For everybody's attention: the reason why he got such bad temps on the NH-D15 and Assassin VI is because he didn't remove socket lever protector on the arm of the ILM after installing the CPU. On the Asus manual, it says: "Ensure to remove the CPU Socket lever protector on the lever latch before locking the lever latch under the retention tab. Failure to do so may cause damages to your system when instaling the cooling system." It probably affects all the bigger coolers with the heat-pipes coming from the sides such as the NH-D15 and Assassin IV. It's that brown looking plastic tube on the socket arm.
I was wondering why the D15 wasn't higher! He's literally compromised the entier testing process. How are we supposed to know which of the results to trust? I'm kind of bothered that Tech Notice has chosen to ignore/not respond to this comment but has since "hearted" other comments that give praise on how wonderful the channel is. That's a HUGE red flag right there. This compounds on the whole "Oops, I forgot to take off the plastic protector off the heatsink AND I didn't apply any thermal paste!" What the hell was he thinking? It's the same procedure for *every single heatsink!* How legit is are these tests if he's messing up so many things? What other errors did he miss? I just removed my subscription from the channel. I need to be able to trust the data I'm getting. Good looking out for us, @spankjamer.
also why is ther eonly one AIO as the benchmark? 1% difference to the noctua 12 fan isnt that big a difference, how many AIO on the market is it smashing as an air cooler? also why only the benchmarks numbers? what are the actual temps?
I applaud the effort, but really, popping one of the coolers you had present in the previous test, preferably one of the better ones, would've greatly helped to reduce uncertainty and give a much more comparable baseline for these. Control run, so to speak.
Once again I just want to say thank you and applaud you for this testing and generating this data. The amount of time and effort that went into a video like this is more than I could handle. Appreciate ya!
@@theTechNoticethanks for the videos I love my noctua nh-u12achromax black im using 12600k right now im thinking using on am5 when amd 8000 series come out
Oh, wow, I know how much time it must have taken you to test all these products! I assembled my AIO cooler just once, and it was extremely exhausting, so I can't imagine dealing with 22 coolers! I don't understand how someone could watch this effort and not hit the like button!
The Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE should have better performance than the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120. At least all side by side comparisons stated that. Maybe testing them the same day makes a big difference.
@@LoKuSKus77 It's a cooler testing video, without decibel reading. That's not enough of information at all. Some coolers get really good performance at banshee level of fan noise. It's not a server machine running in a server room, ignoring noise is complete non-sense.
You should have retested like two of the former coolers in order to verify your older results. Like the Pure Rock 2 and a top-performer. It really looks like this batch was ranked lower in total. I do quite a lot of testing with coolers as well and found that problem myself, which made me decide (although annoying) to test completely new exery time and not to reuse older results. In my test the Assassin IV was performing about the same as the AK620* (but with the Assassin being slightly louder) but beat the AK620 with the optional third fan. The Enermax ETS-F40-FS (although I tested the non-RGB version) is a great cooler for CPUs up to the middle class, where it is sufficient and it's just extremely quiet and beats the be quiet! Pure Rock. *in my Assassin IV / AK620 comparison the Assassin performed better with low fans speeds, about the same in the mid-range and the AK620 slightly won at full speed. With the third fan on the Assassin IV it was performing better in any situation.
Thank you for the previous test video, I'm a fan of Noctua U12A but I'm worried because the i7 13th is too hot. After that video I decided to buy it for i7 13th, and I am completely satisfied. Now, the quality of the videos you make is still excellent.
It will set you at 100º when cutting, I had to lower the PL2 so that it did not go above 90-92º, I have only lost 3000 points in the Cinebench with the 13700 to obtain better temperatures.
Thanks for your reply. I just purchased a smoke generator from AMAZON. My PC case airflow, in color, was awesome. It cost me less than a hundred dollars, including two quarts of smoke fluid.@@KinGaming401
Doesn’t change anything. It’s just more work. Some cases are more restrictive some are less restrictive, it would only change the result in an artificial manner. There is a reason almost ever video featuring a test bench it’s not made in a pc case
@@kritnicol8546for aio vs air cooler it makes a big difference, air coolers get the air from inside the case, while aios get it from outside, so in a case an aio would probably perform better ay least for the cpu itself, however it would also most likely have worse air circulation on the motherboard and in the case in general.
Thanks for making this video! Been looking for a varied testing like this. Since hearing about the Peerless Assassin line came out I feel like we need further testing against both Noctua and AIOs.
26:43 very very well put! Using a 7700x for similar test, produces a very different list. (Source: other tests done in approximately the same time as yours) thanks for all your time!
Great test! But it is not clear how AK620, which is lighter, smaller, with fans smaller diameter better than Assassin IV? What about the noise level? Maybe the AK620 was very louder?
How is it possible that the Assassin IV & Dark Rock Pro 4 scores less that a AK400 which is a 4 heat pipe budget cooler? Something doesn't add up here.
Because it was cooler, used a different batch of thermal paste and they tested months apart. Also last time it became obvious that coolers with heatpipe direction across the CPU like a dual tower cooler was worse than longways like a single tower cooler
Holy cow, I ALWAYS wanted to try the DRP 4 with some better fans. You've done it, GOOD! Ty Just a suggestion for the future, try removing the power limit and instead of comparing the scores compare average power draw at the end of the test. Also, try Liquid metal at some point, it will allow you to hit 330+ watts with air coolers.
