Germany's leading consumer testing organization, Stiftung Warentest, has warned people to avoid fake air conditioners from Epicooler. Golem.de reports that this direct-from-China brand also ships to the U.S., and its so-called air conditioner contains “a simple PC fan combined with a small heating element” [machine translation]. We don’t know the PC fan brand. In tests, the Epicooler didn’t reduce the temperature of the room when set in its ‘Cold Wind’ mode.

Europe has been literally burning this summer, so countless folks have become interested in acquiring an air conditioner, perhaps for the first time. Epicooler reportedly aggressively markets its air conditioners with “AI-generated videos on social media, YouTube, and in online magazines,” notes the source. Moreover, its devices look very much like traditional air conditioners but sell for a fraction of the price. Many people therefore have taken a chance on this ‘bargain’ only to find out they have actually overpaid for a box containing a PC fan alongside a heating coil.

We guess the Epicooler price is just low enough to attract some chancy purchases. The source says this fake aircon is sold for €163, which is about $188. These devices are always shipped from China, it is noted, even when local warehouse stock is advertised. It is thought that this is a method that helps Epicooler swerve national regulators such as the FTC, as well as sidestep local consumer protection laws regarding product description accuracy, refunds, etc. This kind of operation is also easy to ‘dissolve’ and reappear under other brand names once the ‘game is up.’

There have been previous cries of fake, concerning Epicooler products. Its products have been panned on various consumer review sites, criticized on social media, and more. But it is good to get these ‘air conditioners’ fully exposed by a leading consumer testing organization in Europe.

Stiftung Warentest seemed to be suspicious of the Epicooler as soon as it was received. The device weighed less than 3 kg (6.6 pounds), whereas a genuine internal unit might weigh 13 kg (28.7 pounds) and require a 38 kg (83.8 pound) outside unit. A sticker on this device also spoke the truth, reading ‘Wall Mounted Heater.’ So there was no compressor/condenser/expansion/evaporation process going on here to genuinely cool the space where it was installed. It was just a “standard PC fan and a small heating element.” The consumer site also commented that when using the heating element “the device quickly became so hot that we decided to switch it off again.”

The Epicooler is very cheap for an AC unit, which can often cost 10x more. But they’ll work. However, it is expensive for a fan, with the best consumer-reviewed fans (accurately advertised) available for half as much money as an Epicooler, noted Stiftung Warentest.

Please be careful with your cash, and keep in mind the maxim “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

The latest cooler on our test bench is the Sigma L36 Pro, a high-end AIO with a 3.5-inch display from relative cooling newcomer Ocypus. This manufacturer is known for quirky design choices that help set it apart from its many competitors. I found the company’s Iota C70 computer case and A62 digital air cooler especially interesting products when I tested them last year.

Like many other AIOs we’ve reviewed lately, the Sigma L36 Pro features a display – a large 3.5-inch detachable screen in this case, capable of displaying performance metrics and animated images and video.

Screen aside, the technical specifications of the product are impressive. The static pressure exerted by the fans is nearly twice as strong as many competitors – rated for up to 5.8 mmH20. But even more impressive than this is the price of the liquid cooler: Despite having a relatively large display and extremely powerful fans, you can find this cooler selling for $135 or less.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of this eye-catching AIO, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks so you can decide if the Ocypus Sigma L36 Pro deserves to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of Ocypus Sigma L36 Pro

▶️ Detachable 3.5-inch 640x480 resolution IPS display

It seems like the biggest trend in liquid cooling recently is AIOs with fancy displays on top of the CPU block, and Ocypus rides this trend, including a 3.5-inch IPS screen here that some users might find reminiscent of older PCs due to it’s VGA (640x480) resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio.

Many AIOs have the screen built into the CPU block, like Hyte’s THICC Q60. Other manufacturers offer the display and CPU block as separate components, and that’s how the Ocypus Sigma L36 Pro is designed.

When a display connects to the PC, but isn’t actually built into the CPU block, this opens up customization options that you might not think of normally. As you can see in the photograph above, I’ve got the display set up on a stool next to my computer desk, instead of inside my case. You’ll have to obtain a 9-pin header to USB-A (or C) adapter to use the device externally, but these can usually be found for less than $10.

To control and customize the display, you’ll need to download the simply named Ocypus Display software. It’s a surprisingly small download size of only 184 megabytes, and uses 493 MB when installed – and about the same amount of RAM when active.

Multiple preset themes are available, but only three are installed by default.

If you click the cloud icon shown in the picture above, a link to Ocypus' “Download Center” is opened in your default browser, which offers more options.

The software is extremely simple to use and easy to create your own customized theme with. In the example above, I uploaded an animated GIF file of a happy puppy and set the display to monitor CPU temperature, power consumption, and fan speeds metrics through text labels. I’ve also set up monitoring of CPU utilization, both with a text label showing the current status and a line graph showing the changes in CPU utilization over time.

▶️ RAM Clearance

As with most liquid coolers, the design of this AIO is such that the CPU block as such that it doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots in any manner, ensuring that all sticks of compatible RAM, no matter how tall, will fit with this cooler.

▶️ Thick CPU cold plate

This AIO is designed for normal PC platforms like Intel’s Arrow Lake and LGA1851 socket or AMD’s Ryzen X3D CPUs and the AM5 socket, but you might wonder if it supports server products when you see the size of the coldplate – it has a larger surface area and greater thickness than most liquid coolers designed for consumer PCs.

▶️ 120mm fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the radiator and liquid pump. The included fans have a direct impact on aesthetics, noise levels, and overall thermal performance. Conveniently, the fans here arrive pre-installed, saving a few moments of time when you put things together. The fans included in this model are white, but this cooler is also available with black fans.

These fans seem to be overbuilt, more powerful than the rest of the AIO can properly take advantage of. They are rated for an unusually high 5.8 MMH20 of static pressure and 90 CFM at full speed.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging is a bit flashy, at least in comparison to your normal AIO box. It features a rendering of the cooler against a black background with streaks of purple hues – logos on all sides of the box for full marketing impact.

The inner packaging is just as fresh as the outside, with each component of the cooling system well protected from the chaos that shipping can bring by using a combination of soft covers and individual cardboard walls for each component.

Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Tubing clips
• A small tube of thermal paste
• 360mm radiator and 120mm fans
• 3.5-inch LCD display

AM5 Installation

This section assumes you’ve already mounted the 360mm radiator. Installation of AIOs is typically much easier when you have already secured the radiator to your computer case. To begin putting things together, you’ll first need to remove the default AM4/5 retention hardware.

The next step is to screw in the mounting studs, as shown below.

Now you’ll want to apply the included thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

After thermal paste is applied, take the CPU block and press it against the studs, using the included screws and a screwdriver to secure it in place.

I chose to attach the included 3.5-inch screen externally, but if you want to place it in your case, this is the time to put it on top of your CPU block. The final step, of course, is to connect the cables and turn on your computer when finished.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent and consume over 260W. Enabling PBO enables high power consumption and heat output, when using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard, the CPU will reach its TJ Max (peak temperature) of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent with most coolers. When this throttling occurs, I’ve measured the average power consumption to determine performance.

High-end AIO liquid coolers have higher expectations in this benchmark, and are expected to be able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under TJ Max during the duration of the benchmark – in these cases, we compare the CPU’s actual temperature.

Ocypus’ Sigma L36 Pro performs well and is capable of keeping the CPU cool in this test, with an average temperature of 85.7C/186.3F.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but run loudly at full speeds. Noisy fans in this scenario aren’t necessarily a bad thing; some folks prefer to hear them as a way to be aware when the CPU is getting hot.

The fans included with Ocypus’ Sigma L36 Pro reach 49.8 dBA at 100% RPM, which is loud, but to be expected of fans with 5.8mm H20 of air pressure. Those who prefer to implement speed restrictions for silent operation need not worry; our noise-normalized benchmarks show good performance even when the fans are set to run quietly.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

When compared to the other seven AIOs we’ve tested Ocypus Sigma L36 Pro against, its performance is behind most of its peers. That said, the gap between Ocypus’ AIO and the top performer is rather small – the average temperature of 70.5C (48.5C above ambient) achieved by the Sigma L36 Pro is only 2.1C behind our best result.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

Ocypus’ position in this thermal test remains the same as in our previous chart. When tied to the default fan curve of MSI’s X870E Carbon motherboard, it reaches a mild volume level of 41.9 dBA.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.Most coolers will not be able to keep the CPU from reaching its peak temperature (TJ Max) in this stress test. So we’ll look at this in terms of average CPU power consumption, which averaged 255.4 watts.

This test is especially difficult because in addition to the reduced noise from the CPU cooler, our current test bench’s system fans are configured to run extremely silently, below the floor of the noise meter I use to measure dBA.

Conclusion

Ocypus’ Sigma L36 Pro features an attractive combination of features, including a fancy 3.5-inch LCD display. Those things alone make this AIO interesting and worth considering, but it’s also affordable, with a regular price of only $135, and often on sale for less. In fact, as this review was wrapping up, the black version of the Sigma L36 Pro was on sale at Amazon for just $105. At that price, it’s inarguably a CPU-cooling steal.

Unlike some of its cooler competitors, Chiba Japan-based Scythe is a fabless company that partners with factories in China and Taiwan for manufacturing of its air coolers, fans, and other PC hardware. The company has been delivering cooling products aimed largely at quiet performance for more than 20 years. We’ve enjoyed testing its previous products, like the fan-favorite FUMA 3 air cooler. Today we’re looking at Scythe’s latest offering, the Magoroku – a dual tower heatsink paired with two of Scythe’s Wonder Tornado 120 fans.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of this CPU cooler. Then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks to see if the Magoroku deserves to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of the Scythe Magoroku air cooler

▶️ Dual tower heatsinks, six copper heatpipes

This air cooler features a dual-tower design, with six copper heatpipes to move heat from the CPU block into the metal fins above.

▶️ RAM Clearance

RAM compatibility with this cooler depends on how you look at it. Officially, Scythe mentions support for RAM up to 57mm tall. However, using the fan with tall RAM in this configuration does result in some performance loss.

We instead recommend moving the front fan to the back of the unit, above your motherboard’s VRM heatsinks, for best thermal performance. This configuration also has the side effect of complete RAM compatibility, as nothing interferes with or overhangs the DIMM slots.

▶️ 120mm Wonder Tornado fans

There's more to a cooler than just the heatsink. The included fans have a direct impact on aesthetics, noise levels, and overall thermal performance. Scythe includes two of its Wonder Tornado 120 fans with the Magoroku air cooler.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging highlights the design of the product in a flashy but subtle way, incorporating a black background with grey and white highlights.

The CPU cooler and fans are protected by molded foam and cardboard inserts.

Included with the package are:

● Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms

● Three sets of fan clips

● A small tube of thermal paste

● Two 120mm Wonder Tornado fans

● Screwdriver

AM5 Installation

To begin putting things together, you’ll need to first remove the default AM4/5 retention mechanism. Next, place the studs over the exposed holes.

Afterwards, take the mounting bars and secure them with the included screws and screwdriver.

It’s time to apply the thermal compound. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the best methods you can use.

After thermal paste is applied, take the CPU block and press it against the mounting bars, using the built-in screws and screwdriver to secure it in place.

Finally, you’ll want to attach both fans using the clips included with the cooler and connect them to the motherboard’s PWM header. If you have tall system RAM, I advise moving the front fan and placing it in the rear for best thermal performance.

Real-world testing configuration on AMD’s AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent and consume over 260W. Enabling PBO enables high power consumption and heat output, when using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard the CPU will reach its TJ Max (peak temperature) of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent with most coolers. When this throttling occurs, I’ve measured the average power consumption to determine performance.

You’ll notice there are two results for Scythe’s Magoroku here. The first result is with an intake fan above our test rig’s TeamGroup DDR5 (as Scythe suggests); the second result is with that fan placed on the back above the motherboard’s VRM modules. As you can see, it’s better to move the front fan to the back if your system incorporates tall RAM modules. That said, neither result is particularly impressive. These are the worst results we’ve seen on our latest test bench.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but run loudly at full speeds. Noisy fans in this scenario aren’t necessarily a bad thing; some prefer to hear them as a way to be aware when the CPU is getting hot. Scythe’s Magoroku has a maximum volume level of 43.4 dBA, which is on the quieter end of the fan noise spectrum.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23. The results here are slightly better than the last test, but not by much. The Scythe was the second-warmest cooler we’ve seen on this test bench.

150W + GPU thermal results

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

We’ve got another fairly disappointing result here, with a CPU temperature of 69.9C (47.9C over ambient) – the thermal performance is again in last place. Noise levels in our 150W CPU thermal test were acceptable, though, reaching 39.6 dBA.

It’s worth pointing out that some games are more intensive than this test above. While playing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, I regularly noticed temperatures reaching near TJ Max. This is a bit concerning.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

This test is especially difficult because, in addition to the reduced noise from the CPU cooler, our current test bench’s system fans are configured to run extremely silently, below the floor of the noise meter I use to measure dBA.

Most coolers, particularly air coolers, can’t keep the CPU from reaching its peak temperature (TJ Max) in this stress test. We’ll look at this in terms of power consumption, which averaged 228.7 watts. I wish I could say more positive things about this cooler’s thermal performance, but it just doesn’t seem to perform very well with an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D CPU.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

While the rest of our test results weren’t very impressive, Scythe’s Magoroku performed well when it came to keeping system DDR5 temperatures under control, measuring at an average of 43C (21C over ambient), tied for our second-place result in this benchmark if you don’t count Silverstone’s AIO with extra VRM fans.

Conclusion

Scythe’s Magoroku is a nice-looking cooler with moderately low noise levels. But most of our thermal results were underwhelming with our AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D test bench. The exception to this was DDR5 RAM temperatures, which were impressive. If you’re looking for a low-noise air cooler that effectively cools your system memory, you might be happy with this product.

Perhaps this cooler performs better on Intel systems, but for AMD users, I’d instead recommend Thermalright’s Royal Pretor 130 at this price point.

Modern smartphones pack enough computing power to rival budget PCs. However, one of the biggest limitations preventing mobile chips from sustaining peak performance is thermal throttling. To tackle the problem, a hardware enthusiast on Reddit carried out an experiment in the most absurd way possible, sandwiching a smartphone between two desktop CPU air coolers. The result is a miniature desktop PC built around a phone's motherboard that actually works and performs well.

The smartphone chosen for this project is the ZTE Nubia Z70 Ultra, which is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC paired with 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. It is worth noting that this particular chipset made its debut in 2024, with its prime CPU cores rated to reach up to 4.32 GHz. The latest Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is a more powerful chip and can go as high as 4.6 GHz. Rather than using a newer, higher-clocked chip, the project is essentially testing how much sustained performance can be extracted from an older Snapdragon flagship.

“It actually started from a pretty simple idea," the creator told Tom's Hardware. "I wanted to see how far I could push the concept of using a single smartphone as my main machine, instead of having a phone, a gaming console and a separate PC.”

To carry out the project, the smartphone was completely stripped down to its core by removing the camera hardware, mobile network hardware, as well as the display, which is cleverly mounted within the custom acrylic enclosure for the system. The creator then mounted two full-size desktop CPU heatsinks on each side of the phone hardware. The contact plates on the heatsinks, being large enough, could fully cover the main components, thus allowing improved heat dissipation compared to the original phone chassis.

