H80 vs Noctua NH-D14 in a hot environment

[lawati9]

Hello everyone

I'm deciding to get an after market CPU cooler and not sure whether to get H80 or D14

I live in Oman , which is a very hot country and the outside temp reaches 40's c during day and about 30's c during night

So my question is , would liquid cooling be better in such case or still the Noctua will perform better than the H80?

i have the HAF X case and low profile rams so fitting the Noctua won't be a problem

Thanks

 

[larkspur]

Hello - Hopefully you have some air conditioning! But either way, the H80 doesn't really keep up with high-end air. You'd need the H100 to beat high-end air cooling: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5054/corsair-hydro-series-h60-h80-and-h100-reviewed/5

On those two charts, the "Silver Arrow" is an air cooler pretty similar to the Noctua you are considering. I'd say the closed-loop water coolers like the H80 and smaller are best utilized in certain small form factor PCs that have trouble fitting large enough heatsinks for air. The nice thing about them is you really only need a 120mm fan vent somewhere to mount the cooler. But since you can fit a big heatsink, stick with air.

 

[rubix_1011]

Regardless of which cooler you get, you cannot cool your CPU lower than what the ambient room temperature is.

The H100 performs about the same as the D14 and has the ability to cool slightly better, but only when the H100 fans are set to HIGH (which are quite noisy). If you run the H100 on the mode for silence, the D14 will perform as good or better.

H100 isn't that great of a cooler; just because it's a 'liquid cooler' doesn't mean it actually performs like a true watercooling setup.

 

[acyuta]

I do not know about H100 or Noctua D14 but both are heavier.
I live in Delhi where summer (June) max temps cross 45C at peak. I have a H80 with i7-3930K and CPU temps at peak ambient temp rarely reach 50C. Right now at 3PM gmt, ambient is 34C and CPU temp is 41-44 for 6 cores.

 

[bigcyco1]

Why not get XSPC Rasa 750 RS240?

 

[geofelt]

Liquid cooling is really air cooling.
It is just a matter of where the coolant to air heat exchange takes place.

With a liquid cooler, like the H80, the heat from the cpu chip is transferred to a radiator where the fans blow cool air through the radiator to exchange the heat. The heat exchange from the cpu chip to liquid is quite efficient. For best cpu cooling the radiator is mounted to draw cool ourside air into the radiator. Unfortunately, while this is best for cpu cooling, it is not best for cooling the rest of the components, particularly the graphics card.
That is because the heated air is dumped into the case where case cooling has to deal with it.

With a good air cooler, the cpu dissipates heat to heat pipes which transport the heat to the fins of the cooler.
Then the cooler fan sends the hot air out the back of the case, or the top.
In a well ventilated case, like the HAF X, a good air cooler, like the Noctua NH-D14 is about as effective as anything.
I would favor this type of cooler because it will be quieter, cheaper, and more reliable.

How well you can cool in a hot room is determined by how hot the room is to start with. No air coolers can achieve temperatures close to ambient. There will always be some temperature delta. Perhaps 10c?

Should you worry much?
Perhaps not.
If you are talking about sandy bridge or ivy bridge cpu chips, they can tolerate quite a bit of heat before reaching a point where they must downclock to protect themselves from damage. Perhaps on the order of 90-100c.
If you do not overclock, you should have no problem. If you OC to a moderate and conservative level without increasing voltages, then 4.0-4.3 should still not be a problem.

-------------bottom line-----------
NH-D14

 

[Razec69]

Regardless of which cooler you get, you cannot cool your CPU lower than what the ambient room temperature is.

The H100 performs about the same as the D14 and has the ability to cool slightly better, but only when the H100 fans are set to HIGH (which are quite noisy). If you run the H100 on the mode for silence, the D14 will perform as good or better.

H100 isn't that great of a cooler; just because it's a 'liquid cooler' doesn't mean it actually performs like a true watercooling setup.

This is your answer. Regardless of what type of cooler you get unless it is a really good custom made water cooling loop. Your ambient temperatures will determine how cool you can keep the cooler.

For instance I have a closed loop system and when I have my air conditioner on my ambient temps can reach lower than 20c and my CPU OC'd can float at around ~35 when it is on load my CPU goes to about ~65 mainly when I am playinng BF3. For the most part it would be about the same with an air cooler.

Again it all depends how hot the environment specifically the room it is in. You can live on near the sun -- obviously not really, but if the room you are in is cool enough therefore your ambient temps, your cooling will stay cool aswell.

Seeing the performance charts on that site provided in one of the posts I'd say it isn't that much worse than anything else. A few degrees won't really hurt when stock coolers are the default ones and those keep nearly any and all PC's operational. If you are going to overclock obviously go for something better but the H80 if you really do want to go with it will suffice. Many will suggest the Noctua but it all depends on you. Just get good PWM fans, since i really don't know about the airflow with those stock corsair fans.

On my single reservoir loop I put 2 Noctua fans in a push and pull config and it was doing a better and quieter job than the thick 120mm PWM fan I had before.

So as long as the ambient temps are within reason and the fans are good you will be fine with the H80.

Also again it doesn't really matter what your temps are outside, hell I live in NY and even in the winter it would be somewhat cold my Computer would literally be my heater.

 

[lawati9]

Thanks all for the replies

I forgot to mention that i'm using the i7-920 for 3 years now , and currently the idle temp with stock cooler is 60c , even tho i reapplied the thermal paste 2 days ago

Maybe i made a mistake when i applied the paste , or maybe its normal for stock cooler?

(I don't remember the temp numbers when i first bought the PC , and wasn't using a temp monitor until recently)

Anyway , I decided to go for the DH14

 

[lawati9]

Best answer selected by lawati9.

 

[geofelt]

Thanks all for the replies

I forgot to mention that i'm using the i7-920 for 3 years now , and currently the idle temp with stock cooler is 60c , even tho i reapplied the thermal paste 2 days ago

Maybe i made a mistake when i applied the paste , or maybe its normal for stock cooler?

(I don't remember the temp numbers when i first bought the PC , and wasn't using a temp monitor until recently)

Anyway , I decided to go for the DH14

Sounds a bit high for idle. but nehalem runs hotter than sandy and ivy.
Two common mistakes:
1) If you use too much paste, it will act as an insulator. The paste is not a good heat conductor. It's job is only to fill microscopic pits in the mating surfaces and get rid of air, which is a very poor conductor. A small drop in the center will spread.

2) The Intel pushpins are notoriously difficult to get installed properly. Look at the back of the motherboard to verify that all 4 pins are completely through the motherboard and locked.