Awesome test! I myself am running the 13700K with a Contact Frame and the Peerless Assassin 120 SE, both from Thermalright, and after a slight bit of undervolting (-150mV) the CPU hovers around 90C with no thermal throttling. I'm seriously impressed with the PA120SE and have been recommending it non-stop since then. If you at one time decide to do a part 3, can you include the Dark Rock 4 non Pro version as well? A friend of mine decided to pair his 13700K with this cooler, ignoring my advice to go with something better. I think in his mind a "cheap chinese cooler" couldn't ever outperform beautiful black german engineering, but seeing the Pro version get wrecked so thoroughly here and in a test from Hardware Canucks from a few months back, I can't imagine the smaller sibling being any better. It seems to be quite the popular choice even for hotter CPUs.
Your friend really made a big mistake. Is it too late for him to send it back? The entire Dark rock series is irrelevant in 2023 and even the Noctua NH D15 is barely clinging on to its spot among the top 5 coolers. At least tell me you managed to convince him to get a contact frame that will help that weak Dark Rock do its job.
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior Nope. He doesn't listen and he doesn't care.. what a shame. He made some other questionable choices, like buying a Z-board. He does not want to overclock and even if he did he wouldn't have the cooling capacity to do so. He could have upgraded his GPU for the money he spent on that cooler and the board.
@@j_shelby_damnwird Nothing wrong with it, they're great. He would have been better off using the extra money he spent on board and cooler to get a better GPU for example. As I said, he doesn't overclock, undervolt or even use XMP, a Z-Board is just wasted money because any good B-Board will do everything he does just as good while being much cheaper. I could understand if he simply wanted a "better" board for the sake of buying a quality product, but he doesn't even know the difference.
@@trashbytes Oh I made the right choice then 😅 First build here, been doing lot of research these last months, indeed these chips need some serious tuning for good performance.
Any chance we could get an update with the new dark rock pro 5/ dark rock elite? 🙏 I would also like to see someone test it with am5 with and without the thermal grizzly offset bracket. I understand these tests take a long time but I feel like it’d be something worth exploring. Thank you for all your hard work! Love this type of content.
There is still something I'm confused about. On most reviews and guides it is stated that the NH-D15 performs better than the NH-U12a, yet in your charts there is a vast lead for the NH-U12a. It may have been mentioned in a previous video, but I am really curious to hear how come that is.
So, looking to their prices, the DeepCool AK620 Zero Dark and the Thermalright Peerless Assasin 120 are the very good ones if not the best. Noctuas are usually very good and recommended almost everywhere, but they are far more expensive.
The figures are to weird. He should have retested at least one of the top performers to make sure the numbers are comparable. There are way to many unknown parameters.
You didn't test the best one - Thermalright Frost Spirit 140. It may looks like it will perform worse than Frost Commander because has one pipe less but it is better.
I'm surprised to hear you say Thermalright is not "most well-known in the industry." It is an old established brand and was one of the best known CPU cooler manufacturers.
Congrats for your perfect video!!! Really hard job! I could said that you could check one or two coolers from previous test to be sure that results are valid between the two tests. I have a question because I am worrying about to mount heavy coolers on the motherboard. Do you ever heard a damage on the motherboard due to the extra weight of air cooler (some of them are near to 1 kg and it obvious that acting extra torsion on the PCB)? What do you think? It is a matter for someone to worry?
Hardware Canuks has a good video on air coolers. Where older CPUs tended tended to spread the heat all over the CPU, newer ones concentrate the heat. It is not so much how many heat pipes you have, it is where they are. Some coolers need to be redesigned for this new heat distribution. That may be what happened to the DH-15. I prefer air coolers, The simpler the better. The less to go wrong the less that can go wrong. I live in Vegas, where summer temperatures in my apartment regularly reach over 29c. I use a fan and the ac so it is not bad to me. To my CPU it is still 29c though. This is a problem for new high heat CPUs.
The connection should have all copper not the line copper. The heat sinking if wanted to use Aluminium alloy that being used should have way better thermal conductivity. Add also all airflow must hitnon one direction at the exhaust. The faster the better. Or better why not use either brass heatsink.if using any aluminium the alloy should be improved.
Last night I was testing my Lian Li Galahad 360 with the 13900K to see the top wattage I could go through a Cinebench run with, without hitting the TJ Max 100C. I settled on 280, with a Max temp of 98C, and a score of 38797. Today I came across your video, and found it awesome that you decided on 285 Watts. I started out this build with the Noctua NH-D15, and it handled all gaming without thermal throttling, but only managed a 35285 in Cinebench as it hit 100C in 5 seconds.
I installed the thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 and didn't get your results, I got better. My CPU was reaching 90C with stock cooler before I upgraded now my max temp is 64C (147.2F). You need to test it inside a closed case with fans on to really get a result as your room is just gonna get hotter and hotter. I bought it seen that it was better then the peerless assassin 120.
Thank you for the live illustration. I can understand it's a lot of work, but greatly appreciated your efforts. At least is not just graphs and talk about it. How true are graphs.. I never believe in graphs reviews. keep it up the good work.
Idk the Tests i have seen the phantom spirit performed better and quiter than the peerless assassin. You tested without contact frame? Perhaps here is the mistake
Thank you for doing this testing. Curious, did the Teamgroup T-Force Siren 360 outperform the Lian-Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 on the 13900k? Have you done any AIO thermal testing with the Thermal Grizzly KryoSheets? They are graphene thermal pads. Although they are pricey, it is really easy to install with consistent contact.
Thanks for the video and emotions)) I’m choosing between Thermalright Frost Spirit and Thermalright Peerless Assassin. Which one will be more efficient and quieter for my I7-13700f?
I was impressed with Thermalright recently when I put an Assassin X 120 R SE on a R5 2600 recently that was drawing 115W. The CPU stayed at a little over 50C with a 25C ambient. And that's a $20 cooler.