The results are particularly impressive when it comes to sustained workloads. In the 3DMark Wild Life Extreme stress test, the setup achieved a 99% stability score over 20 loops. Its best loop produced a score of 6,980, while the lowest-scoring loop came in at 6,910, which is a mere 70-point difference. A screenshot also shows a 3DMark score of 10,533 in the ranking, putting the modified Z70 Ultra slightly ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S25+ powered by the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

The sustained performance is arguably more interesting compared to the peak benchmark numbers. Smartphones are designed around a difficult compromise where their processors can briefly operate at high performance levels. But due to the limited physical space for heat dissipation means sustained workloads eventually force the system to reduce clocks and power consumption.

“The long-term goal is basically one device that can cover Android, desktop Linux, Windows applications and PC gaming,” added the creator. Essentially, they wanted to keep Android at the core while having a desktop environment when connecting the setup to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. To achieve that, a custom Linux XFCE4 desktop environment was created using Termux, running directly on top of Android. The setup also supports hardware-accelerated Vulkan via Turnip on the Adreno GPU. Since the creator wanted to run Windows games locally on the Snapdragon hardware, they tinkered with Wine, Box64, and Hangover builds adapted and recompiled for the Linux environment, alongside GameNative.

The creator claims to have successfully run Windows applications and games, including The Witcher 3. The system was able to run the game at 1080p resolution with the Ultra graphics preset, delivering around 20–30 FPS. Notably, the GPU was sitting at approximately 99% utilization during gameplay, while certain scenes managed to exceed 30 FPS. That obviously isn't enough performance to turn the smartphone into a replacement for a modern gaming PC. However, it is impressive that a smartphone SoC can render a demanding PC game at 1080p using a compatibility stack designed to translate software between different CPU architectures and operating environments.

The project is anything but practical, as the two desktop CPU coolers make the original smartphone form factor essentially irrelevant. However, by giving the Snapdragon 8 Elite substantially more thermal headroom, the creator has turned a flagship smartphone into something that sits somewhere between a phone and a desktop PC. More importantly, it raises an interesting question about how much performance modern mobile chips are leaving on the table simply because they have to fit inside our pockets.

DeepCool has been delivering innovative, interesting, and often budget-conscious PC cases and cooling products for more than a decade. Its current lineup includes air and AIO coolers, computer cases, keyboards, power supplies, and other accessories.

We were impressed by the company’s AK620 and Assassin VC Elite air coolers in the past. In 2024, the Beijing-based company was banned from selling products in the U.S., but has continued to produce and improve its cooling products for markets elsewhere. US consumers also have the option of importing the cooler, if you don’t mind paying for extra shipping costs.

Here, we’re looking at DeepCool’s second-generation AK series coolers, the AK400 G2 and AK620 G2. These are available in two styles: one with woodgrain top covers, the other featuring a digital display.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the coolers, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks and decide if DeepCool’s AK G2 series coolers deserve to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

DeepCool AK620 G2/AK400 G2 specifications

Features of DeepCool’s AK G2 Air coolers

▶️ Heatpipes and heatsink

With the single-tower AK400 G2, four slightly staggered direct-touch copper heatpipes are embedded in the base to transfer heat from the CPU into the heatsink and its fins.

The larger, dual-tower AK620 G2 features six evenly spaced copper heatpipes.

The heatsink fin designs are similar in both models. The front ends feature a jigsaw-type design, shown below.

The exhaust side features the checkerboard matrix style DeepCool’s air coolers are known for, a design choice which the company says improves static pressure.

▶️ High-performance 120 mm fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink. The included fans directly impact noise levels and cooling performance. The fans included on both AK400 and AK620 G2 models are essentially the same – but the AK400’s single fan runs up to 10% faster than the two fans included with the AK620 G2.

▶️ Woodgrain and digital display styles available

Both the AK400 and AK620 are available in black or white, but there are two sub-choices for the aesthetic. The versions we’ve tested for this review feature woodgrain, a motif that’s been increasing in popularity in DIY PCs since the release of Fractal’s North computer case.

If you don’t like woodgrain, DeepCool also includes a checkerboard black cover that you can use in place of the woodgrain covers.

There’s also the Nyx version of the AK620 G2 available, which features a digital display showing CPU performance metrics – temperature, frequency, power consumption, and overall CPU usage.

▶️ RAM Clearance

The AK400 G2's design is such that it doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots, ensuring that all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible.

Standard-height DDR5 sticks 40mm tall fit well under the larger AK620 G2, but taller sticks won’t fit perfectly underneath. Our current CPU cooler test bench incorporates TeamGroup’s Sakura Rose T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7200 sticks, which are 48.8mm (1.92 inches) tall.

If you also use taller RAM DIMMs, you’ll have to raise the intake fan’s placement by a few millimeters for things to fit properly, as we did (see image, above). This might result in slightly lower cooling performance in certain scenarios. But even so, the AK620 G2 performed excellently, as you’ll see in the benchmarks section.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging is typical of DeepCool products: a basic brown box with a blue line and DeepCool’s logo, covered by a wraparound showing a picture of the cooler.

The heatsink and fans are protected by molded foam, and the accessories are contained in a small cardboard box. Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Alternative top covers
• Screwdriver (AK620 G2 only)
• The AK620 G2 includes a tube of thermal paste; the AK400 G2 includes pre-installed thermal paste
• Single-tower (AK400 G2) or dual-tower (AK620 G2) heatsink
• 120 mm fans and fan clips
• Installation manual

▶️ AK620 G2 AM5 Installation

You’ll need to first remove the default AM4/5 retention mechanism and then place the mounting studs around the exposed screw holes.

The next step is to place the mounting bars on top of the studs, securing them with the included screws, and then apply the included thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use. Afterwards, place the heatsink tower against the CPU and mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it.

Once the heatsink is secured, attach the 120 mm fans to the heatsinks. Lastly, connect the PWM cables of the fans to the corresponding headers of your motherboard.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on an open test bench, which has lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in weak coolers appearing stronger than they really are. Some have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I feel that these methods don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the Flova F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees Celsius (203 degrees Fahrenheit) and thermally throttle to some extent.

Results from the liquid coolers we’ve recently tested aren’t shown above because they are able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under TJ Max, and as such, power consumption figures aren’t quite comparable.

The performance of DeepCool’s AK620 G2 is simply excellent, outperforming every air cooler we’ve tested on our current test bench. Its little sibling, the AK400 G2, also does fairly well for a single-tower air cooler, slightly outperforming Sudokoo’s SK620V and only trailing ID-Cooling’s AK620 SLK by 2.4W!

To give a wider variety of comparison examples, I’ve included a chart of the same tests from our last AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D cooling test bench. But keep in mind these results aren’t 100% comparable, due to a different case and fans being used; the ambient temperature is also slightly higher with the results below.

Our newest test bench used for this and other recent reviews incorporates a Tryx crossblade intake fan as well as a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan, which results in better air cooling performance.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but require running loudly to maintain said performance, but that’s not the case with DeepCool’s AK G2 air coolers. With measurements of 42.4 and 41.9 dBA respectively, their maximum noise levels put them among the quietest coolers featured in our charts.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

With this thermal test, DeepCool’s AK620 G2 slips to the second best result we got from any air cooler. The single tower version, the AK400 G2, still performs well in comparison to dual-tower products, besting Sudokoo’s SK620V and just a bit behind Montech’s NX600 with its powerful E28 fans.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

At first glance, you might think the results above – when tied to the default fan curve of MSI’s X870E Carbon motherboard – are a little underwhelming compared to the competing coolers shown in the chart.

But thermals are only part of the story. Noise levels, especially when you’re gaming, are far more important here. With a noise level of only 38.9 dBA measured, the loudness of these coolers won’t be an issue while you’re gaming. Your GPU fans and / or your case will likely be making more noise in most setups.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but many prefer tests with the noise levels of coolers equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next benchmark has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

The results here are pretty good. With an average of 242.5W cooled during the course of testing, DeepCool’s AK620 G2 shows the second-best performance of the air coolers in this chart. The single-tower AK400 G2 is our bottom result, but even so, its performance is basically on par with Montech’s NX600. That’s fairly impressive for a single-tower air cooler.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing!

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

The DDR5 temperature recordings from this test seem to be within expectations compared to other dual-tower air coolers. Temperatures with DeepCool’s AK620 G2 were an average of 21.9C above ambient. Curiously, DeepCool’s single tower AK400 G2 showed the best RAM temperatures in this scenario of any air cooler.

The thermals of the CPU in this test were about as expected, with the AK620 G2 showing some of the best temperatures and the AK400 G2 running warmer than most of the dual-tower coolers here, but notably still outperforming Sudokoo’s SK700V.

Conclusion

DeepCool continues to impress with its second-generation AK air coolers, the AK620 G2 and AK400 G2, delivering strong thermal performance and low noise levels. Our only major complaint is that these coolers aren’t easily available for purchase in the USA. If you’d rather not go through the hassle of importing, our recommendation would be Thermalright’s Royal Pretor 130, which offers similarly strong thermal performance and low noise levels, at a more affordable price of $50 USD.

The fearless TrashBench has been testing direct die water cooling of graphics cards. The inevitable twist here is that they removed the metal waterblock from the equation. Despite initial leaky results and much concern of water damage to the expensive parts thrown into the mix, some of the end results are eyebrow-raising in a good way.

“In my pursuit of the perfect water block, I realized, why do we need metal at all?” queried the antipodean host of the punk-rock GPU death lab. “Why can't we just pump water directly over the bare silicon? Makes sense to me.”

TrashBench began this project well aware that leaks might be a problem. Thus, a non-working GeForce RTX 3060 was chosen for the initial feasibility tests. It was measured up for a 3D printed water block which would direct the coolant directly over the GPU die. Our hardware adventurer covered any surface-mount components beside the GPU with nail polish to prevent water damage/shorting.

Some tried and trusted plumbing measures were then applied, with the design incorporating washers, gaskets, and hose clamps (worm-screw equipped jubilee clips). Water pipe fittings were melted into the block, which was fastened using the retaining clamp mechanism that the air cooler had previously used.

This initial test sprang a leak, or two, so TrashBench decided to add epoxy adhesive to secure and seal the 3D printed block to the GPU. This worked, but then some water was spotted oozing from the tube fittings, so they got a dose of epoxy too. At last, we had the first non-leaky prototype…

After some live runs using a powered-up GTX 980 were successful, it was time for the main event with fitting, testing, and benchmarking using an RTX 2060 Super. On the way, it was noticed that the choice of 3D print material used on TrashBench’s Bambu Lab 3D printer wasn’t trivial. Some materials leaked from the edges, and others were actually slightly porous. During live power tests, the TechTuber wisely used a PCIe riser cable so any leaks wouldn’t immediately drip onto the motherboard.

Was it worth it?

If you like to live dangerously, it could be argued that the TrashBench results show some value in this cooling methodology. The headlining technique was compared against the stock cooler and a clamped-on AiO cooling solution.

Going by the numbers above, you can see that direct water cooling could be interesting, as long as you can ensure long-term confidence about leakage. In the video, you can also see some interesting extras, like running this system using -28°C coolant. The same trick is also tested using an Intel i5-7600K CPU. That was chosen as “it’s not a particularly hot CPU, but if it dies, I don’t care.”

The eventual conclusion was that chamber size matters (most clearly illustrated by the CPU cooling test), but pumping water directly over silicon can work.

It is not a secret that proper cooling ensures longevity and enables hardware to demonstrate its full potential. But when it comes to data center AI hardware, proper cooling also means higher sustained performance, which directly translates into money earned by the owner. Frore Systems, a maker of cooling solutions that are made using semiconductor-grade tools, seems to have a perfect idea of how to reduce the temperature of next-generation AI accelerators and increase their performance by 15%.

Frore Systems last week published a white paper which suggests that improvements to the entire cooling stack — from the GPU packaging and thermal interface materials (TIMs) to coldplates and coolant temperatures — can increase token generation per watt by more than 30%. Meanwhile, one of the company's boldest projections based on an analytical thermal model* is that its LiquidJet coldplate technology alone can lower Nvidia Rubin GPU junction temperatures by up to 12°C, which translates into a 10% to 25% improvement in tokens/Watt, while a 10°C reduction could increase token generation by around 15%.

Indeed, modern AI accelerators, such as the upcoming Nvidia Rubin, can dissipate up to 2,400 W, and their die temperatures can easily hit 95°C or more. But while 95°C is not necessarily a problem for silicon longevity, leakage current certainly is. Leakage current rises exponentially with temperature, approximately doubling for every 10°C increase in maximum junction temperature, which is when transistor switching itself also becomes less efficient. As a consequence, hotter GPUs require higher voltages to sustain clocks, which eventually forces Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) to reduce clocks to remain within thermal limits, which in turn will reduce performance and token generation.

This all leads to a simple conclusion: the better the cooling, the higher the performance and token output. Which is generally right. However, cooling is not as simple, as it depends on multiple factors that can be optimized. Furthermore, for AI data centers, cooling itself is no longer a way to preserve CPUs and accelerators from overheating, but really is a way to maximize their performance and token money generation.

Nvidia designs its platforms around Tj(max) temperature; it is one of the fundamental design constraints for the GPU, package, and cooling solution. This works like this:

• Nvidia specifies a maximum allowable junction temperature (Tj,max limit). This is the temperature the silicon must not exceed during normal operation. The exact value is not always public, but Frore uses 95°C for Rubin in its analysis.
• The GPU continuously monitors its junction temperature using tens or hundreds of on-die thermal sensors, yet power management monitors the hottest region.
• DVFS attempts to maximize performance while staying below the thermal and power limits, so if the GPU has thermal headroom, it can sustain higher clocks or lower voltage. If the junction temperature rises, the firmware gradually adjusts voltage and frequency. If necessary, it throttles to prevent exceeding Tj(max).

The problem is that GPUs operate under several simultaneous limits, such as thermal limit (Tj,max), package power limit, current limit, and voltage limit. Usually, power is reached before thermal. Meanwhile, modern cooling systems are designed to prevent silicon from reaching Tj(max). So, even if Nvidia's GPU never reaches Tj(max), lowering the operating junction temperature still improves efficiency because transistor leakage decreases as temperature falls. This is where Frore and its cooling systems come into play.

According to Frore, leakage power approximately doubles for every 10°C increase in junction temperature, while transistor switching power rises by about 2% over the same temperature range, so lowering operating temperatures is beneficial even when the processor is not thermally throttling.

Thermal resistance

According to Frore, the maximum GPU junction temperature used by hardware makers is directed by a deceptively simple equation:

Tj(max) = Tinlet + Q × Rtotal

where coolant inlet temperature, GPU power, and total thermal resistance determine how hot the silicon can be. Meanwhile, total thermal resistance depends on three major elements: the GPU package itself, the thermal interface material between the package, and the coldplate design. As each layer adds thermal resistance, it increases die temperature and reduces overall token money generation. That said, thermal resistance is becoming a major problem, according to the paper.

Frore claims that delidding the Rubin package dramatically lowers thermal resistance (while this is obvious, I must add again that the paper is based on an analytical thermal model*). According to the paper, an unlidded Rubin package can reduce junction temperature by as much as 20°C compared to one with an integrated heatspreader (IHS), which potentially improves tokens/Watt by up to 35%. Of course, there are disadvantages, as delidded GPUs have lower mechanical reliability. We will talk about it later on. In any case, there are cloud system providers that explore the use of delidded Rubin GPUs to boost their token money generation despite all the risks, according to Frore.

Frore's own contribution is, of course, its coldplate. Conventional coldplates are typically manufactured using skiving, a machining process that creates long, straight microchannels inside a copper block. Frore instead borrows manufacturing techniques from semiconductor fabrication — etching and bonding — to build intricate three-dimensional copper microstructures that address hotspots on the accelerator's silicon. These unique microstructures cannot be produced using traditional machining, at least not cost-efficiently, according to Frore.

