies Chromax colour panels to adjust the scheme to match other aesthetics – though these do add considerably to the cost. 

This is undoubtedly the best performing tower cooler in this test, but you will need to plan your build carefully to incorporate it. It’s the go-to solution where reliability and performance trump other considerations, with redundancy provided by the dual fans. The other coolers, like the NHD15S or the Dark Rock Pro 4 come very close to the performance but are much more user friendly to integrate into a build and offer better value too.

Performance Testing

To test these coolers we mounted them to a test system comprising of an Intel i5-11500. This CPU consumes 110W at full load with power limits, giving sufficient heat output to examine the performance of these coolers. It’s equivalent to a Ryzen 9 5900X.

We can see that the Dark Rock 4 differs most from the other high-end tower coolers on test; It has the lowest fan speed at 750RPM and allows the CPU to reach the highest temperatures, but still delivers a very reasonable 70C overall temperature.

The Noctua NH-U12A is the only fan in the test with just 120mm fans, and the higher fan speed of 1200 rpm is the result of this. The cooling performance is still exceptional though and the very high-quality fans stay effectively silent.

The Noctua NH-D15, NH-D15S and the Bequiet Dark Rock Pro 4 are hard to distinguish – all deliver temperatures around 60°C and fan speeds at about 800RPM. All have ample headroom to tune temperatures or fan noise to your preference even with demanding CPUs. 

Conclusion: Take your pick on looks, value or compatibility.

Each of these high-end air coolers has much to recommend. The right choice for your build really relies on your preferences. The Noctua NH-D15S is impressive in performance and noise and is much more forgiving of RAM and Motherboard form factor than its larger sibling. Personally, we prefer the Dark Rock Pro 4’s combination of looks and thoughtful design, meaning it requires fewer compromises overall and looks fantastic in most systems without spending more on aesthetic accessories. 

Meanwhile, the Noctua NH-U12A and Dark Rock 4 absolutely have a place in build with slightly less demanding CPUs or more size constraints, you don’t sacrifice anything in noise or performance in opting for one of these CPU coolers. 

Lastly, the Noctua NH-D15 will find its home in a full-scale ATX build where high-performance CPUs need to work at optimal temperatures with minimal noise. If you’re using a large case anyway, this cooler brings AIO levels of performance without the complexity of adding an all in one water loop to your PC: It’s a great choice if you value low noise above all else.

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