I have a question if the ambient temp was the same during all testing? It would make a big difference if there were a 2-degree difference between the results. I think your process is better than just a max temp as it shows real world results, but with it being such a small difference in the final results that temp change will skew your results. Also, what were your fan curve/settings. Were they all at max? What were the RPMs? Maybe try them all with the same fan or fans on the to get the true heat pipe and fin design instead of the fans being different speed and pressure.
Excellent comparison. Gamers Nexus seems to emphasize the acoustics, unbelievable number of charts measuring db.. Don’t know why, glad you show us the real-world numbers with respect to actual performance in relation to thermals.
Can you review the teamgroup t-create ram please? It is aimed at creators but I cant find much information about what makes it different than other ram out there. Great videos btw
Sorry but you dropped the ball on this test. If you were questioning the results and thought that it might have been the environment. What you should have done is retested the Noctua 12A to see if you got the same resuilts and if it dropped, by how much. This would have been useful to calibbrate the test to make sure it was fair.
What did we learn? Don't waste money trying to air cool a 13900K is the take away! I'm running the EK Nucleus AIO CR360 on mine and I've still had it throttle sporadically. Still in the process of tuning mine in, but this 13900K has proven to be one steep learning curve for me, that much I know for sure! Cheers 🍻
We learned a different thing :-) for me the 1,6% performance delta between AIO and best air coolers under sustained all-core maximum stress is good enough.
Also that 1.6% performance delta exists only because of synthetic benchmarks, realistic usage scenarios wont hit it that fast so it will find equilibrium before throttling for a second or two @@InnocentiusLacrimosa
@@keldon1137 true true. I was too vague in my message. I meant that the difference is so small and happens so rarely, that I use beefy air coolers myself.
Something doesn’t add up here. In all other reviews I’ve watched the Noctua u12a was one of the poor performers. So how is it on top here. Also the Thermalright coolers are supposed to be the best performers.
On the I think you should try on the air cooler with the double fins use two fans on the outside set to pull air through it and leave the space between the fins open to let air in and retest it. Because I think you are pushing hot air off one and onto the other side.
I purchased a 13700k with an Asus z790 Hero motherboard in mid 2023. I first matched it with a Deepcool AK620 under stock configuration, but found it having a hard time cooling it. I even custom curved my fan settings and it still runs hot. I went with a 360 AIO and it solved my hot CPU issue. Until Intel starts lowering its wattage on CPU trend, AIO is the new default for high end Intel CPUs.
For me, none of the previous results should be found accurate or at least comparable to this new batch of coolers. You should have brought 2 or 3 of the previous coolers to repeat the tests, so you/we could see how they perform under the same conditions.
very informative video but one very crucial bit of information missing that would help so many builders. the max heights of these coolers once installed from the base of the PC where the motherboard is sat to the other side. my atx tower is about 16.5cm and i am really struggling to work out what cooler would fit on an msi board in my tower. I need to keep the tower rather than new because of the 4 bays i use. could be an idea for a new video with measurements. please ... many thanks
Excellent video answers my questions, thank you! Has anyone compared the AIO vs the Air coolers using the identical T30 fans for each and every cooler? Would be a good way to compare the coolers against each other in a more direct way since most builders replace fans anyway.
Can you please tell me your thoughts for the Be Quiet Dark Rock Elite 280w air cooler? I am thinking about buying it to pair with my i7 14700K, will it be good or mediocre for 115 Euros. Thank you!
For gaming i would use air because i always have a noise canceling headset on and fans maxed anyway and air drops temps fast between loads. for editing and graphic arts i would use water/aio for the sound comfort
Air Cooler all day for me. Had custom loops, Just a pain in the butt when changing components or cleaning the loop. AIO , I had 2 pumps fail on me. Mow just rocking air cooler and not be obseseing about how cool or how much more FPS im getting.
Great work! One thing I wish was next to the cine scores would be temps and dB. Which also plays a big role in choice of cooler for many. Besides that, very interesting results!
These massive air coolers look horrible, even if I would keep my PC under the desk with no glass I would still do an AIO. If you do regular maintenance and check it from time to time you should be golden.
I have a 13700k and I don't think the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE (dual fan) can be beat for value at under $40. IF you have a 12th/13th gen Intel cpu then a $10 Thermalright "anti-cpu bending" heat plate is a must, it saves your cpu from bending in the slot and lowers temps by around 7 degrees. Don't build an Intel pc without it.
I just Pause the Video in the beginning just for "THANK YOU" for your kind and professional work... You are one of the a few Content creators who is really dedicated to his work and Helps people. Thank you for everything you do 😊
From other testing, I also saw that the Assassin III performs better than the Assassin IV. That's quite a regression for Deepcool there, especially due to the price increase the newer model comes with.
I feel like air coolers are like the winter; sure it's cold out at 20* but is it really much colder at 12* with no wind? With air coolers, to me at least, is either you spend noctua money or you take you pick of the cheapest name brand you could get. I have an ak620 zero dark on an r9 7900x and it does just fine. Also, I've undervolted the ryzen, but for its use case, the cooler performs well enough with some tweaked PBO settings.
Ok, so I got the secret to making an air cooler work more efficiently than an AIO to cool any of the newest demanding CPU. The secret it... are you ready? INSTALL MORE FANS ON THE FIN TOWER. Y'all know how the corners of the 120mm fans got screw holes? Well, did y'all know you can sandwich 120mm fans together by simply screwing them together through those screw holes? Now you got it!! That's right! More fans equal more air exchange power. Any fin tower will work just fine. Just install more fans. You can daisy chain the power connector, so they all run from one connector. I'm using the Cooler Master fin tower. I got 3 fans sandwiched together at the front of the fin tower and 4 fans sandwiched together at the back of the fin tower. My non-overclock temperature on an i9 is always a steady 24c and overclock never gets up to 70c. I even tested it open case and closed case, still the same either way at 24c because I got a total of 7 fans attached to the fin tower.