Improving efficiency

The LiquidJet design features short microchannels that are etched around hot spots, multiple cooling stages, and flow routing optimized for the GPU's power-density map. According to the company's analysis, this enables a 6°C to 12°C reduction in junction temperature and improves tokens/Watt by 10% to 25% in the case of the Nvidia Rubin GPU*. A roughly 10°C temperature reduction would therefore correspond to about a 15% increase in token generation efficiency, the paper claims.

Frore argues that improved coldplate efficiency changes the economics of facility cooling, which is obviously the most important part of the hyperscalers' consideration. Nvidia designed Rubin to operate with coolant entering at up to 45°C, which enables many AI data centers to rely entirely on 'free' cooling without mechanical chillers. While lowering the inlet temperature can further improve GPU efficiency, doing so only makes economic sense if the energy consumed by the chillers is offset by the resulting increase in money token generation. Meanwhile, because LiquidJet requires a lower coolant flow rate to maintain the same junction temperature, it also reduces the chiller coefficient of performance (COP) required for additional cooling to become worthwhile.

In Frore's example, a Rubin GPU equipped with a conventional skived coldplate requires a chiller COP of approximately 6.7 before colder coolant delivers a net efficiency benefit, whereas LiquidJet lowers the break-even COP to around 4.1, which makes mechanical chilling economically attractive across various deployments.

One interesting thing about Frore's analysis is that its LiquidJet is more efficient on Rubin data center GPUs compared to Blackwell data center GPUs* due to the higher transistor density of the former.

Frore's analysis does not stop at exploring the advantages of its own cooling systems, so the company's analytical thermal model extends to other means by which improved cooling and/or lowered thermal resistance can affect temperatures and therefore money token generation.

One of the most striking claims by Frore concerns Nvidia's upcoming Rubin is that Frore claims that delidding the GPU package — removing the IHS and the graphene TIM placed between the die and the lid — dramatically lowers thermal resistance, which therefore reduces junction temperature by as much as 20°C compared to regular GPUs with IHS, which therefore improves tokens per Watt by up to 35%, according to the model used by Frore.

Meanwhile, mechanical reliability becomes a major concern for delidded GPUs. Without the IHS, the bare Rubin GPU packaged using TSMC's CoWoS-L technology becomes considerably more vulnerable to cracking of bridges that connect the two Rubin dies. In fact, even in the Hopper era, some GPUs literally cracked with certain liquid coolers. Furthermore, maintaining uniform contact pressure across multiple exposed dies is substantially more difficult than in the case of monolithic processors. Nonetheless, there are hyperscalers that are exploring the use of delidded Rubin GPUs to increase their token generation and money output.

Thermal interface materials play an equally important role. By default, Nvidia's Rubin reportedly addresses the thermal penalty of a lidded package by using liquid indium metal TIM with gold-plated contact surfaces. Frore argues that an unlidded package paired with a high-performance phase-change material such as PTM7950 still exhibits lower overall thermal resistance than a lidded package using liquid metal, which turns into as much as a 14°C junction-temperature advantage and up to a 28% increase in money tokens/Watt, according to Frore's model.

Summary

The key point of Frore's white paper is that cooling has become a key determinant of AI data center profitability, as lower GPU junction temperatures improve token generation efficiency rather than 'just' preventing overheating.

In a white paper based on an analytical thermal model, the company claims that its LiquidJet coldplate can lower Nvidia Rubin junction temperatures by 6°C to 12°C and increase tokens/Watt by 10% to 25%, while a 10°C reduction could boost token generation by about 15%.

In addition, the company argues that more efficient coldplates make mechanical chilling economically viable across a wider range of AI data centers as it lowers the break-even chiller efficiency required to offset cooling power consumption.

Finally, Frore claims that delidding Rubin and optimizing thermal interface materials can reduce thermal resistance further and improve tokens/Watt by up to 35%, albeit at the cost of greater mechanical risk for these accelerators.

*It should be noted that Frore's analysis is based on an analytical thermal model rather than experimental results. The paper builds on the thermal resistance equation (Tj = Tinlet + Q × Rtotal), published or assumed operating parameters for Nvidia's Rubin GPU, and the company's own estimates of how different coldplate designs affect thermal resistance.

Following a tariff refund from the United States government, popular PC cooling hardware manufacturer Arctic has announced a price rollback for its products sold in the U.S. The refund was made possible after a February 2026 Supreme Court ruling found that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the President unilateral authority to impose import duties without prior approval from Congress.

• New low prices on Arctic cooling at Amazon

The reduced price will be applicable across Arctic’s direct-to-consumer sales channels in the U.S. and is claimed to be already in effect on Amazon and eBay. In its latest blog post, Arctic said, “When U.S. trade tariffs significantly increased, Arctic proactively absorbed as much of the tariffs as possible to protect our customers. While most of the product lineup remained unaffected, price adjustments became necessary for a limited number of products in the U.S. market. At the time, Arctic committed to reversing those increases if circumstances allowed. “

Notably, the company isn't limiting price reductions only to the products that were affected by tariffs. Instead, it's using the refunded tariff money to lower prices across its entire U.S. product lineup. We did a quick price check on Amazon and found that a range of Arctic PC cooling products have indeed dropped in price. For example, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360mm AIO liquid cooler has fallen to an all-time low of $69.89, its lowest price ever since it launched in the first half of 2025. In our testing, we were impressed by its chart-topping performance even when it retailed for $125.

In addition to the price rollback, the company says that it is investing in community initiatives that support technology education and grassroots PC communities in the United States through hardware donations and technical support.

With this announcement, Arctic has become one of the first PC hardware manufacturers to publicly reverse tariff-related price increases following the landmark Supreme Court judgement. While it remains to be seen whether other component and peripheral makers will follow suit, the move will definitely put pressure on brands that previously cited tariffs as a reason for raising prices in the U.S.

Mechanical pressure serves as a better system to design computers around than natural buoyancy, but a new experiment from der8bauer is attempting to challenge that notion. The legendary modder recently built a chimney to exploit the "stack effect," which uses temperature differences to catalyze natural convection to the point where it becomes effective again. As a result, the CPU in his test bench saw temperatures drop by 19 degrees Celsius without any fans.

The video above explains the concept of the stack effect pertaining to its foundation, natural convection, in great detail. Also known as the chimney effect, it relies on differences in indoor-to-outdoor air density, which are dictated by differences in temperature and humidity. The bottom of the chimney becomes a low-pressure zone, sucking in cold air that escapes through the low-pressure exit at the top.

In the experiment, der8auer uses a fog machine to show how a radiator can't "pull" air without fans attached to it; the hot air dissipating from the other side is forced to fall back on natural convection. The test bench was water-cooled and consisted of an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, so he added a temperature probe to the fittings to monitor the water temp as well. The experiment then begins with the first 3D-printed chimney that's 10cm tall — it barely works, but temps already start to drop by 0.5 degrees.

At this point, the water was at 61°C and der8auer added another 20cm chimney atop the previous one, making the enclosure 30cm tall in total. This made the temps drop by another 5 degrees over a 30-minute stabilization period. The fog machine didn't really show any difference in the airflow, however. Now, it was time for the big boy: an 80cm tall chimney made up of 4x 20cm parts, bringing the total height to 110cm.

Right away, temperatures began dropping below 55°C before the modder could even set up his camera for the ultrawide framing this setup warranted. Just five minutes later, the water had hit 50°C, but the visual demonstration really sealed the deal. Turning on the fog machine underneath the radiator showed air being pulled through the chimney as if there were fans facilitating airflow on top.

The CPU temperatures had peaked at 90°C previously, but the "big tower" had now brought them down to just 71°C, as reported by HWiNFO. The experiment was a raging success. The video ends with der8auer actually tying the stack effect back to how we use fans in modern PCs to synthesize air pressure, since they achieve the same goal — a pressure differential — just more reasonably. So, unless you want to redefine what a tower PC means, sticking to regular, boring old fans is enough.

A PC gamer has DIYed a passive Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card system. Perhaps unhappy with the Palit GeForce RTX 3050 KalmX 6GB still being the pinnacle of commercial passive graphics cards in 2026, Bilibili user NexFrame (h/t Fanless Tech) has bolted a hulking finned aluminum heatsink onto an RTX 4060.

NexFrame appears to be a small or up-and-coming ‘brand’ with a penchant for passive PC systems, from what we can understand from their Bilibili bio (machine translation). Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information about this passive 5.5-pound (2.5kg) aluminum heatsink-wearing RTX 4060, like whether it is tuned to run cooler than a standard model for fanless operation.

Squinting at the Bilibili video source, a system monitor window seen towards the end of the video appears to show that the GPU is running in a gaming scenario at 58C, with a 71C hotspot. Meanwhile, the graphics fan is running at 0 RPM, which seems accurate. However, the modder doesn’t seem to be taking it easy on the GPU. Further down the system info screen, we see the GPU reportedly pulling 198W. A standard actively cooled RTX 4060 would consume far less than that under load, more like 115W to 120W, so some data must be mangled here, or being misreported.

Elsewhere in the images shared by NexFrame, we can see that the CPU is also being cooled passively. It looks like a hexacore Intel CPU has been combined with a Noctua NH-P1 Passive CPU cooler. This commercial passive cooler was capable of keeping a CPU consuming up to 75W cool and stable enough over extended periods during our review testing. The system monitor tool overlaid on NexFrame’s game testing session shows the CPU sipping between 35 and 50W.

Passively cooled PCs are of interest to a significant number of enthusiasts for eliminating what is typically the noisiest component of a modern PC – fans. In a standard gaming PC, there will be fans built into the CPU cooler, on the GPU shroud, in the PSU, and also arranged at strategic places around the case. Even so-called liquid cooling systems usually rely on their CPU or GPU contact heatsinks being attached to an array of fans cooling a radiator in the case. Just think how blissfully peaceful your computing experience could be if all these moving parts were eliminated.

TrashBench recently decided to test whether adding more and more fans to what used to be one of the best graphics cards would improve its performance. The result wasn’t significantly faster performance, sadly, even when the thermal headroom was used for overclocking (vs. stock OC). Nevertheless, lessons were learned, and the self-described “punk-rock GPU death lab” was still proud of the temperature reductions, plus the GPU contraption's “awesome” looks and sounds.

The experiment began with an overview of the Asus ROG GeForce RTX 3080, a nice example of the breed. But it was a choice that would perhaps end up making the 11-fan wonder look like less of an accomplishment. TrashBench stated the goal was to add more and more fans, plus duct tape and cable ties, then see whether the reduced temperatures from the boosted airflow result in more frames.

After cleaning and repasting the guinea pig GPU, a baseline was set with the stock cooler. Running 100% fan speed on the Asus ROG resulted in a stable temperature of 63°C (down from 70°C) during stress testing with the Unigine Heaven benchmark.

Replacing the Asus ROG cooling shroud with a trio of Arctic case fans dropped the reported GPU temperatures to a stable 52 degrees Celsius. That’s a decent result. Next, the trio of case fans was swapped for thicker server fans, shaving another 2 degrees Celsius off the GPU temperature, bringing it to 50 degrees Celsius precisely. Duct tape was added to prevent air venting from the sides of the server fans. Oops, the GPU temperature actually stabilized at a warmer 54 degrees Celsius.

So, that was the end of fans-at-the-front modifications. TrashBench next looked at adding a quintet of tiny Arctic server fans that run at up to 15,000 RPM along the top of the card. This jet-engine-soundalike configuration didn’t shift the needle, though. The RTX 3080 still wouldn’t hold below 50 degrees Celsius when tested for any length of time.

Trying backplate fans was the next idea. After another ineffective endeavor, though, TrashBench decided to upgrade the backplate fan to an AiO 360mm cooler. Wow - a new best was recorded with this setup, with the GPU reporting a top stable temperature of just 41 degrees Celsius in Heaven.

Momentarily happy with this low-temperature achievement, the tech tinkerer decided to check whether benchmark runs in Shadow of the Tomb Raider showed any benefit. There were some performance uplifts charted, but only very modest, as you can see from our results table, which even includes cases where the newfound overclocking headroom was taken advantage of.

TrashBench concluded with some positives. “It nearly cut the temperatures in half. It looks awesome. It sounds awesome,” underlined our hardware hacking hero. However, the tech tinkerer kept it real by adding “And it got me 2 FPS. So, not worth it.” In some ways, then, the good quality of the stock triple-fan Asus ROG RTX 3080 graphics card detracted from the 11 extra-fan hijinks.

ASRock is well known among PC enthusiasts for its graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, and gaming monitors. Now, it has entered the market for liquid cooling solutions.

We’re looking at two of the company’s first AIOs here, the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and Steel Legend 360 LCD. Both of these liquid coolers feature 3.4-inch 480 x 480 displays for showing off animations and monitoring performance metrics. Aside from aesthetics, the main differences between the two are the included fans and radiator size. The Steel Legend 360 incorporates a standard 27 mm thick radiator, whereas the Phantom Gaming 360 uses a thicker-than-normal 32 mm radiator.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the coolers, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks and decide whether ASRock’s Phantom Gaming and Steel Legend AIOs deserve to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of ASRock Phantom Gaming & Steel Legend 360 LCD

▶️ 60hz 3.4-inch LCD display

Both the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and the Steel Legend 360 LCD include a 3.4-inch square IPS screen with a 480 x 480 resolution and 60 Hz refresh rate, with brightness rated at 250 nits.

To control and customize the screen, you’ll need to download ASRock’s Polychrome Display software. You have the option of selecting six preset themes, or you can build your own theme, and/or customize the individual elements shown on the display.

While I certainly wish there were more presets available, my biggest complaint using this software is the extreme file compatibility limits. If you’d like to upload a custom background, the image or video file needs to be less than 20 megabytes and 1080p or lower in resolution.

▶️ RAM Clearance

As with most liquid coolers, the design of both the Steel Legend and Phantom Gaming 360 has the CPU block set so it doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots – ensuring that all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible.

▶️ VRM fan

Included on top of the CPU block is a 70 mm, 3,000 RPM fan designed to help keep your RAM and motherboard’s VRM modules cool. As you’ll see in our Karhu benchmarks, it does an excellent job of cooling these parts of your computer.

▶️ Thick CPU cold plate

The copper contact plate is unusually thick, like you’d more typically see in an AIO supporting AMD Threadripper or Intel Xeon server CPUs.

Differences between the ASRock Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and Steel Legend 360 LCD

▶️ Color schemes and aesthetic

While they are similar in many ways, each of these AIOs has a different aesthetic, similar to what you’d see in the company’s motherboard lines. The Steel Legend might appeal to those who prefer simpler designs, with a white body and gray fan blades.

If you want flashy lighting, the Phantom Gaming 360 might be your thing. In addition to ARGB lighting on the fan blades, it also includes a lighting strip across the side of the radiator.

▶️ Radiator sizes: 32 mm and 27 mm

There are two primary technical differences between the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD and the Steel Legend 360 LCD; one of those is the radiator size. The Steel Legend 360 LCD has a standard 27 mm radiator, whereas the Phantom Gaming 360 features a thicker 32 mm radiator.

▶️ 120 mm fans

There’s more to a liquid cooler than just the radiator and liquid pump. The included fans directly impact noise levels and cooling performance. This constitutes the second primary technical difference between the AIOs we’re reviewing today.

Both units include fans that are 28 mm thick and pre-installed for user convenience. The Steel Legend 360 features three individual 120 mm fans, with a white shell and gray blades.

The Phantom Gaming includes a fancier fan block instead of individual fans, and features ARGB lighting on the fan blades and a strip across the radiator. These fans aren’t as powerful – or as noisy – as the fans included with the Steel Legend, but this is balanced by the thicker 32 mm radiator included on the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD.

