AMD FX-8350 Watercooling

Actually, much depends on whether or not your case even supports water cooling or not, and if it does, what sizes it supports and where.

What is your case model?

If you have a case that does support 240mm coolers, then my suggestion would be that the ID Cooling Frostflow units were rated by our cooling system tester Crashman as one of the best ever tested by him and are much cheaper than most of the better known brands.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/id-cooling-frostflow-240l-closed-loop-liquid-cpu-cooler,4371-2.html

Our test results speak for themselves. ID-Cooling's Frostflow 240L offers the best full-speed temperature ever achieved on this test system, the best low-speed acoustic efficiency of any closed-loop cooler tested on this system, and the lowest price of any 2x 120mm cooler ever tested on our system. However, while some users prefer integrated fan and pump control, the Frostflow 240L uses motherboard-based controls.

Click to expand...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ID-COOLING-240L-AIO-Water-Cooler-Unique-Comet-tail-LED-Lighting-240mm-Radiator/401243304845?epid=2255308921&hash=item5d6bf6f38d:g:bikAAOSwSlBY0HsR


Aside from that, the Corsair H115i extreme cooling and EVGA CLC units rate at the top of nearly every AIO closed loop cooler roundup in recent memory.

I'd stay away from the Deepcool AIO coolers personally. I'd also avoid the EK-XLC Predator 240 as it has a variety of quality issues and potential leak points that I've seen problems with on several users systems. Anandtech echoed this sentiment as they too had similar concerns and saw many of the same issues.

I'd stick to Corsair, EVGA, ID Cooling, NZXT and Alphacool for AIO closed loop cooling.

If you are doing the overclock for fun then that's all good. If you are doing the overclock because you actually need extra performance then Id say spending money on a high end cooling solution is a waste and it would be better put into a new cpu platform that will give far greater gains than any overclock will.

There is only one review of the Frostflow+ 240l that I can find, and it's somewhat questionable. I've never seen any reviews from that site before and there isn't much "meat" to the review, but since the original version was pretty good I'd guess that the revision should HOPEFULLY be even better. Companies don't usually revise their products unless there is something they can make better about it OR if they can reduce cost with a few changes.

Since these coolers are so inexpensive to start with, that wouldn't surprise me, but overall ID cooling has some pretty decent products for the budget prices they sell for, so I would not be against using one of their coolers if I was inclined to use a water cooled setup.

https://www.goldfries.com/hardware-reviews/id-cooling-frostflow-240-review/

I think you will be happy with it. The only complaints I've seen on any of the Frostflow AIO coolers is that there is potential for issues with the mounting system on the waterblock/coldplate assembly, but our cooler system tester Crashman didn't note having any problems with them in his review so it may have just been the individual reviewer. I'd just recommend paying close attention that you get a good, fairly high pressure mount when you install it. Might want to do some research on the installation of that unit and watch a few video tutorials of it so you can familiarize yourself with the process before the actual installation.

Other than that, good luck to you and happy computing. Oh, and merry Christmas too. If you celebrate.

So, restart the system, do not open any programs except for whatever program you are using to monitor temps. I recommend using HWinfo or CoreTemp. I do NOT recommend using bundled motherboard utilities, HWmonitor, Open Hardware monitor or Speedfan.

Let the system stabilize for about five minutes after you open the monitoring application. Note the CPU core and package temps at full idle.

Next, run Prime95 version 26.6. Choose the Small FFT option. After five minutes note the max CPU core and package temps. If at any point while running Prime95 you see an individual core or package temp go above 70 degrees Celcius immediately open the File options in Prime 95 and choose Stop all workers and then exit program.

My first guess is that the mount is not good. I have read about a few indications that mounting pressure is a little more difficult to achieve on these coolers due to the mounting design, and it seems as though you probably either didn't get the right mounting pressure OR something is interfereing with the water block/cold plate assembly fully seating on top of the CPU lid. Make sure the bottom of the cold/water block plate is not touching anything except for the CPU lid. No capacitors or anything else stopping it from going down all the way.

Also, it is fairly common for users new to AIO cooling or even aftermarket air cooling to not get the standoff/backplate assembly as tight as it should be, which will compound the problem of not getting the cold plate fully seated against the CPU lid even if it is completely tightened against the standoffs. If the backplate is slightly loose, the water block plate cannot fully tighten against the cpu. You might want to double check that you've also used the CORRECT standoffs. Usually coolers come with multiple sets for Intel or AMD, and sometimes more than one set for each of those depending on the socket used.

Some users have found that installing small plastic washers between the backplate and motherboard allows the standoff to backplate fasteners to fully tighten up a little better, which can help the tightness of the water block to CPU lid mounting pressure by making sure no fasteners are bottoming out before they are tight. This can happen sometimes because not all motherboards are the same thickness and thinner motherboards might case the stand off to backing plate fasteners to bottom out before becoming fully tightened.