Not a fan of those square block designs... I need to see the silver heatsinks with a fans on them. The OG Deepcool Assassin III perfection or PA 120 or D15.
I appreciate the effort and trying lots of coolers, since comparisons of many coolers in one review are rare, and comparison tests on the latest gen CPUs are still surprisingly quite rare... Still, I have to doubt the results with the Assassin X 120 and several single-tower coolers beating some very strong dual-tower coolers per most other reviewers. It seems physically implausible to me a compact cooler with one fan is actually better than huge one with two fans, from the same brand even (Phantom Spirit being much *worse* than the Assassin X 120, for example??). You may have to lock down some of the boost settings and/or voltages, fix the fan curve to a static speed, something to keep the results more consistent. Or there may be something odd about how the MoBo is governing boost or throttling behaviors. If these results are truly representative of stock performance out of the box, then the whole market is topsy-turvey and buyers should just throw a dart at the wall and buy what it lands on! Or barring that, just buy a $20 single-tower cooler from an okay brand and be done with it! Rather bizarre. I think this is the kind of stuff where you need to take a step back and do some more debugging and troubleshooting, some more research into providing an explanation of how/why this differs from other reviewers' results, because publishing this with such anomalous results and no explanation risks telling people some buying guidance that turns out to be wrong, or else it means all other reviewers are wrong and need to adjust (but again, a small single-tower cooler vs huge dual-tower coolers? Something seems wrong *here* on this test, in my view.) Sorry to say, as once again I really do appreciate the effort and I like the content. Just wish I could understand where the totally unexpected results are coming from.
This result with some single tower coolers performing really well is nothing new in the cooler reviews. Sometimes the important thing is how the heatpipes are aligned with the hotspots on the cpu tile under the integrated heatspreader. That is why sometimes the same coolers can perform very differently between single CCD to dual CCD CPUs on AMD side also. NH-U12A for example has the same 7 heatpipes than many others have despite having just single tower - heck NH-D15 has just 6 heatpipes despite being massive dual tower cooler. If the heatpipes are well placed and efficiently transfer heat to the single tower and the fans manage to cool the tower efficiently then the single tower can be good enough to not limit the heatpipes' maximum performance.
I'm thinking that by testing with a higher TDP that what the coolers are rated for, you can get bad and inconsistent esults that don't really tell about the performance when under specs...
All of these tests should be done again after you have replaced the factory contact frame on the motherboard with a Thermalright LGA1700 contact frame. Additionally, minimal thermal paste should be used. Cooling a CPU properly requires finesse.
Hey man, could you try this with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D? I'd like to know how to run one with an air cooler if possible, and what kind of performance I should be expecting to see.
That is a gaming chip. These tested workloads are much larger than you would face in any gaming scenario. Additionally it is easier to cool than the tested 285W. Just pick any of the tested coolers here and you are good to go.
For everybody's attention: the reason why he got such bad temps on the NH-D15 and Assassin VI is because he didn't remove socket lever protector on the arm of the ILM after installing the CPU.
On the Asus manual, it says:
"Ensure to remove the CPU Socket lever protector on the
lever latch before locking the
lever latch under the retention
tab. Failure to do so may cause
damages to your system when
instaling the cooling system."
It probably affects all the bigger coolers with the heat-pipes coming from the sides such as the NH-D15 and Assassin IV.
It's that brown looking plastic tube on the socket arm.
Can anyone else verify this?
if you look closely on the 1st "test" it's on the lever@@IWillYeah
I was wondering why the D15 wasn't higher!
He's literally compromised the entier testing process. How are we supposed to know which of the results to trust?
I'm kind of bothered that Tech Notice has chosen to ignore/not respond to this comment but has since "hearted" other comments that give praise on how wonderful the channel is.
That's a HUGE red flag right there.
This compounds on the whole "Oops, I forgot to take off the plastic protector off the heatsink AND I didn't apply any thermal paste!"
What the hell was he thinking? It's the same procedure for *every single heatsink!*
How legit is are these tests if he's messing up so many things? What other errors did he miss?
I just removed my subscription from the channel. I need to be able to trust the data I'm getting.
Good looking out for us, @spankjamer.
also why is ther eonly one AIO as the benchmark? 1% difference to the noctua 12 fan isnt that big a difference, how many AIO on the market is it smashing as an air cooler? also why only the benchmarks numbers? what are the actual temps?
I also noticed the thingy on the lever and asked myself if it's supposed to be there! Now I understand!
I applaud the effort, but really, popping one of the coolers you had present in the previous test, preferably one of the better ones, would've greatly helped to reduce uncertainty and give a much more comparable baseline for these. Control run, so to speak.
A control run with the AIO would have been great
I would like to see a AIO comparison test on the 13900k or even a 13700k. :)
Again, Great video like always :)
Once again I just want to say thank you and applaud you for this testing and generating this data. The amount of time and effort that went into a video like this is more than I could handle. Appreciate ya!
Thank you very much!
@@theTechNoticethanks for the videos I love my noctua nh-u12achromax black im using 12600k right now im thinking using on am5 when amd 8000 series come out
Oh, wow, I know how much time it must have taken you to test all these products! I assembled my AIO cooler just once, and it was extremely exhausting, so I can't imagine dealing with 22 coolers! I don't understand how someone could watch this effort and not hit the like button!
Exactly!
The Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE should have better performance than the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120. At least all side by side comparisons stated that. Maybe testing them the same day makes a big difference.
Test procedure diff. I disliked this video because of that.
@@maozedowner5915 he should test 22 at same time, same bios, drivers, win11 patch level, etc. new test doing less points, its weird.
@@LoKuSKus77 It's a cooler testing video, without decibel reading. That's not enough of information at all. Some coolers get really good performance at banshee level of fan noise. It's not a server machine running in a server room, ignoring noise is complete non-sense.