Packaging

The outer packaging is a bit flashy – at least, in comparison to your normal AIO box. It features a rendering of the cooler against a black background with streaks of purple hues.

The inner packaging is just as fresh as the outside, with each component of the cooling system well protected from the chaos that shipping can bring by using a combination of soft covers and individual cardboard walls for each component.

Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Tubing clips
• A small tube of thermal paste
• 360 mm radiator and 120 mm fans
• 3.4-inch LCD display

AM5 Installation

This section assumes you’ve already mounted the 360 mm radiator. Installation of AIOs is typically much easier when you have already secured the radiator to your computer case.

To begin putting things together, you’ll first need to remove the default AM4/5 retention from the motherboard.

The next step is to place the mounting bars on top of the studs, securing them with the included screws. The middle of the mounting bars includes a helpful image indicating the direction the bars should be installed, with an arrow pointing towards where the CPU should be.

Now you’ll want to apply the included thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

Afterwards, place the pump block against the CPU and mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it. You should have the liquid tubing in the south position for best thermal performance.

The next step is to slide the LCD display on top of the VRM fan. To complete the AIO’s installation, you’ll want to connect the USB, PWM, and ARGB headers as appropriate – then you can power on your system.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some also use generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the Flova F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent.

The thermals of both ASRock AIOs are excellent, able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under its peak temperature (TJ Max) in Cinebench R23 with PBO enabled – allowing for the best possible benchmark performance. Of particular note is the performance of ASRock’s Steel Legend 360; it maintained an average of 61.5C over ambient (83.5C), the best result we’ve seen on this test bench.

Some coolers perform well in maximum strength tests, but require running loudly to maintain said performance. The ASRock AIOs we tested reach 46.9 and 47.8 dBA, which is about average for most liquid coolers on the market.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

When a standard power limit is imposed, the thermal differences between the two ASRock coolers close, with both coolers performing about the same. I measured 47.3 and 47.9 degrees over ambient, giving them the third- and fourth-best performing results from this test bench.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

ASRock’s Steel Legend stood out in this test, outperforming all other competitors, with an average temperature of 57.4 C (35.4 C above ambient). The Phantom Gaming AIO also performed well, taking the fourth-place spot.

But thermals are only part of the story. Noise levels, especially when you’re gaming, are far more important here. When tied to my motherboard’s default fan curve, ASRock’s Steel Legend 360 had a noise level measured at 39.2 dBA. The Phantom Gaming 360 LCD was just a hair louder, measuring 39.6 dBA.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

With recordings of 258.8 and 258.2W average CPU power consumption, ASRock’s AIOs perform essentially on par with each other while noise-normalized.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

DDR5 temperatures were excellent in this test, with averages of 20.9 C (Steel Legend) and 21.5 C (Phantom Gaming) recorded. Of the AIOs I’ve tested on this configuration, only Silverstone’s IceMyst Pro with its unique stackable fans performs better.

We’ve also included a chart showing the CPU temperatures in this test, and thermal performance was strong – outperforming air coolers by ~5 degrees C. But I haven’t recorded this data for other AIOs yet.

Conclusion

ASRock’s Steel Legend 360 LCD and Phantom Gaming 360 LCD are both strong coolers, well suited to heat-intensive CPUs like AMD’s Ryzen 9950X3D or Intel’s Core i9-14900K.

Of the two ASRock AIOs, I would recommend the Steel Legend 360 LCD for users who want the best thermal performance possible (and a lower price tag). It might lack the thicker 32 mm radiator included with the Phantom Gaming 360 LCD, but its included fans are stronger, and as a result provide lower CPU temperatures and quieter noise levels in common scenarios. Still, at around $160, the Steel Legend is far from the most affordable AIO with a display, and it’s only available in white.

Researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a programmable thermal device that can control where heat is radiated while remembering its configuration even after power is removed, a capability that could one day contribute to smarter thermal management in high-performance chips, silicon photonics, infrared sensors, and energy-harvesting systems. The work, published in Laser & Photonics Reviews, overcomes two longstanding obstacles that have prevented the practical realization of nonreciprocal thermal devices.

The device combines a magneto-optical material — a material that changes its optical properties in the presence of a magnetic field — with a phase-change material known as germanium-antimony-tellurium (GST) to independently control how a surface absorbs and emits infrared radiation. Unlike previous designs that lost their functionality once power was removed or only worked when light struck the surface at extreme angles, the researchers say their device operates almost straight on while retaining its programmed state without continuous energy input.

Under normal circumstances, materials follow a principle stating that if a surface efficiently absorbs heat at a particular wavelength and direction, it must also emit heat equally well under the same conditions. This relationship, defined by Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation, holds for conventional materials and limits how precisely engineers can manipulate heat. Rather than directing thermal energy where it is most useful, these materials simply emit heat based on how they absorb it.

Circumventing this relationship has become an active area of research, as it could give engineers an entirely new way to control thermal energy. Devices capable of independently steering absorption and emission could improve radiative cooling, thermophotovoltaic systems that convert heat into electricity, infrared sensing, thermal communication, and other photonic technologies where controlling heat is just as important as controlling light.

Researchers have explored several ways to achieve this by breaking Lorentz reciprocity, the physical principle that links incoming and outgoing electromagnetic waves. Most approaches rely on magneto-optical materials, magnetic Weyl semimetals, or actively modulated metasurfaces. However, these designs have generally encountered two major problems. First, they require light to strike the surface at very oblique, or grazing, angles to produce strong directional behavior. While this works experimentally, it significantly reduces the amount of usable thermal radiation and produces broad, inefficient emission patterns. Second, many existing designs are volatile. Their behavior disappears as soon as the magnetic field, electrical signal, or heating source controlling them is removed, making continuous power necessary simply to maintain their operating state.

The Osaka Metropolitan University team tackled both limitations by combining two materials that perform complementary roles. The first is indium arsenide (InAs), a magneto-optical semiconductor whose interaction with infrared light changes in the presence of a magnetic field. Rather than allowing light to behave identically in all directions, the material introduces a directional asymmetry that enables nonreciprocal thermal behavior. The second ingredient is GST, a phase-change material that can reversibly switch between amorphous and crystalline states, dramatically changing its optical properties while retaining whichever state it is written into, even after power is removed.

The researchers patterned GST into a microscopic grating above the InAs layer, forming what they describe as a magneto-optical metagrating. The InAs provides the directional control needed to separate heat absorption from heat emission, while the GST layer acts as a non-volatile switch that stores the device's operating mode. Applying a magnetic field tunes how infrared radiation interacts with the structure, while changing the phase of the GST permanently alters that behavior until it is intentionally rewritten. In effect, the device can be programmed to emit heat differently and retain that configuration without requiring continuous energy.

According to the researchers, the prototype achieved a nonreciprocity factor approaching 0.9 while operating at an incidence angle of just three degrees, much closer to normal incidence than the steep angles typically required by previous designs. The system also supports continuous tuning via changes in the magnetic field or incident angle, as well as digital on-off switching via the GST phase transition. The team further analyzed why the nonreciprocal effect weakens when GST changes state, concluding that the reduction results from a combination of optical field redistribution and increased damping rather than simple absorption losses alone.

Although the technology remains an early-stage research demonstration, the ability to program thermal radiation could eventually become valuable in computing hardware as processors continue to pack more transistors, chiplets, and photonic components into increasingly compact packages. Future thermal metasurfaces could give engineers another tool for directing heat away from hotspots, reducing thermal interference between neighboring chiplets, or stabilizing silicon photonic devices whose optical characteristics shift with temperature.

Beyond computing, the researchers also envision applications in radiative cooling, thermophotovoltaic energy conversion, infrared emitters, thermal communication systems, and photonic memory technologies. For now, however, the work remains a laboratory demonstration rather than a deployable technology. Considerable engineering challenges remain before programmable thermal emitters find their way into commercial electronics.

We're enduring a particularly hot summer in the northern hemisphere, so it is understandable if powerful, pint-sized PCs are getting relatively toasty during long gaming sessions. However, Valve has confirmed that the Steam Machine's red light bar warning is bugged and being triggered prematurely. Redditor Pure-Outcome-5977 shared a Steam Support message that appears to confirm that a BIOS fix is on the way to raise the temperature and throttling red light warning threshold for the CPU/GPU from 95/90 to 100/100 degrees Celsius.

There appears to be a little miscommunication going on between the Redditor and Steam Support. Pure-Outcome-5977’s red warning light was coming on with system monitor tools showing the CPU was at 81°C and the GPU at 71°C. So the red light bar warning trigger temperatures of 95/90°C seem to be bugged. Thus, they got an answer to a slightly different issue than the one they raised.

“After discussing with our engineers, there is a known issue with the current BIOS that results in the red LED lights displaying much earlier than they should,” admits the Steam Support person in the message screenshot. “The issue is just with when the lights are set to come on. The Steam Machine itself is within normal operating temperature for the CPU/GPU, which they confirmed from your screenshots. For your awareness, the Steam machine will start throttling performance at 100C for CPU/GPU and will shut down to protect itself if temperatures rise past that.”

Importantly, this premature red warning light is just a temporary wrinkle that will be fixed soon via a BIOS update, adds Steam / Valve. After the update, red light warnings will only be seen after hitting a threshold of “100/100C for CPU/GPU instead of 95/90 for CPU/GPU that is currently happening,” concluded the official support message.

The nearest desktop alternative to the Steam Machine’s CPU, something like the Ryzen 5 7500F, has a TDP of 65W and a max operating temperature of 95°C. However, Valve uses a custom mobile-tuned 30W CPU, which is configured to throttle at 100°C and self-protect shutdown if temperatures continue to rise, hitting 105°C.

We don’t have a set date for the arrival of the new Steam Machine BIOS, but “soon” should be good enough for most users.

The Steam Machine’s light bar has previously been in media focus, being central to stories about the device suffering from a ‘Red Line of Death’ (RLOD). Happily, the pronouncement of death in that case was also premature. RLOD Steam Machines can be reanimated Lazarus-like by following a simple and officially described CMOS reset procedure (read more via the above link).

What makes Cooler Master’s new V4 Alpha and V8 Ace 3DHP air coolers stand out against their competitors? Well, it’s in the name of the product – the company’s new 3DHP (3D heatpipe) technology represents a serious advancement in cooling.

Traditional copper heatpipes are typically formed in a “U” shape, and work well enough in most scenarios. But Cooler Master’s 3DHP heatpipes look more like a trident, with three ends instead of two. There’s more to the tech, which we will cover in more detail below.

Additionally, the V8 Ace 3DHP features two of the strongest fans we’ve ever tested from a Cooler Master product, with liquid crystal polymer blades and backed by a six-year warranty.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of these coolers. Then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks to decide if the V4 Alpha and V8 Ace 3DHP air coolers are good enough to make our list of the best CPU coolers we’ve tested.

Cooler specifications

Features of Cooler Master’s V4 Alpha and V8 Ace

▶️ Innovative 3DHP Heatpipes

Both the V4 Alpha and V8 Ace are powered by Cooler Master’s innovative 3DHP heatpipe technology. To simplify things somewhat, while most heatpipes are “U” shaped, with one prong of each heatpipe on the left and right sides of a heatsink, 3D heatpipes add a prong in the middle to give it more of a trident shape, enhancing the efficiency of thermal transfer.

Traditional heatpipe setups don’t usually fully saturate the fins of a heatsink, only providing 70% fin utilization, according to Cooler Master. This makes sense, as you’ll often see that temperatures continue to rise in extended-length cooler testing as the fins become more fully saturated. Cooler Master claims that with its 3D heatpipes, fin utilization is increased to 95% or more. We’ll see how that plays out in our benchmark testing shortly.

▶️ RAM Clearance

RAM compatibility is excellent with both of these coolers. The V4 Alpha doesn’t overhang or interfere with RAM DIMMs at all, allowing for compatibility with all sizes of DDR4 or DDR5 DIMMs.

The V8 also has wide RAM compatibility. Its intake fan does overhang the DIMM slots, but if your RAM is particularly tall – like our T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7200 featured below – the sliding rail system allows you to easily adjust fan position, so things fit properly. We had to raise the fan by a few millimeters for proper clearance, but I think the sticks I’m using are about the tallest on the market, at 48.8mm height. Officially, RAM up to 45mm in height is supported.

▶️ 30mm thick Liquid Crystal Polymer fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink. The included fans have a direct impact on aesthetics, noise levels, and overall thermal performance. The fans on the V8 Ace 3DHP are made for longevity, built with liquid crystal polymer (LCP) blades and loop dynamic fan bearings.

They come pre-installed with a sliding rail system, allowing for simple installation and height adjustment.

▶️ Aesthetics

You might notice the top of the V8 Ace 3DHP looks like it has eight gigantic heatpipes – but note they’re not actually real heatpipes. Does that mean it’s only decorative, and serves no real purpose? I wouldn’t say that. The “fake” heatpipes here seem to be made from metal and are cold to the touch, indicating that they do have the ability to absorb heat.

I decided to take the cooler apart for a better look at this piece, and it appears the primary function is actually to prevent air leakage. If you look closely at the picture below, you’ll see the fans are slightly taller than the heatsink. If that’s not a concern for you and you prefer an “old-fashioned” look that shows the ends of the copper heatpipes, the cooler works just fine without the top, though you’ll lose a small amount of thermal efficiency.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging highlights the design of the product in a colorful but subtle way, incorporating a purple background on the top and black on the bottom.

Pulling on the purple tab in the front reveals the fanciest inner packaging I’ve ever seen for an air cooler, seemingly designed for store displays.

Intel and AMD-specific models

Cooler Master sells versions of these coolers labeled specifically for Intel or AMD CPUs. We tested the AMD model with our 9950X3D. Both versions do come with mounting hardware for platforms from both companies, so you could install, say, an Intel-specific version of this cooler on an AM4 or AM5 CPU / motherboard.

But a Cooler Master rep told us that the AMD version has a flatter IHS, while the Intel version is more convex, to make the best contact with CPUs from each platform. The V8 Ace reportedly also has different internal liquid volumes to best target heat on each platform. We're told both versions target the same performance metrics, but you should use the correct cooler for your platform for the best results – as we did when running our benchmarks, shown below.

Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• 120mm fans
• Cryofuze thermal paste
• Installation manual

▶️ V8 Ace 3DHP AM5 Installation

To begin putting things together, you’ll first need to remove the default AM4/5 retention bracket. Next, place the studs over the exposed holes.

Afterwards, take the mounting bars and secure them with the included screws.

It’s time to apply the thermal compound. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

After thermal paste is applied, take the CPU block and press it against the mounting bars, using the built-in screws to secure it in place.

Finally, you’ll want to attach both fans by sliding them into the rail system built into the cooler, then connect their cables to the motherboard’s PWM header.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X in the past year. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

For now we’ve returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent and consume over 260W. Enabling PBO enables high power consumption and heat output, when using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard the CPU will reach its TJ Max (peak temperature) of 95 degrees Celsius (203 Fahrenheit) and thermally throttle to some extent with most coolers. When this throttling occurs, I’ve measured the average power consumption to determine performance.

You’ll notice there are two results for Cooler Master’s V8 Ace 3DHP, one marked with an asterisk. I wanted to include a test to see if there’s any point to using stronger or more powerful fans. When we tested the first iteration of Cooler Master’s 3DHP technology in the Hyper 212 3DHP, replacing the default fans with Montech’s flagship E28 fans resulted in ~5% better thermal performance.

Fortunately, the fans included with the V8 are strong enough to extract the maximum thermal potential of the 3DHP technology – the results are basically on par with the best coolers on the market.