In order to help you, it's often necessary to SEE what's going on, in the event one of us can pick something out that seems out of place, or other indicators that just can't be communicated via a text only post. In these cases, posting an image of the HWinfo sensors or something else can be extremely helpful. Here's how:

*How to post images in Tom's hardware forums



Run HWinfo and look at system voltages and other sensor readings.

Monitoring temperatures, core speeds, voltages, clock ratios and other reported sensor data can often help to pick out an issue right off the bat. HWinfo is a good way to get that data and in my experience tends to be more accurate than some of the other utilities available. CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Core Temp all have their uses but HWinfo tends to have it all laid out in a more convenient fashion so you can usually see what one sensor is reporting while looking at another instead of having to flip through various tabs that have specific groupings.

After installation, run the utility and when asked, choose "sensors only". The other window options have some use but in most cases everything you need will be located in the sensors window. If you're taking screenshots to post for troubleshooting, it will most likely require taking three screenshots and scrolling down the sensors window between screenshots in order to capture them all.

*Download HWinfo


For temperature monitoring only, I feel Core Temp is the most accurate and also offers a quick visual reference for core speed, load and CPU voltage:

*Download Core Temp

Yes, those temps are actually pretty great if you ran the Small FFT option. Run it again for 15 minutes, just to be sure. If your max temps don't go past maybe 70°C, tops, then it's good. Usually after five minutes it's not going to get any hotter, but occasionally we see a small spike. After fifteen minutes, if it was going to get hotter, it would have by then.

Were those temps at stock or overclocked settings? If it was at stock, then it seems about right. If overclocked, it seems too low to be correct. If you are good, about the same, with a fifteen minute test then I'd say you are good to go for working on the overclock now. Every time you make a frequency or voltage adjustment, restest the thermal compliance by running Prime Small FFT again for fifteen minutes.

Run it for 15-24 hours to verify stability. 24 is better. I've seen systems crash between 15 and 24 hours before, but not usually after that, so 24 is the standard if you REALLY want to be sure the system is practically stable and no silent data corruption is likely.

If the fans and thermal issues go away with the side panel off, then there are clearly either restriction issues because of the drives and drive cages, or just not enough case airflow due to lack of fans, intake fans that don't have adequate static pressure to be used as intake fans, not balanced correctly with an equal number of intake and exhaust fans using all front fans for intake and all top/rear fans as exhaust or some other configuration issue.

Negative pressure is desirable. Balanced is almost as good. Positive pressure from having two or three intakes but only a single exhaust, usually at the rear, is generally going to result in poor cooling performance.

You want high CFM fans on all exhaust locations, but they DO NOT have to be high static pressure, because there is very little resistance to airflow on an exhaust fan.

Intake fans should be high static pressure, but do not need to be as high as say, for a radiator or heatsink. Anything over 1.5-2.0mm H2O static pressure is fine for an intake. I usually suggest a minimum of two 140mm intakes and two 140mm exhaust fans, on systems that can use a 140mm rear exhaust. If only a 120mm is possible there, then I recommend three exhaust fans if you are using two 140mm fans in front. If you are only using two 120mm fans in front then two 120mm exhaust fans, in the rear and top rear locations should be sufficient.

Two and two gives you equal pressure, which has good cooling performance but also helps somewhat to suppress dust collection inside the case. Having more exhaust than intake creates negative pressure, which improves cooling performance but tends to pull more dust in on cases that do not have dust filters. Having more intake than exhaust is not as good for cooling performance, but suppresses dust intake.

I always opt for either balanced or negative pressure. I'd rather blow the case out inside every now and then, which you'll have to do anyhow no matter what kind of configuration you have or how many dust filters there are, some ends up getting in anyhow, so might as well have the better cooling performance of equal or negative.

You should be able to set the fan speed profiles in the bios using the CPU FAN header profile.

I'll certainly be willing to help you figure that out, and possibly make a plan on case fans as well if that's something you want to tackle. Case fan profiles are likely configurable as well through the bios. Will need the motherboard model number so I can check that out.

If you can also provide the case model (Can't remember if you did already) and fan model numbers, that would help too. Might be able to figure out what fans you have just by the case model if they all came with the case. Have to be tomorrow though, I'm hitting the sack for tonight.

Ok, that means there IS an airflow issue. Also, I will point out that if you put the time and money into getting the case fan cooling configuration RIGHT, you will not only NOT go up in temps, but should actually go DOWN compared to simply having the side panel off because you will exchange the heat away from everything inside at a faster rate than with just having mostly still ambient air.

The effect on the CPU and GPU card cooling will be minimal, since they have their own fans and can pull that cooler ambient air in from outside the case, but the effect on everything else will be, hopefully, a few degrees better. Memory, storage drives, motherboard components and anything else inside the case like the pump housing itself should all see at least a small amount of additional cooling if there is a high enough rate of exchange.

So let me ask a few other questions.

Where did you end up mounting the radiator, front or top?

Are you willing/able to invest anything more into the cooling system? I have a few ideas, but obviously there are few things a person can do to add cooling capability for free. Totally understand if that's not something you want to or can do at the present time. If it is something that needs to wait until down the road we can always revisit it whenever you are ready and able.