You should have retested like two of the former coolers in order to verify your older results. Like the Pure Rock 2 and a top-performer. It really looks like this batch was ranked lower in total. I do quite a lot of testing with coolers as well and found that problem myself, which made me decide (although annoying) to test completely new exery time and not to reuse older results. In my test the Assassin IV was performing about the same as the AK620* (but with the Assassin being slightly louder) but beat the AK620 with the optional third fan. The Enermax ETS-F40-FS (although I tested the non-RGB version) is a great cooler for CPUs up to the middle class, where it is sufficient and it's just extremely quiet and beats the be quiet! Pure Rock.
*in my Assassin IV / AK620 comparison the Assassin performed better with low fans speeds, about the same in the mid-range and the AK620 slightly won at full speed. With the third fan on the Assassin IV it was performing better in any situation.
I agree.
Thank you for the previous test video, I'm a fan of Noctua U12A but I'm worried because the i7 13th is too hot. After that video I decided to buy it for i7 13th, and I am completely satisfied. Now, the quality of the videos you make is still excellent.
i7 13700K with 80-100mv offset really helps out temps. I have mine at locked 1.20V and runs very cool.
It will set you at 100º when cutting, I had to lower the PL2 so that it did not go above 90-92º, I have only lost 3000 points in the Cinebench with the 13700 to obtain better temperatures.
I suggest testing the air coolers in a real-world environment by placing each cooler in a PC case before running the test.
For real
Thanks for your reply. I just purchased a smoke generator from AMAZON. My PC case airflow, in color, was awesome. It cost me less than a hundred dollars, including two quarts of smoke fluid.@@KinGaming401
Doesn’t change anything. It’s just more work. Some cases are more restrictive some are less restrictive, it would only change the result in an artificial manner. There is a reason almost ever video featuring a test bench it’s not made in a pc case
@@kritnicol8546for aio vs air cooler it makes a big difference, air coolers get the air from inside the case, while aios get it from outside, so in a case an aio would probably perform better ay least for the cpu itself, however it would also most likely have worse air circulation on the motherboard and in the case in general.
@@grebapwhat do you mean AIOs get air from outside the case? Are you saying that the fans would be placed as intakes on an AIO when in a case?
Pc enthusiasts for years on end love your work. Everything is so polished.
Thanks for making this video! Been looking for a varied testing like this. Since hearing about the Peerless Assassin line came out I feel like we need further testing against both Noctua and AIOs.
26:43 very very well put! Using a 7700x for similar test, produces a very different list. (Source: other tests done in approximately the same time as yours) thanks for all your time!
Great test! But it is not clear how AK620, which is lighter, smaller, with fans smaller diameter better than Assassin IV?
What about the noise level? Maybe the AK620 was very louder?
AK620 is deadly quiet.
@@daryllsmith5592 I know, but not understand how he better than Ass IV... :)
Glad you are doing more cooler comparison testing
Do you think changing the retention mechanism would change the results?
YES!
As ever, your presentations are exceptionally excellent and informative!!
I have the thermeright spirit 120SE with noctua fans NF-A12 damn it can handle my 13700k to 287watt
How is it possible that the Assassin IV & Dark Rock Pro 4 scores less that a AK400 which is a 4 heat pipe budget cooler? Something doesn't add up here.
Because it was cooler, used a different batch of thermal paste and they tested months apart. Also last time it became obvious that coolers with heatpipe direction across the CPU like a dual tower cooler was worse than longways like a single tower cooler
Holy cow, I ALWAYS wanted to try the DRP 4 with some better fans. You've done it, GOOD! Ty
Just a suggestion for the future, try removing the power limit and instead of comparing the scores compare average power draw at the end of the test. Also, try Liquid metal at some point, it will allow you to hit 330+ watts with air coolers.
Awesome test!
I myself am running the 13700K with a Contact Frame and the Peerless Assassin 120 SE, both from Thermalright, and after a slight bit of undervolting (-150mV) the CPU hovers around 90C with no thermal throttling. I'm seriously impressed with the PA120SE and have been recommending it non-stop since then.
If you at one time decide to do a part 3, can you include the Dark Rock 4 non Pro version as well? A friend of mine decided to pair his 13700K with this cooler, ignoring my advice to go with something better. I think in his mind a "cheap chinese cooler" couldn't ever outperform beautiful black german engineering, but seeing the Pro version get wrecked so thoroughly here and in a test from Hardware Canucks from a few months back, I can't imagine the smaller sibling being any better. It seems to be quite the popular choice even for hotter CPUs.
Your friend really made a big mistake. Is it too late for him to send it back? The entire Dark rock series is irrelevant in 2023 and even the Noctua NH D15 is barely clinging on to its spot among the top 5 coolers.
At least tell me you managed to convince him to get a contact frame that will help that weak Dark Rock do its job.
@@angrysocialjusticewarrior Nope. He doesn't listen and he doesn't care.. what a shame.
He made some other questionable choices, like buying a Z-board. He does not want to overclock and even if he did he wouldn't have the cooling capacity to do so. He could have upgraded his GPU for the money he spent on that cooler and the board.
What's wrong with Z boards?
@@j_shelby_damnwird Nothing wrong with it, they're great. He would have been better off using the extra money he spent on board and cooler to get a better GPU for example. As I said, he doesn't overclock, undervolt or even use XMP, a Z-Board is just wasted money because any good B-Board will do everything he does just as good while being much cheaper.
I could understand if he simply wanted a "better" board for the sake of buying a quality product, but he doesn't even know the difference.
@@trashbytes Oh I made the right choice then 😅 First build here, been doing lot of research these last months, indeed these chips need some serious tuning for good performance.