The included fans are also a bit different than your average 120x25mm PC fan, measuring 30mm thick. At 45.6 dBA, their maximum noise level is audible, but those who prefer silence will be satisfied with our noise-normalized results.

The V4 Alpha’s thermal performance might not seem impressive at first glance, until you consider its noise level. Measuring at a maximum of 38.9 dBA, it is the quietest cooler we’ve tested in over a year.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

Thermal results in this scenario were similar to our first test, with Cooler Master’s V8 Ace taking second place. The V4 Alpha’s results were on the low end of our charts, but that’s more or less to be expected with its quiet, low-power fans.

150W + GPU thermal results

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

You’ll see there are two results for Cooler Master’s V8 Ace: the result in blue was obtained after pairing the heatsink with Montech’s flagship E28 fans, which are extremely strong. The result in red was testing performed with the default fans included.

This test highlights the one “weakness” of Cooler Master’s 3DHP lineup – the reduced fin area results in worse thermal results when the internal temperature of the computer case is higher, such as you’d see in warmer environments or when your GPU is being fully utilized (like in gaming.)

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

This test is especially difficult because in addition to the reduced noise from the CPU cooler, our current test bench’s system fans are configured to run extremely silently, below the floor of the noise meter I use to measure dBA.

Most coolers can’t keep the CPU from reaching its peak temperature (TJ Max) in this stress test. Cooler Master’s V8 Ace did especially well here, with the second-best result we’ve ever recorded. The V4 Alpha’s results aren’t as impressive at first glance, until you remember that it is powered by only two heatpipes – it outperforms other coolers with four to six heatpipes!

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing!

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

Both of Cooler Master’s 3DHP coolers performed exceptionally well in this RAM thermal test. The V8 Ace outperformed all competing dual-tower air coolers, and the V4 Alpha tied with Arctic’s Freezer 36-S for the best results we’ve seen that don’t include a dedicated RAM fan!

Conclusion

Cooler Master’s V8 Ace is an engineering masterpiece, using two 3D heatpipes and four standard copper heatpipes, combined with a single-tower heatsink to deliver thermal performance that beats most dual-tower heatsinks with eight heatpipes. Installation is simple, and noise levels are reasonable.

There’s not much more you could want in a cooler – except for a lower price. But as with all new cutting-edge technology, there’s an early adopter tax with a price tag of $119.99 for the V8 Ace. If you’re looking for a similarly powerful cooler with a lower price tag, I’d recommend Thermalright’s Royal Pretor 130. Alternatively, if you want a less-powerful, more-affordable option that incorporates Cooler Master’s three-pronged heatpipe tech, the Hyper 212 3DHP also impressed us in testing, and costs around $25. And of course there's the middle-ground V4 Alpha, which we also tested here and found to be one of the quietest air coolers you can buy. That model has a list price of $49, but was selling for $44 at Amazon when this was published.

I look forward to testing future products as Cooler Master continues to refine and improve its 3DHP manufacturing processes. I can imagine a future iteration of this technology will empower an air cooler stronger than anything previously possible.

Windows development guru Dave W. Plummer has shared a brief video demonstrating a novel cooling solution for his AMD Threadripper chipset. While not a real solution to an overheating chipset, the physics behind the Stirling Engine suggest that it does something, as it clearly converts waste heat energy to power a piston propelling a flywheel. We found what looks like the same Stirling Engine on Amazon for $39.99, and there’s currently a $10 off coupon if you feel like giving this chipset cooling tech a spin for yourself.

Patented in 1816 by Robert Stirling, the eponymous engine was positioned as a safer alternative to the steam engines of the day. It found some niche applications in water pumping and domestic tasks. Nowadays, the technology is useful in the fields of solar power, CHP, cryocooling, and submarine applications.

Briefly, a Stirling Engine converts heat energy to mechanical work. A heat source causes its gas piston (attached to a heatsink here) to expand, and that turns the flywheel, cooling the gas (reducing pressure). Momentum continues the flywheel cycle, and we get quite an efficient energy conversion going on. “The Stirling engine is characterized by its closed-cycle process involving a fixed amount of gas. The basic components include a heat source, a heat sink, a power piston, and a displacer piston,” explains Modern Physics, somewhat more scientifically. “The engine operates in four main phases: isothermal expansion, cooling at constant volume, isothermal compression, and heating at constant volume.”

You can see Plummer get the flywheel started right at the beginning of the video to help the process begin. In the Amazon listing for the Sunnytech Low Temperature Stirling Engine Motor Steam Heat Education Model Toy Kit For mechanical skills (LT001), you can see what looks like an identical item perched atop a hot beverage, as its power source. The listing suggests that the flywheel will spin up to about 200 RPM in a 20C/68F environment when placed on top of a hot cup of coffee. One Amazon user reports that the engine is sensitive enough to spin up from just the heat of your hand. In that case, a Threadripper motherboard chipset should definitely be enough.

We’d like to see Plummer share some chipset temperature details from before and after the Stirling Engine ‘installation.’ Also, we can see him running Cinebench on his 32-core, 64-thread AMD Threadripper 3970X right at the beginning of the video clip. Did it improve his benchmark scores? I guess we will probably find out in a longer-form video on the legendary dev Dave’s Garage YouTube channel.

The latest CPU cooler air cooler from Taiwanese manufacturer Montech PC is the NX600, a budget air cooler that incorporates six copper heatpipes to transfer heat from the CPU to the fin plates.

What sets the NX600 apart from the competition is the inclusion of two high-performance, thick E28 fans. And the price is right, at less than $30, which makes the purchase arguably worth it even if you’re only interested in the fans (and not the heatsink).

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the cooler, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks so you can decide if the NX-600 deserves to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of Montech’s NX600 air cooler

● Dual-tower heatsink with six heatpipes

Six copper heatpipes transfer heat from the CPU contact plate to the fins of the heatsink. The heatsink features serrated edges – an engineering choice which generally results in lower noise from turbulence as air enters and exits the fin stack. There are interlocking “zipper” tabs on the sides of the fins, which improve structural rigidity and prevent the plates from squishing together to ensure proper airflow.

● Dual 120mm E28 performance fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink. The included fans directly impact on noise levels and cooling performance. The E28 fans are especially powerful, as we discovered in our review of Cooler Master’s Hyper 212 3DHP – dropping temperatures by over 3 degrees C compared to the default fan included with the 3DHP air cooler!

● Color scheme options

The color scheme of the NX600 model included in this review is black, grey, and silver, which might appeal to users who prefer old-school designs. There’s also a white option, shown below. ARGB and non-ARGB fan options are available with both heatsink designs, for about $5 more.

The top covers of the heatsink are mainly decorative, and can be removed if you so desire – as shown in the picture below.

● RAM Clearance

Standard-height DDR5 sticks 40mm tall fit well under the NX600 with the E28 fans installed, but taller sticks won’t fit perfectly underneath. Our current CPU cooler test bench incorporates TeamGroup’s Sakura Rose T-Force Xtreem DDR5-7200 sticks, 48.8mm (1.92 inches) tall.

If you also use taller RAM DIMMs, you’ll have to raise the intake fan’s placement by a few millimeters for things to fit properly. This might result in slightly lower cooling performance in certain scenarios, particularly those where the fans’ speeds are limited to ensure lower noise levels.

● Packaging

The heatsink towers are protected by soft coverings and foam inserts, with the fans and accessories packaged in cardboard. Included in the package are the dual-tower heatsink, two high-performance E28 fans, mounting hardware for Intel and AMD platforms, fan clips, and a small tube of thermal paste.

● AM5 Installation

You’ll need to first remove the default AM4/5 retention mechanism and then place the mounting studs around the exposed screw holes.

The next step is to place the mounting bars on top of the studs, securing them with the included screws.

Then, apply Montech’s thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a hadny thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use. Afterwards, place the heatsink tower against the CPU and mounting bars, and use a screwdriver to secure it.

Once the heatsink is secured, attach the high-performance E28 fans to the cooling tower with the included clips. Lastly, connect the PWM and (optional) ARGB cables of the fans to the corresponding headers of your motherboard.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform:

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU.

The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test coolers on an open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent.

Results from the liquid coolers we’ve recently tested aren’t shown above because they are able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under TJ Max – and as such, power consumption figures aren’t quite comparable.

Montech’s NX600 does fairly well in this test. While it is technically beaten by Sudokoo’s SK700V & DeepCool’s AK620 G2, it only falls behind by a few watts. This means benchmarks will basically be the same, as any scaling gained from raising power consumption to 251W (compared to 248W) would be so small as to be irrelevant.

To give a wider variety of comparison examples, I’ve included a chart of the same tests from our last AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D cooling test bench. But keep in mind these results aren’t 100% comparable, due to a different case and fans being used. Our newest test bench used for this and other recent reviews incorporates a Tryx crossblade intake fan as well as a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan, which results in better air cooling performance.

Montech’s NX600 performs well, but a large part of that comes from the inclusion of its flagship E28 fans, which are a bit overpowered compared to the included dual-tower heatsink. As such, at full fan speeds, this cooler does not run at all quietly – with a measurement of 50dBA, it is the loudest air cooler I’ve ever tested.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

The result here was curious, as with a “stock” power profile, its thermal performance was not as strong as our previous test.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

Montech’s NX600 did particularly well with this combined CPU and GPU thermal test; the included E28 fans seemed especially effective in helping to push the GPU’s heat outside of the case.

But again, the cooling potential provided by the E28 fans comes at the cost of noise – with the NX600 averaging 44.6 dBA. Between our current (shown above) and former (shown below) testing setup, this result is the third-loudest we’ve seen from any air cooler on this test.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU.

The results here were not impressive for the Montech. Perhaps the thermal transfer from the NX600’s CPU coldplate and copper heatpipes is not ideal, as performance should be better with these flagship E28 fans.

Another factor to consider when evaluating this benchmark is that my test bench utilizes DDR5 DIMMs that are 49mm tall – which requires lifting the front intake fan a few millimeters to fit. The particularly poor noise-normalized performance may be the result of reduced performance when the fans are set to lower noise levels and rotation speeds.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing!

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

The DDR5 temperature recordings from this test seem to be within expectations compared to other dual-tower air coolers, with Montech’s NX600 performing only 1.2 degrees C behind the best dual-tower air cooler in our setup.

Conclusion

Montech’s NX600 generally performs well, and has a very reasonable price of only $29.90, which makes purchasing this cooler worth it even if you’re “only” interested in the fans.

On the flipside, the included E28 fans seem overpowered compared to the heatsink, resulting in high noise levels during moderate to intensive workloads. If you’re looking for a quietly running system, you should consider alternatives like SAMA’s E360 air cooler instead.

The world is getting warmer every year due to worsening climate change. If you live in certain parts of the world affected by El Nino, you're likely seeing your devices overheat right now if you live without an air conditioner. So, what if you could devise a solution to keep your computer cool regardless of ambient temps? That's precisely what YouTuber TrashBench did by altering a standard countertop ice machine to work as a GPU cooler.

We've covered TrashBench's escapades before, such as that time they used car antifreeze to cool a GPU, or when they put the entire test bench inside a freezer, or even the video where they dunked the entire graphics card into transmission fluid. In this case, the idea of using an ice machine actually came from fellow modder MrYeester who already cooled a CPU with a smaller one — now, it was time to take the concept to another level.

The YouTuber began by disassembling an RTX 3060; he removed the stock cooler and mounted a custom retention frame over the die to fit the liquid-cooling tubes. He then put a submersible water pump inside the ice machine and simply filled it up with water to create the loop. The hot water from the GPU falls into the bucket where it should be cooled before being looped back to the card.

Just for the sake of it, the modder tested the GPU without turning the ice machine on and it actually achieved around 44°C in benchmarks. The temperature wouldn't stabilize because nothing is cooling the water, so he turns on the machine, and the temps actually fall by more than 10 degrees. However, the GPU is heating up faster than the water can cool it down because the ice machine is on a fixed clock cycle.

Basically, the compressor only runs for a few seconds at a time before turning back off once the ice has been discharged into the water. This interval is controlled by a thermostat that can't be adjusted, so it was time to rip it out entirely and replace it with another one. TrashBench luckily had another one that will bypass the internal logic and force the compressor to stay on perpetually.

But just running the compressor longer doesn't result in better cooling. The evaporator coils are responsible for facilitating the heat exchange and they weren't submerged enough in the water. To fix this, the YouTuber simply put a small plastic bowl under the coils to the point they were completely drowned. Hot water coming from the GPU will now hit the evaporator, which helps improve the cooling efficiency, while the new thermostat ensures the compressor doesn't turn off.

Once everything was ready, TrashBench ran the numbers once again and the results were a success, to say the least. Before the modding began, the RTX 3060 was reaching around 60°C in Cyberpunk 2077. Now, it was casually chilling at 22-23°C, and it was stable. The GPU hot spot was sitting at 75°C before, while the modified ice machine brought it all the way down to just 34°C.

There were some leaks in the middle that the YouTuber dealt with, and the entire modding process was a bit too involved for a quick and fun experiment. Not to mention, messing with the internal componentry of an electrical device that's carrying water isn't exactly the safest thing to do. Still, the results speak for themselves, and we can only wonder how far you could take this RTX 3060 now with extreme overclocking.

For a very long time, many of us have been begging Noctua to build a liquid cooler. In a time when CPUs are becoming ever more powerful, their power consumption is also rising, and air-coolers are often no longer up to the task. However, this was a problem for Noctua’s customers, as the brand has stubbornly not built a liquid cooler – at least until now. Meet the NL-LC1-36, Noctua’s first liquid cooler.

Today we’re reviewing the 360-mm variant, but it also comes in 240mm and 420mm flavors.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: At its core, this is not a liquid cooler designed 100% in-house by Noctua – it’s an Asetek cooler with some Noctua touches. This may be a bit of a let-down, especially for Noctua purists – up until now, every product that had a name in Noctua’s nomenclature, such as NL-LC1-36, or NH-D15 G2, or NF-A12x25 G2, was 100% designed and built in-house by Rascom and Kolink, the two owners of the Noctua brand.

Keen readers will note that there is a Noctua case, Noctua PSU, and Noctua GPUs, but that’s not entirely accurate. The Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition, Seasonic Prime TX-1600 Noctua Edition, and Asus Noctua Edition GPUs are all, as their name implies, Noctua-Edition products, which are not strictly speaking a core part of Noctua’s own lineup, and they do not carry Noctua’s typical nomenclature.

What’s really going on here is something we’ll get into later, but for now, let’s dive into the box and see what we’ve got on the test bench.

Specifications

Product Walkthrough

The cooler comes packaged in a typical Noctua box with a matte finish and product details written on it. Noctua also sells an auxiliary fan, the NL-ACF1, which can clip onto the pump block to cool the area surrounding the CPU.

Open the box, and we’re presented with a nice appetizer – the large Noctua plaque that can later be installed onto the pump block if you’re not using the auxiliary fan.

This is a truly beautiful plaque, and quite large too – a bit unusually large for Noctua. Is Noctua trying to emphasize its own brand to distract us from Asetek?

An included accessory box contains the mounting brackets, cleaning wipe, instructions, TIM guard, and the classic Noctua Torx screwdriver. Both the AMD and intel mounting brackets come with -7mm offset holes so that the cooler is better placed over the CPU’s hotspots.

The three fans come in their own box too. Here we have three NF-A12x25 G2s, two of which are the PPA variant and one PPB, which have 50 RPM offsets to prevent harmonics from forming between them. These fans spin at such consistent speeds, that if you mount two next to each other on the same fan splitter, they can sing in harmony.

The fans all come equipped with the full rear gasket for a perfect seal on the radiator.

