13600k Cooling question

[Iannis]

Hey all.
I'm building a new gaming focused rig for a friend. Going with the i5 13600k.
He insists on air cooling, wont be doing any overclocking and will have a great air flow case (Fractal Design Torrent)

We are looking at the Noctua NH-U12a

Do you guys think the U12a is up to the task of keeping the 13600k happy?

[anon5123]

I've got that same fan, and it works flawlessly for my 10700k even when overclocked. Haven't had any heat issues whatsoever.

As far as I know, Noctua NH-U12a is one of the best air coolers you can get.

[Kagthul]

U12A seems hideously expensive (over 100!). The NH-D15 is only like 10$ more. If you want to stick to Noctua, id go with the U12S - same cooler, only one fan. And 50$ cheaper. Otherwise, any cooler about that size would work fine (BeQuiet Pure Rock 2, Cooler Master Hyper 212 variants, etc). The 13600K is not exactly a firecracker, especially when you arent OCing it.

[tomten]

Hey all.
I'm building a new gaming focused rig for a friend. Going with the i5 13600k.
He insists on air cooling, wont be doing any overclocking and will have a great air flow case (Fractal Design Torrent)

We are looking at the Noctua NH-U12a

Do you guys think the U12a is up to the task of keeping the 13600k happy?

The noctua beats most liquid cooling system. You have to go really expensive and/or replace the fans on it itself to gain performance equal to the noctua.
Liquid cooling is mostly a hype.

[tomten]

Liquid cooling with like a 240mm AIO is hard to beat even with a NH-D15. Downside being of higher cost and eventually require replacement, where an air cooler really doesn't go bad. Fans are the only part that (unless they're bad fans) can last decades before they fail, and those are entirely modular on any good air cooler.

CPUs have such a variable workload in most video games that the heat capacity that X volume of water affords and the relatively high surface area of a 240mm radiator keeps most CPUs quite tame, where worse case you can push+pull a 240mm and tame any CPU. They also have less torque on the CPU socket compared to a giant air cooler.

Fractal Torrent though basically doesn't support water cooling unless you're swapping the front+bottom fans to run a 280mm radiator on the front or you're really cheaping out and have a 140mm on the rear. Really is a case designed for air cooling or custom water cooling.

Yeh, i agree. Which is why noted "beats most" or "have to go really expensive". I have a fractal torrent case and a noctua-d15.
I was looking into radiators but as you wrote, i was forced into a 140mm dual setup and it jus wasn't good enough :P

[Kagthul]

Liquid cooling is mostly a hype.

The major thing that matters is the surface area of the radiating part. I.E. the fin stack on an air cooler and the radidator on an AIO. The water itself isnt relevant - that is just how the heat is moved from the CPU to the radiator.

Minor things like how many heatpipes, how they are arranged, and how the fin stack is arranged (Noctua has a good design on how the fins are spaced to let more air through).

The NH-D15 has about as much surface area as a 240MM AIO. It will cool similarly to a 240MM AIO. A 280 or better will beat the air cooler. Pretty much ANY air cooler, because you cant hang much more metal off of a CPU bracket than something like the NH-D15.

Its not about "air vs liquid" its about "how much surface area for heat dissipation on the radiator/fins"

In any case, the 13600K is only 130W part. Its not going to have issues with basically anything like a Hyper 212 or similar, much less anything high end.

[Iliena]

Getting a Noctua cooler is a worthwhile investment IMO, I still use a DH-14 I got in around 2010 in my home server/HTPC. While its not running at hight load in my server (cooling a AMD 3700x) it's whisper quiet with the fans on low, the CPU idles at around 32-35c in a room 20-23c most of the time.

It used to be in my gaming rig until 2019 and lasted quite a few upgrades during that time (I then switched to a 360 AIO), the only things I have had to do is get a new mounting kit for AM4 (free from Noctua) and it's still using the original fans which are about the best in the business, I also have Noctua case fans that are nearly as old and not had one fail yet.

[Djuntas]

You will likely haft to get a new mounting bracket, free on their website...I think you haft to buy newer noctua models to get lucky with it included or something?

[Kagthul]

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/haft

“You keep using that word. I do no think it means what you think it means.”
- Inigo Montoya

The word you’re looking for is “have”.

[Djuntas]

@Agall woulden't worry about ram clearance if you buy the more low profile ram like corsair vengeance stuff. And then just move the fans on the cooler slightlu up.

[tomten]

Uninstalling the heatsink was all I needed to do and you do get the benefit of having temperature readouts on the fancier kits.

What a stupid overkill lol...
The noctua is a modular fan setup... Just...Move...The...Fans...0.5-1cm up from the side of the ram...
Uninstalling heatsinks and stuff? wow...ok...