Any chance we could get an update with the new dark rock pro 5/ dark rock elite? 🙏 I would also like to see someone test it with am5 with and without the thermal grizzly offset bracket. I understand these tests take a long time but I feel like it’d be something worth exploring. Thank you for all your hard work! Love this type of content.
Literally one of the best tech CZcams channel's Ive seen. Truly deserves more subs.
There is still something I'm confused about. On most reviews and guides it is stated that the NH-D15 performs better than the NH-U12a, yet in your charts there is a vast lead for the NH-U12a. It may have been mentioned in a previous video, but I am really curious to hear how come that is.
With the new shape IHS' the NH-u12a performs better, even Noctua has confirmed that.
@@theTechNotice I appreciate the quick response! thank you. Makes sense that the IHS would be a difference maker. Interesting
@@theTechNoticewould you mind telling me where they stated this? Noctua?
So, looking to their prices, the DeepCool AK620 Zero Dark and the Thermalright Peerless Assasin 120 are the very good ones if not the best.
Noctuas are usually very good and recommended almost everywhere, but they are far more expensive.
The figures are to weird. He should have retested at least one of the top performers to make sure the numbers are comparable. There are way to many unknown parameters.
You didn't test the best one - Thermalright Frost Spirit 140. It may looks like it will perform worse than Frost Commander because has one pipe less but it is better.
I'm surprised to hear you say Thermalright is not "most well-known in the industry." It is an old established brand and was one of the best known CPU cooler manufacturers.
i got better by truth reveals
Congrats for your perfect video!!! Really hard job! I could said that you could check one or two coolers from previous test to be sure that results are valid between the two tests. I have a question because I am worrying about to mount heavy coolers on the motherboard. Do you ever heard a damage on the motherboard due to the extra weight of air cooler (some of them are near to 1 kg and it obvious that acting extra torsion on the PCB)? What do you think? It is a matter for someone to worry?
not perfect. no plate, kept sleeve on a socket arm (see 1st point). no forced air introduced for the fans (like case fans would do).
Hardware Canuks has a good video on air coolers. Where older CPUs tended tended to spread the heat all over the CPU, newer ones concentrate the heat. It is not so much how many heat pipes you have, it is where they are. Some coolers need to be redesigned for this new heat distribution. That may be what happened to the DH-15. I prefer air coolers, The simpler the better. The less to go wrong the less that can go wrong. I live in Vegas, where summer temperatures in my apartment regularly reach over 29c. I use a fan and the ac so it is not bad to me. To my CPU it is still 29c though. This is a problem for new high heat CPUs.
The connection should have all copper not the line copper. The heat sinking if wanted to use Aluminium alloy that being used should have way better thermal conductivity. Add also all airflow must hitnon one direction at the exhaust. The faster the better. Or better why not use either brass heatsink.if using any aluminium the alloy should be improved.
Nice job on this video, because I imagine that this took quite a bit of time to install, test and then compile the results.
Last night I was testing my Lian Li Galahad 360 with the 13900K to see the top wattage I could go through a Cinebench run with, without hitting the TJ Max 100C. I settled on 280, with a Max temp of 98C, and a score of 38797. Today I came across your video, and found it awesome that you decided on 285 Watts. I started out this build with the Noctua NH-D15, and it handled all gaming without thermal throttling, but only managed a 35285 in Cinebench as it hit 100C in 5 seconds.
It also does it to me with a U12A and Intel 13700, it goes to 100º in a couple of seconds, I had to lower the PL2
I installed the thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 and didn't get your results, I got better. My CPU was reaching 90C with stock cooler before I upgraded now my max temp is 64C (147.2F). You need to test it inside a closed case with fans on to really get a result as your room is just gonna get hotter and hotter.
I bought it seen that it was better then the peerless assassin 120.
What cpu did you use If I may ask?
The phantom spirit/assassin are both amazing and cheap (depending on country) air coolers. No reason to get anything else.
@@UncleButterworth what cpu is in your setup?
@@IWillYeah 7900x in lab setting.
@@UncleButterworth dang it. Was hoping you'd say an 13900k, water cooling it sounds like. Thanks anyway.
Wish he did this for aios as thats what most of us use. And would be nice seeing the preformance of all the different aios
Fr there isn't much information on aio x vs aio y
You didn't mention Noctua even once despite their U12A won the test clearly? Odd. I guess Be Quiet sponsorships pay better.
Thank you for the live illustration. I can understand it's a lot of work, but greatly appreciated your efforts. At least is not just graphs and talk about it. How true are graphs.. I never believe in graphs reviews. keep it up the good work.
Idk the Tests i have seen the phantom spirit performed better and quiter than the peerless assassin. You tested without contact frame? Perhaps here is the mistake
Thanks a lot for the review
The best video EVER, that's what I've been looking for. You're the best bro. Keep it up the good work.
Thank you for doing this testing. Curious, did the Teamgroup T-Force Siren 360 outperform the Lian-Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 on the 13900k? Have you done any AIO thermal testing with the Thermal Grizzly KryoSheets? They are graphene thermal pads. Although they are pricey, it is really easy to install with consistent contact.
Great idea concerning the KryoSheets. How thermal paste is applied to the CPU can affect its performance. Your comment was right on.
Showing the temperature and sound level chart would be a better option.
I7 14900kf and assasin 4 failed in my setup 😆 throttle more then 30% in Aida stress tests. Gaming CS2 10% switch back to water 💦
i’m died, forgetting the thermal paste and leaving the sticker on hahaha
How does the U12A get the best score? Its one of the hottest in many other recent cooler reviews (mainly of 13900k).
Thanks for the video and emotions)) I’m choosing between Thermalright Frost Spirit and Thermalright Peerless Assassin. Which one will be more efficient and quieter for my I7-13700f?