Moving on to the pump assembly, here we find the pièce de résistance, the NL-PNA1. PNA stands for Pump Noise Absorber, and this is a custom pump cover designed by Noctua that features multiple layers of foam, sound barriers, and silicone mounts, all to quiet down the pump.

At its heart, the NL-CL1 is based on Asetek’s Emma Gen8 V2 pump platform that, although very powerful, isn’t the quietest pump on the market. However, the combination of its power and the PNA1 cap means that Noctua is happy to stand behind the product, and we’ll see in testing whether this stance is justified.

This pump cap isn’t only engineered to absorb and deflect noise, however – it’s also a tuned mass damper. Sitting on silicone mounts, its own mass and positioning is engineered such that it dampens mechanical noise. This damping essentially shifts the higher, more annoying frequencies pumps typically produce toward deeper, more pleasant frequencies that typically bother human hearing less.

The cold plate is beautifully milled, and the exposed copper should do a great job at transferring heat.

Hidden between the two tubes is a dip-switch with three positions. They’re not marked, but it’s easy to tell whether you’re in the quiet, balanced, or unrestricted mode. These limit the pump’s RPMs to 2100 or 2600 for the quiet and balanced profiles. Within these profiles, you can use the motherboard’s PWM control to guide the pump. However, the pump’s internal coolant temperature sensor will override the PWM signal at certain duty cycles or beyond certain coolant temperatures and push to 100% duty anyway, which may lead to the pump running louder than you want. In practice, however, we haven’t found this to be a problem.

For full control, you’ll want to use the unrestricted mode, where you have the pump’s full 3700 RPM at your disposal.

What I find a bit of a let-down here, is that there is no two-pin thermal probe output. I have a lot of experience with custom water cooling, and my preferred method of managing pump and fan speeds is by using the coolant temperature as the source value. It’s great that this AIO’s pump will manage itself and I’m stoked to see this feature finally coming to numerous AIOs, but I’d like access to the coolant temperature so that the fans can be controlled by this too.

The AIO’s radiator is a relatively standard aluminum type, but it’s 30mm thick which is an improvement over thinner 25mm radiators on more budget-friendly coolers.

Lastly, the loop is filled with Glycol, and is not user-serviceable.

Optionally, for $20, you can add an auxiliary fan to cool the VRM and memory surrounding the CPU, but this honestly feels like an afterthought and doesn’t look very charming compared to the rest of the cooler. I don’t doubt that it works, but it’s not nearly as neatly integrated into the pump block as we’ve seen with much of Noctua’s premium competition.

Testing Part 1: Pump speed vs. dBA

To test the NL-CL1, we decided to deviate from our usual procedure. Usually, we take AIO’s as they come and pit them against each other in a real-world scenario using a closed case and standard onboard fan curves. However, with the improvements Noctua has made to the pump assembly, we wanted to really focus on the impact of this different pump on both acoustic and thermal performance.

To do this, we’re pitting the NL-CL1 against the Phanteks Glacier One M25 G2 and the Lian Li Hydroshift II LCD-C 360N – but instead of using their included fans (the Lian Li doesn’t come with any), we’re installing the three NF-A12x25 G2 fans that come with the Noctua.

The reason we’re testing this way is because I feel that the primary audience that would be interested in this AIO, is also the type that would fan-swap an existing cooler. It’s also to take the fan variable out of the equation – we know Noctua’s fans are better than any other (they sit atop our Best PC Fans list just for that reason), and what we really want to know is how much better this pump unit really is.

These two competing coolers cost about $150 each, and if you were to install three NF-A12x25 G2’s on them, that brings the total cost to about $250, which is in-line with Noctua’s pricing. So, what do you get for the same money with the old method, vs the new, official Noctua cooler?

Meanwhile, for the purists among you, we’re also adding the legendary NH-D15 G2 air cooler to the test at the end. The main reason to contemplate a Noctua AIO is to minimize pump noise – and for a few, up until today, that simply meant not using an AIO at all, rather sticking to air cooling with fewer moving parts.

Test Setup

We’re using an MSI Godlike X870E motherboard with a 9950X3D CPU and some Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5-6000 memory. We also have a PNY RTX 5080 installed, though it’s there only for display purposes and will be kept at its zero-RPM mode.

We’re doing these tests on an open test bench, as to expose as much of the pump as possible.

Testing Part 1: Pump speed vs. dBA

For the first series of tests, I ran the three AIO’s pumps through their RPM ranges independently, by themselves. To get the system quiet enough, we ensured the GPU’s fans were not spinning, there was no load on the CPU (and thus no whining VRMs or PSU fan), and disconnected the CPU fans – the only moving part was the pump itself – that’s all we’re trying to figure out here.

What’s clear from the results is that the Noctua pump is notably quieter at most speeds, right up until about 2300 RPM, where Phanteks’ Glacier One becomes quieter, and Noctua’s pump actually makes a big jump up in noise levels.

What’s also interesting is that up until about 1900 RPM, the pump on Noctua’s cooler is almost indistinguishable from the noise floor of the room. That’s very impressive if you consider that the dB meter was placed at a mere 20cm from the pump, at night, in a room treated for acoustics.

I debated testing with dB-C weighting, as this is more sensitive to low frequencies, but decided against this. C-weighting spans across a wider range of frequencies, which technically speaking, would offer results more representative of the entire sound spectrum.

However, dB-A weighting is geared more toward the sensitivities of human hearing – and Noctua specifically engineered the pump cover to shift the pump’s sound profile towards lower frequencies, where they would be less bothersome.

With that in mind, I do want to mention that the dB reading alone really doesn’t tell the whole story. As mentioned, the Noctua pump ends up louder than the Phanteks, at least as far as decibels are concerned.

As I was testing, I saw these numbers, and I thought: that’s not right. How can that be? The Noctua sounded much quieter to my ears.

So, I went back, re-installed the Phanteks, and lo-and-behold, it put out the exact same figure it did before – quieter than the Noctua on the dB meter, but my ears told a different story.

Using dB(A) weighting should have compensated for that difference, but it didn’t. So, perhaps my dB meter is wrong, or Noctua knows more about human hearing than dB(A) weighting accounts for.

However, what may also play a role is the differences in pump assembly and how they impact flow rate. If, for example, the Phanteks pushes more fluid per rotation than the Noctua, then it’d be only logical that it’s louder too – but I doubt it does.

Either way, we’ll be going back and testing with subjective noise levels in addition to these objective figures for a complete picture.

Testing Phase 2: AIO Objective Noise-Normalized, + Min and Max

In order to account for the pump’s engineering, I’ll be running a noise-normalized test that has the NF-A12x25 G2 fans spinning at the same 1200 RPM speed on each cooler, on every test. I’ll be running the three pumps at speeds that have matching noise levels, which we’ve figured out in the previous testing phase with the dB meter.

This is not a test meant to simulate real-life performance -- we run the fans at a fixed speed of 1200 RPM, and keep the CPU at stock settings to limit power draw to exactly a hair under 200 watts under all scenarios, so that all coolers make it through the test and to remove any variables. The only factors influencing the thermal results are the pump, its mounting offset, the flow resistance, and the radiator – all factors over which we ultimately have no influence.

This is where things started to get very interesting. Let us start with the minimums and maximums – you’ll note that at the minimum pump speed, the Noctua has the CPU running much hotter than the other two coolers. I’d like to clarify that the minimum and maximum tests are not noise-normalized, but have the pump running at their minimum and maximum speeds. Noctua’s LC1 has an extremely wide RPM range to work with, which the other two coolers don’t. And running a 200W workload with a pump running at just 750 RPM isn’t going to do great things for thermals. It does, though, mean that in low-load situations, the pump can run completely quietly.

However, in the noise-normalized test between 29 dB(A) pump noise and 32 dB(A) pump noise, we saw some shocking results. Noctua’s cooler, even when it has its pump running at a barely perceptible noise level of just 29 dB(A), still runs significantly cooler than both the Glacier One and the Hydroshift with their pumps running at full speed.

Of course, it must be noted that there are more factors at play here than just the pump – the LC1 offers a 7mm offset mount for Ryzen systems which we used, a different cold plate design, and a radiator that’s slightly thicker than its competition.

Testing Phase 3: Subjective Noise-Normalized

As mentioned earlier, according to my ears, some of the pump’s acoustics don’t match up with what my dB meter shows. For this reason, I’m repeating the previous batch of tests, but instead of looking at the dB meter, I’m trusting my ears to guide me in picking an RPM setpoint for each pump that I deem fits the description. If you see a result missing, it’s because the criteria weren’t met. The RPMs of the pumps are in the chart below.

To determine the RPM levels, I first ran the pump at the highest speed at which it was still completely inaudible. I then figured out a middle point where I was happy to tolerate the noise level under load. And finally, I pushed the pump speed up further, and found the lowest value at which its noise started to annoy me.

To give some additional context, I’d like to emphasize that I have highly sensitive hearing, and I’m someone that likes to run their gear as close to inaudible as possible. This is also a very subjective test – you may hear something where I didn’t – but on the flipside, what annoys me, you may be just fine with, so do take these findings with a grain of salt.

Then, with those numbers, I ran the thermal tests again, all with the fans at 1200 RPM to remove any other variables.

Here, the Noctua started to really stand out from the crowd. Even pushing the Glacier one to annoying noise levels couldn’t make it keep up with the thermals produced by Noctua pump running inaudibly. That’s honestly quite staggering.

I contemplated for a moment whether to adjust the fan speeds in this test to match the annoyance factor, but this would make comparison difficult, and I really am trying to focus on the difference the pump makes here, and nothing else.

What’s really important to note here, though, is that from my experience, I can truly say that the dBA figure means almost nothing in practice. The subjective noise profile of the pump matters way more than the dBA, and whereas the Noctua might, strictly speaking, be louder than the Phanteks at higher speeds, it’s also far smoother. Whatever they did with the PNA1, it’s working.

Meanwhile, though, from the results it’s also clear that there is no need to run the Noctua at these higher pump speeds, as there is very little additional benefit.

And that’s not to even mention the Lian Li pump, which is always audible. Consequently, I had to omit it from the inaudible category entirely, and I can tell you from experience, there are many AIOs that are unable to run their pumps at inaudible levels. This is not an isolated case.

Testing Phase 4: Air vs Water (Noise-Normalized)

As mentioned, we also added the NH-D15 G2 to the mix, as it is Noctua’s most powerful air cooler and the most surefire way to avoid pump noise entirely, and I’m sure many of you who want nothing except Noctua, actually want to know how the new liquid cooler compares to Noctua’s finest air cooler – not a bunch of AIO’s you wouldn’t buy anyway.

TheD15 air cooler has – as its name implies – much larger 150mm fans. Consequently, to test fairly against the NH-D15, we decided to set two noise targets, based on the AIO’s internal pump limiters selected with the switch on quiet and balanced.

The test we’re performing here is more representative of real-world performance than the previous bunch. For the quiet and balanced pump profiles, I set the AIO’s fans to a speed that I felt matched up nicely, where the fan and pump noise blended smoothly. I measured the total dB(A) produced, then figured out which fan speed the NH-D15 G2 had to run at to produce the same overall noise level.

For the maximum speed test, dB(A) figures were ignored – all gear was run at full speed.

The results speak for themselves. Noctua’s NL-LC1-36 offers vastly superior performance to the NH-D15. Even with the NH-D15 G2 air cooler running at full tilt, producing a highly annoying 43.9 dB(A), it still runs 6 degrees hotter than the LC1 running in the quietest profile with the fans barely even trying at just 1000 RPM, producing only 29.6 dB(A).

Noctua has been defeated. Long live Noctua.

When I first heard that Noctua’s first liquid cooler would be an Asetek unit with some Noctua sprinkles added to it, I had some major doubts about its efficacy and, quite frankly, Noctua’s business decisions.

I grew up knowing Noctua as a company that prides itself on its standards, and designing its products entirely in-house. With that in mind, the Noctua NL-LC1 is a bit… unlike the classic Noctua that we know and love – at its core, it’s not a Noctua cooler in any way we’ve seen before.

However, if you look at the history of companies that have tried to build their own AIO’s, you’ll be met with a very long list of fallen soldiers -- whether that’s due to being unable to build a reliable pump, or because of litigation from Asetek when their patent was still valid. If history has taught us anything, it’s that it’s surprisingly difficult to build a good AIO with no liquid cooling experience.

In that sense, I somewhat doubt whether the LC1 is the liquid cooler Noctua actually wanted to build. The company is also still working hard on its pumpless Thermosiphon cooler. But in the meantime, the market still wants what the market wants.

With CPUs becoming ever-more powerful, and consumer demands increasing, Noctua either had to find a way to give the people what they wanted, or get left behind in the CPU cooling space – a space they once dominated.

With all this in mind, I believe that the LC1 is the result of Noctua making a compromise – they won’t design the cooler entirely in-house, but instead work with Asetek for the pump and radiator, but adding their own pump cover, mounting bracket, and fans to bring the total package to a new industry standard.

However, this compromise is proving to pave the way to greatness. From my brief testing, I can safely say that this is an absolutely fantastic AIO – and I’m glad to finally see somebody making a liquid cooler that focusses on what really matters: noise and performance.

Priced at $220 to $280, it’s not the cheapest AIO, but certainly isn’t the most expensive either. So, despite the fact that it’s not 100% Noctua, this one comes highly recommended to anybody looking for a high-quality AIO with fantastic performance and a stellar 6-year warranty.

So, as much as I may not feel like this AIO appeals to me as a Noctua purist, as a hardware enthusiast, I really quite like it, and it’ll certainly be finding its way into a personal system.

Noctua’s highly anticipated AIO cooler is finally available, and PC builders can get it in three sizes — 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm. These all-in-one water-cooling solutions start at $219.95 on Amazon for the smallest 240mm two-fan solution. The larger 360mm version costs $249.95, and is slightly more affordable than the converted European price of US$289.95 (based on the current conversion rate for EUR 250), while the largest 420mm, equipped with three 140mm fans, is priced at $279.95.

• Get the Noctua NL-LC1-24 240mm Quiet All-in-One Water Cooler on Amazon
• Get the Noctua NL-LC1-36 360mm Quiet All-in-One Water Cooler on Amazon
• Get the Noctua NL-LC1-42 420mm Quiet All-in-One Water Cooler on Amazon

Given that this is a Noctua cooling solution, you can expect it to stay silent while still offering performance. It achieves this with the NL-PNA1 pump noise absorber — a mass damper that sits on top of the pump and water block featuring multiple layers of acoustic foam, a dense sound barrier, floating silicone mounts, and an outer shell with a metal faceplate. The pump itself also has three available speed profiles; it’s set by default to quiet mode, ensuring that it remains inaudible during operation. You can set it to balanced mode if you want additional performance headroom at the cost of some noise, while veteran users can switch to manual mode for full control over the AIO.

You can also purchase the optional NL-ACF1 80mm auxiliary cooling fan that mounts directly on the water block. This small add-on can make a big difference to other components, as we saw in Noctua’s booth at Computex 2026. It claims a VRM temperature reduction of nearly 40%, allowing your case fans to run at a slower RPM and further reduce noise. You can check out the Noctua video below if you want to see the company’s deep dive into its first AIO cooling solution.

Aside from these new innovations, the company also includes its legendary A-series fans with the AIO coolers. The 240mm comes with two NF-A12x25 G2 PWM 120mm fans, while the 360mm model boasts three of these fans, which are also found in our best PC case fans of 2026. The larger 420mm AIO trades in the 120mm fans for three NF-A14x25 G2 PWM 140mm fans. All three AIO models are equipped with the SecuFirm2+ mounting system, allowing you to use them on the latest and current-gen sockets on the market, including AM4, AM5, LGA 1700, and LGA 1851. This also means that you can easily swap a Noctua air cooler with this AIO solution if you already use a brown and beige air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15 G2.