I was impressed with Thermalright recently when I put an Assassin X 120 R SE on a R5 2600 recently that was drawing 115W. The CPU stayed at a little over 50C with a 25C ambient. And that's a $20 cooler.
I have a question if the ambient temp was the same during all testing? It would make a big difference if there were a 2-degree difference between the results. I think your process is better than just a max temp as it shows real world results, but with it being such a small difference in the final results that temp change will skew your results. Also, what were your fan curve/settings. Were they all at max? What were the RPMs? Maybe try them all with the same fan or fans on the to get the true heat pipe and fin design instead of the fans being different speed and pressure.
This was answered in the video
Excellent comparison. Gamers Nexus seems to emphasize the acoustics, unbelievable number of charts measuring db.. Don’t know why, glad you show us the real-world numbers with respect to actual performance in relation to thermals.
Can you review the teamgroup t-create ram please? It is aimed at creators but I cant find much information about what makes it different than other ram out there. Great videos btw
Sorry but you dropped the ball on this test. If you were questioning the results and thought that it might have been the environment. What you should have done is retested the Noctua 12A to see if you got the same resuilts and if it dropped, by how much. This would have been useful to calibbrate the test to make sure it was fair.
Beautiful video. Excellent work !!!
What did we learn? Don't waste money trying to air cool a 13900K is the take away! I'm running the EK Nucleus AIO CR360 on mine and I've still had it throttle sporadically. Still in the process of tuning mine in, but this 13900K has proven to be one steep learning curve for me, that much I know for sure! Cheers 🍻
We learned a different thing :-) for me the 1,6% performance delta between AIO and best air coolers under sustained all-core maximum stress is good enough.
Also that 1.6% performance delta exists only because of synthetic benchmarks, realistic usage scenarios wont hit it that fast so it will find equilibrium before throttling for a second or two @@InnocentiusLacrimosa
@@keldon1137 true true. I was too vague in my message. I meant that the difference is so small and happens so rarely, that I use beefy air coolers myself.
285 Watts? That really is crazy.
Something doesn’t add up here.
In all other reviews I’ve watched the Noctua u12a was one of the poor performers. So how is it on top here. Also the Thermalright coolers are supposed to be the best performers.
On the I think you should try on the air cooler with the double fins use two fans on the outside set to pull air through it and leave the space between the fins open to let air in and retest it. Because I think you are pushing hot air off one and onto the other side.
There is No Model Exists Named Deepcool A620 Zero Dark Plus. It's Only Zero Dark!! Please Rectify That.
Good analysis for easily understanding keep for onward
I purchased a 13700k with an Asus z790 Hero motherboard in mid 2023. I first matched it with a Deepcool AK620 under stock configuration, but found it having a hard time cooling it. I even custom curved my fan settings and it still runs hot.
I went with a 360 AIO and it solved my hot CPU issue. Until Intel starts lowering its wattage on CPU trend, AIO is the new default for high end Intel CPUs.
The Noctua Chromemax black is a beautiful and effective cooler……..as is the Thermalright FS 140 and Peerless Assassin.
I wonder how much a contact frame would help with the temps for these tests.
It'll definitely lower temps, even if it's just a few degrees, a little goes a long way.
I’m astonished that you didn’t use the Ice Giant. That thing works absurdly well.
you make excellent reviews, keep it up!
Im using Deepcool ak620 zero dark digital...its very good performace😊
For me, none of the previous results should be found accurate or at least comparable to this new batch of coolers. You should have brought 2 or 3 of the previous coolers to repeat the tests, so you/we could see how they perform under the same conditions.
very informative video but one very crucial bit of information missing that would help so many builders. the max heights of these coolers once installed from the base of the PC where the motherboard is sat to the other side. my atx tower is about 16.5cm and i am really struggling to work out what cooler would fit on an msi board in my tower. I need to keep the tower rather than new because of the 4 bays i use. could be an idea for a new video with measurements. please ... many thanks
So much efforts ❤😮❤
Excellent video answers my questions, thank you! Has anyone compared the AIO vs the Air coolers using the identical T30 fans for each and every cooler? Would be a good way to compare the coolers against each other in a more direct way since most builders replace fans anyway.
I wish you would’ve included dB levels as well.
Can you please tell me your thoughts for the Be Quiet Dark Rock Elite 280w air cooler? I am thinking about buying it to pair with my i7 14700K, will it be good or mediocre for 115 Euros.
Thank you!
For gaming i would use air because i always have a noise canceling headset on and fans maxed anyway and air drops temps fast between loads. for editing and graphic arts i would use water/aio for the sound comfort
waiting for your review on the new noctua nhd15-g2
Air Cooler all day for me. Had custom loops, Just a pain in the butt when changing components or cleaning the loop. AIO , I had 2 pumps fail on me. Mow just rocking air cooler and not be obseseing about how cool or how much more FPS im getting.
Great work! One thing I wish was next to the cine scores would be temps and dB. Which also plays a big role in choice of cooler for many. Besides that, very interesting results!
I think none of the air coolers tested here could sustain the 285 W power limit that he set, that means all of them thermal throttled at 100°C
do you any aio comparison ? can you recommend a good aio with low noise ? for a 13700k
Ordered Deepcool AK400 Dark Plus For Only 35$ and Currently it's The Value King!!
These massive air coolers look horrible, even if I would keep my PC under the desk with no glass I would still do an AIO. If you do regular maintenance and check it from time to time you should be golden.
I have a 13700k and I don't think the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE (dual fan) can be beat for value at under $40. IF you have a 12th/13th gen Intel cpu then a $10 Thermalright "anti-cpu bending" heat plate is a must, it saves your cpu from bending in the slot and lowers temps by around 7 degrees. Don't build an Intel pc without it.