The Noctua NL-LC1 series of AIO coolers is admittedly quite expensive, with its starting price of $219.95 on Amazon. This is especially true as there are numerous more affordable options out there, with the best AIO coolers starting at around $120. But if you’re either going for an all-Noctua PC build or want to have a silent PC at all costs, then the Noctua NL-LC1 AIO is your best bet for achieving that.

The latest liquid cooler from MSI to land on our test bench is the new MPG Coreliquid P22 360. While it packs a budget price of only $129.99, it doesn’t cut corners, featuring good thermal performance, low noise levels in common scenarios, and a fancy 2.1-inch IPS display.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of this eye-catching AIO, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks, and decide if MSI’s MPG Coreliquid P22 360 deserves to make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of MSI’s MPG Coreliquid P22 360

▶️ Frame compatible with both AMD and Intel systems

Usually when you purchase an AIO, there’s at least one frame included, designed for a specific AMD or Intel socket.

MSI has simplified the install process here, with a single-frame design that’s compatible with both AMD AM4/AM5 and Intel LGA 1700/1851.

▶️ 2.1-inch 540x540 IPS display

A 2.1-inch IPS display with a resolution of 540x540 is included with this AIO, allowing users to observe performance metrics by glancing at the screen. Four preset backgrounds are included with the AIO’s software, and custom images and videos up to 500MB are supported.

To customize the AIO, you’ll need to download MSI’s EZ Display software, which is simple to use but a little rough around the edges. You can set it to use one background by enabling the “repeat” button, or you can have it alternate between the images and videos you have loaded in the software.

My biggest complaint here is that you can’t disable or remove the preset images, which means they’ll be included in the rotation of images displayed unless you’ve set the AIO to show only one image or video by selecting the “repeat” button.

▶️ RAM Clearance

As with most liquid coolers, the design of thisAIO is such that the CPU block doesn’t overhang or interfere with the DIMM slots in any manner, ensuring that all sizes of RAM, no matter how tall, are compatible.

▶️ 120mm fans

There’s more to a cooler than just the radiator and pump. The included fans have a direct impact on aesthetics, noise levels, and overall thermal performance. Conveniently, the trio of fans here arrive pre-installed, saving a few moments during installation. They also feature a daisy-chaining quick-connect system, designed to eliminate cable clutter.

▶️ Packaging

The outer packaging is a bit flashy, at least, in comparison to your normal AIO box. It features a rendering of the cooler against a background of black, blue, purple, and pink.

The inner packaging is typical of most liquid coolers, with molded foam, cardboard, and plastic coverings protecting the contents during shipping.

Included with the package are:

• Mounting hardware for AMD and Intel platforms
• Aesthetic cover for mounting hardware
• A small tube of thermal paste
• 360mm radiator and pre-installed 120mm fans
• 2.1-inch display

▶️ AM5 Installation

This section assumes you’ve already mounted the 360mm radiator. Installation of AIOs is much easier when you have already secured the radiator to your case.

To begin putting things together, you’ll first need to remove the default AM4/5 retention.

The next step is to screw in the mounting studs, followed by an application of thermal paste to the CPU. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a handy thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

After thermal paste is applied, take the CPU block and press it against the studs, using the included screws and a screwdriver to secure it in place.

There are two final steps. First, place the aesthetic cover on the CPU block. Then attach the USB, PWM, and ARGB connections to their corresponding motherboard headers.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D is relatively balanced, the 9950X I used has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve since returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile, and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU. The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I emphasize results that are comparable to real-world use. This means I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods.

Many reviewers test on open test benches, which have a combination of lesser airflow needs and lowered ambient temperatures. This results in making weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start this review’s benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent and consume over 260W. Enabling PBO incrteases max power consumption and heat output. We use MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard, and often the CPU will reach its TJ Max (peak temperature) of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle to some extent with most coolers. When this throttling occurs, I’ve measured the average power consumption to determine performance.

High-end AIO liquid coolers, however, are expected to be able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under TJ Max during the duration of the benchmark – in these cases, we compare the CPU’s actual temperature.

Today’s review is a bit unique, in that we have the results from a prototype and final version of the AIO being reviewed today – giving us some insight into how these products evolve during the design and manufacturing process.

Both the prototype and retail versions of MSI’s MPG Coreliquid P22 360 handle this test with ease, with an average temperature of 84.7C (184.5F) – one of the best results we’ve seen on this test bench.

Some coolers perform well in maximum-strength tests, but run loudly at full speeds. Noisy fans in this scenario aren’t necessarily a bad thing; some folks prefer to hear them as a way to be aware when the CPU is getting hot.

One issue I raised when I tested the prototype of this AIO was that it ran louder than it needed to. 48.9 dBA is pointlessly loud for most users. MSI took that feedback to heart, and the fans included with MSI MPG Coreliquid P22 360 reach 44.9 dBA at 100% RPM, a moderate volume level that is much quieter than the maximum noise levels of competitor liquid coolers. Those who prefer to implement speed restrictions for silent operation need not worry; our noise-normalized benchmarks show good performance even when the fans are set to run quietly.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of 200W when running Cinebench R23.

In this test, with a standard power limit enabled, MSI’s Coreliquid P22 performs in the middle of the results we have from other liquid coolers – 1.2 degrees C behind our best result, and 3.6 C cooler than the worst result from another AIO.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which stress the CPU and GPU.

In this test, designed to emulate the thermal conditions of a CPU-intensive AAA game, MSI’s P22 continues to deliver outstanding performance – the result of 37.1 C over ambient (59.1 C actual temperature) is our third-best result, and an improvement of one degree compared to the prototype of this AIO.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers. This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. Most coolers will not be able to keep the CPU from reaching its peak temperature (TJ Max) in this stress test. So we’ll look at this in terms of average CPU power consumption, which averaged 255.8 watts.

This test is especially difficult, because in addition to the reduced noise from the CPU cooler, our current test bench’s system fans are configured to run extremely silently, below the floor of the noise meter I use to measure dBA.

While I prefer to look at the power consumption in a scenario where the CPU reaches TJ Max (the processor’s peak temperature), I’ve also included the average CPU temperature in the chart below.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

DDR5 temperatures were excellent in this test, on par with ASRock’s Steel Legend, which features an integrated VRM fan. The only result showing better performance is from Silverstone’s IceMyst Pro, with fans that directly cool system DIMMs.

Conclusion

MSI is back in the AIO game with the MPG Coreliquid P22 360. This AIO has a relatively low price tag while featuring a 2.1-inch IPS display, excellent thermal performance, and low noise levels in common scenarios. It’s a solid choice if you’re after a cooler with a round display that cools well. Just note that if you can live without a display, there are excellent options that cost quite a bit less, like Arctic’s Liquid Freezer III Pro, which sometimes sells for less than $85.

So many PC cooling companies copy each other’s designs and features – I must have seen a dozen AIOs at Computex with curved screens and / or unified fans. But at Levelplay’s event last week, I was struck by a couple of concepts the company is working on. First was the MagBracket fan design, where the RGB lights are housed in a mounting plate, which connects via a USB-C cable that unifies PWM and RGB connections.

This allows the fans themselves to connect magnetically to the plate, and electrically via pogo pins. Drop them on the powered plate, and the fan lights up as it begins to spin. That would make cleaning your case fans exceptionally easy, and it also means the spinners are reversible, with connectors on both sides. So you can pop a fan off, flip it over, and put it back on to go from intake to exhaust.

That also means you can install the brackets on their own, and pop the fans on after your system is more or less built. Anyone who’s ever put a fan on a radiator or case in the wrong orientation (that has to be everyone who’s built more than one PC, right?) can rejoice at how easy that situation would be to fix here. Grab the offending fan, flip it over, pop it back on, and you’re good to you. You wouldn’t even need to reboot.

We don’t know pricing or availability yet, and the orange crossbars probably aren’t doing the airflow any favors. But I love the simple modularity of this design.

Next up, the Newtro 360 is a retro-styled cooler that puts a big tactile knob on top of an AIO, letting you adjust the fan speed, with a max cooling rating of 350W.

It’s certainly a more unique take than adding a screen or a VRM fan on top of the cold plate, but I’m personally not certain how often I’d be willing to pop my side panel off to tweak my AIO’s performance. I do like the orange accents on the sleeved cables and the old-school metal fan grilles, though.

Like the magnetic fans, the Newtro AIO is a concept, so we don’t know if or when the company will release the cooler, but it’s certainly the most tactile AIO I saw at Computex 2026.

Frore Systems is showing off its LiquidJet Nexus at Computex 2026 in Taipei, Taiwan. The LiquidJet Nexus is a monolithic water block with innovative coldplates, designed to cool two Blackwell GPUs and a Grace CPU, that can replace the complex water block used today. Based on tests conducted by an ODM, the LiquidJet Nexus outperforms the default cooling solution used today and reduces GPU temperatures by around 6ºC, which increases token generation by 10%. Frore intends to build LiquidJet Nexus for Nvidia’s Rubin platforms and is ready to produce them for other accelerators, too.

Earlier this year, Frore introduced its LiquidJet, a coldplate for AI accelerators, tailor-made for exact models of processors using tools originally meant to make semiconductors, in a bid to maximize cooling performance. The LiquidJet Nexus water block builds upon these principles, integrating them into a monolithic unit designed to cool down both GPUs and a CPU inside a server tray. For now, Frore is demonstrating LiquidJet Nexus for Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell superchip, though a version compatible with Vera Rubin is also incoming, we're told.

Frore’s LiquidJet coldplates are made using tools designed to produce semiconductors — using etching and bonding steps — and are architected in accordance with actual thermal maps of CPUs and GPUs they are meant to cool. As a result, they remove heat precisely from hotspots of these processors, and therefore enable better cooling performance than coldplates made using traditional milling methods. Based on tests conducted by a major ODM, Frore’s LiquidJet Nexus reduces the temperature of Blackwell GPUs by 6ºC compared to default cooling solutions, which in turn increases their token generation by 10%.

While a 6ºC temperature drop and a 10% performance improvement may sound humble, these performance improvements impact billion-dollar deployments, where such improvements could mean hundreds of millions in savings. Also, since Frore’s Liquid Jet Nexus is monolithic, it is less prone to leakage. This means less downtime and fewer damaged servers, which means more profits and fewer losses for their owners. Again, since we are talking about billion-dollar deployments, there are significant amounts of money at stake when it comes to cooling and efficiency.

Frore says it is working with the majority of hyperscalers to build LiquidJet-based cooling solutions for their custom hardware. Since LiquidJet is designed to remove 400W – 600W of thermal energy per square centimeter, it can cool down very hot components. Furthermore, since these components tend to scale horizontally, it is not a problem to scale LiquidJet’s performance by increasing its dimensions.

In addition to being more performant and potentially significantly more reliable than existing liquid-cooling solutions for Nvidia Blackwell, Frore’s LiquidJet Nexus also weighs 65% less than rivals and is twice as thin (17 mm vs 34 mm), according to Frore.

While this may not be a significant advantage today (unless you ship your servers by plane), this will be a dramatic advantage for Nvidia’s next-generation Kyber chassis that places servers on their edge rather than horizontally, which will make the importance of LiquidJet Nexus’s weight a bigger factor, as the cooler must adhere to the cooling surface of the integrated heat spreader thoroughly. Meanwhile, it is hard to adhere a massive cooler to a vertically standing motherboard, so one with a lower weight should be easier to attach to the motherboard and chassis without worrying about longer-term deformations.

Speaking of Nvidia’s Kyber chassis, it is worth noting that they are designed for the Vera Rubin Ultra platform, which ups the TDP of GPUs all the way to around 3kW per unit, making its cooling a challenge. Meanwhile, Rubin Ultra GPU scales horizontally by employing a quad-chiplet design, so Frore can address its TDP by reinventing its coldplate, which is easy assuming the company is provided a thermal map of the unit. The same method can be applied to other processors, which is why Frore is indeed working with hyperscalers with custom silicon, in addition to other merchant silicon providers, aside from Nvidia.

Tom's Hardware got a chance to visit Noctua's booth at Computex 2026, and we went deep on two key products for the company. The first is the NL-LC1 all-in-one liquid cooler, which we've already covered separately. The second regarded the company's ongoing efforts to develop a passively circulated thermosiphon liquid cooling solution.

A thermosiphon CPU heatsink works on a simple principle: a working fluid in a closed loop is exposed to a heat source, changes phase to a gaseous state, enters a condenser, sheds its heat by changing back into a liquid phase, and then naturally falls back toward the low point in the loop.

This simple principle encounters all sorts of challenges on the way toward use in a practical CPU heatsink. And Noctua is both characterizing and combating those problems with its typical thoroughness.

Noctua's problem-solving to this point has included developing a finned evaporator surface that helps ensure that the fluid flow in the evaporator is not turbulent, which causes warm vapor to mix with the colder fluid further from the evaporator surface, reducing the effectiveness of the system.

Noctua showed off how it's further improved the performance of its evaporator by applying a thin layer of sintered copper to its surface. Because of the high surface area created by this rough, porous wicking layer, capillary action draws more cool liquid towards the evaporator surface as the fluid already nearest the surface vaporizes.

This sintered layer avoids the formation of insulating bubbles or films over hot spots, as might happen on a smoother surface, which would negatively affect both the thermal performance of the heatsink and the convection of the working fluid through the system.

Noctua demonstrated the performance of this most recent thermosiphon prototype by putting it side-by-side with a 360mm version of its NL-LC1 AIO, both cooling an identical Ryzen 9 9950X3D test system running at a PPT of 230W. Accounting for some variance in the workload, both test systems showed a CPU temperature of just over 80 °C, suggesting that the passively circulating thermosiphon is able to deliver cooling performance similar to that of an AIO with an active pump.

Beyond the sintered evaporator coating, the inlet and outlet hoses of the cooler now sit on the same side of the evaporator, much like those of an active AIO pump, for better motherboard clearance and compatibility. The tubes on this prototype also feature a new material that reduces permeation, seals better at the connectors, and achieves full regulatory compliance.

Overall, the unit now looks much like a typical AIO and much closer to a retail-ready product versus the somewhat rough-and-ready prototypes of years past.

Between the internal and external refinements evident in this latest version of the thermosiphon, Noctua is confident enough in the performance and manufacturability of the product that it has set a potential launch window for the unit, and it tentatively expects a retail version to arrive sometime in Q3 2027. While that's still a ways away, it's typical of the company's dogged pursuit of near-perfection, and it seems safe to say that we should expect an even further refined version of this product at next year's Computex.

Noctua originally announced and showed off its first liquid cooler last year, promising to bring the same performance and aesthetics of its iconic air coolers to AIOs. Today at Computex 2026, the company has officially unveiled the NL-LC1, putting a name on the lineup that features 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm variants. The NL-LC1 will hit store shelves two weeks later, on June 16, starting at 220 Euros (around $250).

This AIO was originally intended to launch in Q1 2026 but was delayed to Q2 late last year. Hence, we already know most of the details about this product, including the available sizes, mounting, pump solution, fan setup, and more. Most importantly, the NL-LC1 uses Asetek's Emma V2 platform for its pump rather than an in-house solution, but Noctua has developed a custom noise-suppression system around it.

There are three layers of insulation meant to ensure quiet operation, and an integrated mass damper called the "NL-PNA1" (Pump Noise Absorber) to reduce vibrations. Noctua is not only limiting the amount of noise but also ensuring the pitch isn't annoying, even for what little you might be able to hear. The company's own charts show a notable difference with and without the top cover that provides this soundproofing.