Nice! I also have the 13700K and the PA120SE with a contact frame. It's awesome! After a slight undervolt of 150mV it's around 90C in Cinebench.
Noctua always impress PC users with the U12-A.
Man what the hell, why cant you present the results all together for every cooler in Celsius together?
Hi! Can you direct me what to buy for gaming Laptop, thank you, appreciate the repLy.
I just Pause the Video in the beginning just for "THANK YOU" for your kind and professional work...
You are one of the a few Content creators who is really dedicated to his work and Helps people.
Thank you for everything you do 😊
Hi thx for this great review and if you have an advice for a PC gamer 200$ can you reply cuz I don't have a higher budget
From other testing, I also saw that the Assassin III performs better than the Assassin IV. That's quite a regression for Deepcool there, especially due to the price increase the newer model comes with.
Have you tested the PentaWave Z06D 270w?
Have you tested the CR360 Dark from EK Nucleus?
Very good!!!! Test Cougar Forza 135 and scythe Fuma 3!!!!!
Did you make fan curves with afterburner?
I feel like air coolers are like the winter; sure it's cold out at 20* but is it really much colder at 12* with no wind? With air coolers, to me at least, is either you spend noctua money or you take you pick of the cheapest name brand you could get. I have an ak620 zero dark on an r9 7900x and it does just fine. Also, I've undervolted the ryzen, but for its use case, the cooler performs well enough with some tweaked PBO settings.
Where are you measuring room Temperatures?? I cannot see it
Ok, so I got the secret to making an air cooler work more efficiently than an AIO to cool any of the newest demanding CPU.
The secret it... are you ready? INSTALL MORE FANS ON THE FIN TOWER.
Y'all know how the corners of the 120mm fans got screw holes? Well, did y'all know you can sandwich 120mm fans together by simply screwing them together through those screw holes?
Now you got it!! That's right! More fans equal more air exchange power. Any fin tower will work just fine. Just install more fans. You can daisy chain the power connector, so they all run from one connector. I'm using the Cooler Master fin tower. I got 3 fans sandwiched together at the front of the fin tower and 4 fans sandwiched together at the back of the fin tower. My non-overclock temperature on an i9 is always a steady 24c and overclock never gets up to 70c. I even tested it open case and closed case, still the same either way at 24c because I got a total of 7 fans attached to the fin tower.
Not a fan of those square block designs... I need to see the silver heatsinks with a fans on them. The OG Deepcool Assassin III perfection or PA 120 or D15.
I appreciate the effort and trying lots of coolers, since comparisons of many coolers in one review are rare, and comparison tests on the latest gen CPUs are still surprisingly quite rare...
Still, I have to doubt the results with the Assassin X 120 and several single-tower coolers beating some very strong dual-tower coolers per most other reviewers. It seems physically implausible to me a compact cooler with one fan is actually better than huge one with two fans, from the same brand even (Phantom Spirit being much *worse* than the Assassin X 120, for example??).
You may have to lock down some of the boost settings and/or voltages, fix the fan curve to a static speed, something to keep the results more consistent. Or there may be something odd about how the MoBo is governing boost or throttling behaviors.
If these results are truly representative of stock performance out of the box, then the whole market is topsy-turvey and buyers should just throw a dart at the wall and buy what it lands on! Or barring that, just buy a $20 single-tower cooler from an okay brand and be done with it!
Rather bizarre. I think this is the kind of stuff where you need to take a step back and do some more debugging and troubleshooting, some more research into providing an explanation of how/why this differs from other reviewers' results, because publishing this with such anomalous results and no explanation risks telling people some buying guidance that turns out to be wrong, or else it means all other reviewers are wrong and need to adjust (but again, a small single-tower cooler vs huge dual-tower coolers? Something seems wrong *here* on this test, in my view.)
Sorry to say, as once again I really do appreciate the effort and I like the content. Just wish I could understand where the totally unexpected results are coming from.
This result with some single tower coolers performing really well is nothing new in the cooler reviews. Sometimes the important thing is how the heatpipes are aligned with the hotspots on the cpu tile under the integrated heatspreader. That is why sometimes the same coolers can perform very differently between single CCD to dual CCD CPUs on AMD side also. NH-U12A for example has the same 7 heatpipes than many others have despite having just single tower - heck NH-D15 has just 6 heatpipes despite being massive dual tower cooler. If the heatpipes are well placed and efficiently transfer heat to the single tower and the fans manage to cool the tower efficiently then the single tower can be good enough to not limit the heatpipes' maximum performance.
I'm thinking that by testing with a higher TDP that what the coolers are rated for, you can get bad and inconsistent esults that don't really tell about the performance when under specs...
Hey, nowadays what 360 AIO can keep a i9 13900K CPU cool without throttling in heavey tests?
Which would be better the lt720 or the arctic liquid freeze ii 360?
Im assuming you have ambient temperature same throughout
All of these tests should be done again after you have replaced the factory contact frame on the motherboard with a Thermalright LGA1700 contact frame. Additionally, minimal thermal paste should be used. Cooling a CPU properly requires finesse.
Whats the performance on the Thermal right AIO's???
If you want an cinebench r23 42k score I highly recommend the new Lian-Li performance 360 aio
Hey man, could you try this with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D? I'd like to know how to run one with an air cooler if possible, and what kind of performance I should be expecting to see.
That is a gaming chip. These tested workloads are much larger than you would face in any gaming scenario. Additionally it is easier to cool than the tested 285W. Just pick any of the tested coolers here and you are good to go.
more smaller heatpipes is better for LGA1700; also to note, the die surface is larger than the previous Intel desktop CPUs
Which is the best aio cooler which is a best seller till now
Put it in performance mode?