The cooler comes with Noctua's legendary NF-A12x25 G2 (120mm) fans for the 240mm and 360mm models, while the 420mm features the NF-A14x25 G2 (140mm) fans instead. Similar to Silverstone's IceMyst Pro coolers we reviewed a couple of months ago, there's also an option for an additional auxiliary fan that can channel airflow to motherboard VRMs, RAM, or M.2 SSDs. It's called the "NL-ACF1" and costs 20 EUR ($23).

Noctua has equipped the NL-LC1 with its SecuFirm2+ mounting system, which supports all current-gen and recent CPUs on the market — AM4, AM5, LGA 1700, and LGA 1851. If you're already using a brown and beige air cooler, it should be a simple swap for you without needing to replace the mounting bracket. Lastly, there are three pump profiles corresponding to different fan speeds and noise levels.

By default, the pump runs at a minimum of 750 RPM, but it can be dialed up to 3,400 RPM manually, using the "Manual" profile. The "Quiet" profile limits the speed to 2,100 RPM, while the "Balanced" profile lets it reach 2,600 RPM. The moment the liquid temperature exceeds 30°C, the Balanced profile will dynamically increase the pump speed up to 3,400 RPM at 45°C to maintain a balance between cooling and noise.

Available from June 16, the NL-CL1 will cost 220 EUR for the 240mm version, 250 EUR for the 360mm version, and 280 EUR for the top-end 420mm version. Converted to USD, that's a ~$250 starting point. Today, you can get high-quality Thermalright AIOs for $50, and spending a bit more will get you their fancy LCD options, too. The 420mm variant comes out to $325 — Arctic's Liquid Freezer III Pro 420 costs around $100, and we gave it a positive review earlier this year.

Even if reviews paint the NL-LC1 in a glowing light, that pricing is a tough pill to swallow for anyone but hardcore Noctua fans. Moreover, it's important to mention that this is different from the pumpless AIO that the company has been showing off. That's still in the prototype stage and not intended for mainstream markets, though the company did say that in the "Quiet" profile, the NL-LC1 is beaten by the pumpless model.

Cooler Master had a lot of things to show off at Computex 2026. The keynote, held at their headquarters just up the road from the Nangang Exhibition Center, talked about their AI data center cooling and eventually delved into the consumer side of things where we live. After the keynote, we headed downstairs to a huge room showcasing not only the consumer side of things but also the CDUs (Cooling Distribution Units) they’ve developed. It was quite a display if you’ve never seen them before.

But alas, we’re here to talk about a couple of new cases in the HAF II 500, and Silencio 600, the new V8 air cooler, and the all-aluminum Masterfan A series fans debuted here.Starting with the HAF II 500, this High Airflow mid-tower chassis is purpose-built for high-end systems, including gaming, creator, overclocking, and even AI systems that may require better cooling. Two huge 220mm intake fans at the front, purpose-built for the case (may sell separately), and a large 180mm exhaust fan (all from the Mighty 40 family), the case helps live up to the HAF name. While we don’t have any cooling metrics, I can tell you that you could feel the airflow from behind the case from a few feet away, and we couldn’t hear it (admittedly, over the hum of the crowd). But don’t worry, we’ll get in the lab as soon as it's available and put it through its paces.

HAF II 500

Internally, it supports up to E-ATX motherboards, so you can put just about anything inside and keep it cool without making much noise. The ribbed front panel’s low airflow resistance helps air enter the chassis and exit the rear with minimal restriction. A portion of the bottom fan cools the PSU chamber, while most of the airflow is directed by a curved baffle to cool the GPU, where it’s needed most. On top of that, it uses an evolution of the Freeform 2.0 platform and sliding rails, called the MasterRail System, a convenient way to support multiple fan and radiator sizes without blocking airflow.

The HAF II 500 supports dual-GPU setups up to 3.6 slots thick across the eight expansion slots. In other words, there’s plenty of room to put whatever you need inside. The outside is your typical chassis with a tinted glass side panel to show off the internals. It uses split-level cable management with zoned routing space, integrated straps, and a cable cover that swings out for ease of installation or part swapping. The front panel’s ribbed design allows for ample airflow. We should see the HAF II 500 around July, priced between $179.99 and $209.99.

Keep an eye out for a review in the coming weeks. The next case we saw was the updated Silencio 600. As the name implies, this mid-tower case is made for silence. Take a look at the unique front panel, and you can instantly see that it’s different from most other cases and from the previous Silencio 600. This unique design closes the gaps with a soft-form sound-deadening material to keep internal system noise in while maintaining front-panel airflow. Behind the panel are two pre-installed 180x40mm fans to keep the air moving and your internals cool, even at lower RPMs, with less noise. The silent case is Fit for shared spaces, home offices, studios, or anywhere else that needs a quiet case.

Silencio 600

We don’t have many other details on the chassis, including internal specs, but it will be available around October of this year (no MSRP, either).

Metal fans seem to be a theme at Computex 2026, and Cooler Master wasn’t missing out. The new MasterFan A series uses an aluminum frame and blades to increase performance. Due to increased material rigidity, the blades have less flexibility, enabling higher speeds and CFM. The blade-to-top gap on the A120 is 0.6mm and 0.8mm on the 140mm. While that doesn’t trump Noctua’s tolerances, it’s a lot closer than most and still yields improvements both acoustically

Masterfan A

The A120 boasts over 80 CFM and 6.1 mmH2O, while the A140 moves 104 CFM at almost 3.5 mmH2O, which is a fair amount of static pressure, especially for the A120. The fan comes in two flavors: the base model, which runs up to 2,500 RPM.. It uses a three-phase motor with dual ball bearings. Just keep your fingers away from the blades! These should be available soon, rolling out globally, with pricing around $24 for the A120.

Last but certainly not least is the V8 Ace 3DHP. Keeping the same bold, automotive engine aesthetic from the original V-series, the new flagship cooler gets updated 3DHP (3D Heatpipe) technology from the data center side of the house, said to improve heat transfer and maintain performance during intensive workloads. Cooler Master says its single-stack, dual-fan configuration is still competitive with much larger, dual-stack towers like the Noctua NHD015 G2, but at a lower price point (not listed yet), making it an attractive offering when available (soon!).

V8 Ace 3DHP

There are two versions, one for AMD and one for Intel, and they work a bit differently. The AMD version has less internal water volume in the heatpipe than the Intel SKU, which uses more water to stave off temperature spikes from the higher-wattage chip below. Both use the ‘trident’ heatpipe configuration, with a heatpipe rising into the middle of the fin array, reducing the thermal dead zone found in typical “U”-shaped heatpipe designs and increasing heat extraction by 30%, according to Cooler Master.

All in all, we saw a lot of ‘cool’ things at Cooler Master HQ at Computex 2026, and I personally can’t wait to test them.

Noctua is making its debut in the thermal pad market through a new partnership with experienced manufacturer Carbice. Noctua has announced it will be the exclusive distributor of Carbice pads for the retail market, starting with the NT-CP1 AM5/4 Carbice carbon nanotube thermal pad. Noctua will be presenting the NT-CP1 at Computex starting tomorrow and will launch the product in September.

As the name suggests, the new Noctua-branded thermal pad is optimized specifically for AM5 and AM4 AMD Ryzen CPUs, featuring a surface area that perfectly matches the IHS of CPUs that fit in both sockets.

The pad is made from carbon nanotubes that are designed to improve thermal conductivity over “hundreds and thousands of thermal cycles”. The carbon nanotubes achieve this by slowly conforming to the microscopic crevices of a CPU’s IHS. The pad is reinforced with an aluminum backbone that is sandwiched between the carbon nanotubes and protected on the surface with a nanoscale polymer coating.

Similar to outgoing thermal pads, the NT-CP1 is a maintenance-free solution that will last the lifetime of the CPU it is cooling. This is optimal for PC builders who want a permanent solution, unlike thermal paste, which typically needs to be replaced every three to five years. Thermal paste loses performance as it ages because repeated thermal cycles causes the paste to dry up.

The NT-CP1 represents the first thermal pad that Carbice is bringing to the DIY market. The company actively makes thermal pads for satellites, aerospace, and pre-built PCs (through a partnership with CyberPowerPC). It also recently announced a partnership with AMD, and is supplying its Ice Thermal Pad with the re-released Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Dr. Baratunde Cola, CEO of Carbice, notes that the company chose Noctua specifically to partner with due to the company’s widespread trust in the DIY community. Noctua will also assist Carbice in developing future thermal pads, suggesting that we could see an Intel version of the NT-CP1 in the future.

Chinese PC hardware manufacturer Tryx gained popularity back in 2024 when it launched its first all-in-one liquid cooler featuring a unique panoramic curved OLED display. The company is now preparing a new model called the Tryx Holo that appears to take things a step further by integrating a holographic-style effect display built right into the pump block.

According to the official product listing on its Chinese website, the upcoming AIO cooler features a special system that creates a virtual image with physical depth similar to a hologram. Instead of using a display and mirrors, the holographic effect is achieved using professional-grade beam splitters that are said to improve image visibility, brightness, and contrast while also eliminating the electronic layering effect commonly associated with conventional LCD screens. The pump block also has an adjustable hinge that supports 60-degree angle adjustments to ensure the optimal viewing angle.

Notably, the projected holographic image will have a limited resolution of 640 × 480. Users will be able to configure the holographic display using the Kanali software, with options to showcase system statistics alongside personalized content in JPG, MP4, and GIF formats. Additionally, the software will offer a regularly updated built-in GIF library powered by Giphy, while an audio linkage feature for video playback is also listed as part of a future OTA update.

The Tryx Holo will be using the latest pump solution from Asetek, capable of dissipating heat up to 280W with an operating rate of 800 to 2800 RPM. The AIO also comes with three 120mm FOBR fans with ARGB lighting and a single frame solution to reduce cable clutter. These new fans feature SLF (Silent-Lubricating-Fluid) bearing technology that is claimed to reduce high-frequency shaft noise and extend the mechanical lifespan of the fan compared to ordinary hydraulic bearings, achieving an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) life of 50,000 hours. As for CPU compatibility, the Tryx Holo will support Intel LGA1851, 1700, 1200, and 115X sockets as well as AMD AM4 and AM5.

Currently, the AIO liquid cooler is listed as a 360mm option, with 240mm and 280mm options expected to launch at a later period. Pricing and availability are yet to be confirmed; more details may follow at Computex 2026 next week.

If you’ve followed Arctic over the past few years, you probably think of oversized radiators, VRM fans, and thermal domination. The company's Liquid Freezer III Pro 360mm AIO is a favorite of ours, providing top-tier performance while retaining a relatively affordable price tag.

But not every system needs a thick 360mm radiator, and many smaller cases can’t fit radiators at all. And let’s be honest: While having the strongest performance is great if you’re pushing CPU limits with overclocking, more basic cooling options are sufficient for most consumers.

That’s where Arctic’s latest cooler, the Freezer 36-S, comes in. This is an entry-level air cooler available for less than $30, featuring only a single fan and tower connected by four direct-touch heatpipes.

Let's take a look at the specifications and features of the cooler, then we’ll go over thermal and noise benchmarks so you can decide if the Freezer 36-S will make our list of the best CPU coolers.

Cooler specifications

Features of the Arctic Freezer 36S

● Four direct-touch heatpipes

Four direct-touch copper heatpipes, slightly staggered to ensure even heat distribution and transfer heat from the CPU into the tower’s fins.

The backside (shown above) is mostly flat, whereas the fan-touching frontside has a “chainsaw” design to it.

● Anti-bending CPU contact frame for Intel systems

Arctic includes an anti-bending CPU contact frame for Intel systems, which can help ensure consistent thermal performance – it’s especially useful for those who run high-intensity workloads, which subject the chip to more frequent thermal cycles.

However, using one of these frames is not without risk during the installation process. Improper installation can lead to RAM instability and other problems. It's not the best option for novice builders.

● High-speed 3000 RPM P12 Pro fan

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink; the included fans have a direct impact on noise levels and cooling performance. Arctic includes its high-performance P12 Pro fan here, which reaches up to 3000RPM and features 77 CFM (cubic feet per minute) airflow rating, with an impressive maximum static pressure of 6.9 mmH₂O – on paper, that's two to three times stronger than most fans on the market.

● Premium MX-7 thermal paste

Arctic includes a small 0.8-gram tube of MX-7, its newest thermal paste. We haven’t tested this paste independently (yet), but Arctic’s MX-6 already performs very well in our thermal paste testing, with performance similar to the most effective competitors on the market.

● Packaging

The heatsink and fan are in a cardboard-only package, reducing waste by forgoing plastic bags.

Included below is a picture showing all of the parts included: mounting bars for AMD systems, a contact frame for Intel systems, screws, the heatsink tower, and a 120mm fan.

● AM5 Installation

Intel systems require the use of a contact frame, but if you’re installing on an AMD Ryzen system, the process is much simpler. You’ll need to first remove the default retention mechanism, and then replace it with the included mounting bars.

The next step is applying the MX-7 thermal paste. If you’re not sure how to do that, we have a thermal paste application guide that covers the different methods you can use.

Place the heatsink tower against the CPU and mounting bars, then use a screwdriver to secure it.

Lastly, attach the 120mm P12 Pro using the fan clips and connect it to your motherboard headers to complete the installation process.

Real-world testing configuration – AMD AM5 platform

We’ve tested coolers with both the Ryzen 9950X3D and its non-V-Cache sibling, the 9950X. There are some differences in how the 9950X and 9950X3D CPUs are impacted by thermal events. While the heat output of the CCDs of AMD’s 9950X3D are relatively balanced, the 9950X I’m using has one CCD that runs much hotter than the other, with a difference of over 10 degrees Celsius in some scenarios, shown below.

We’ve returned to using a 9950X3D for cooler testing, as it has a more balanced heat profile and is almost certainly a more widely adopted CPU.

The benchmark results shared in these reviews may differ from others because I place an emphasis on having results that are comparable to real-world use.

This means that I generally test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods. Some people test coolers on an open test bench, with lowered ambient temperatures. This can make weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions. I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect real-world cooler conditions.

Our latest testing setup uses the FLOVA F50 computer case from Tryx.

This case features a unique “crossflow” fan that pulls air from the side, which the company claims is more effective than traditional intake fans. For air cooling tests, we’ve added a single Noctua NF-A12 G2 intake fan.

PBO Performance and maximum noise levels

We’re going to start this benchmark section by focusing on a traditional maximum performance test, with the CPU cooler’s fans allowed to reach their fastest speeds, for the best cooling possible.

Turning on PBO allows AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D to stretch its legs to an extent, and all air coolers I have tested with PBO enabled using MSI’s X870E Carbon Wifi motherboard reach the maximum CPU temperature of 95 degrees C (203 F) and thermally throttle, to a small extent.

Most of the coolers in this comparison are dual-tower, with two fans. As such, it isn’t a surprise that the single-tower Freezer 36S is outperformed by most of the competition here. What is interesting is that despite being only a single-tower, single-fan air cooler, it still manages to perform very closely to the larger heatsinks – falling only 6W behind DeepCool’s AK620 G2.

To give a wider variety of comparison examples, I’ve included some data of the same tests from our last AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D cooling test bench. But keep in mind these results aren’t 100% comparable, due to a different case and fans being used.

Arctic’s Freezer 36S performs rather well for a single-tower cooler, and part of the reason for that is the included fan – which features speeds of up to 3000RPM, about 50% faster than most fans included on consumer CPU coolers. These faster top speeds come at the cost of noise levels, though, with the 36S reaching 47.4 dBA.

200W thermal benchmarks

For the next thermal test, I leave the motherboard settings at their defaults, which results in a power limit of about 200W when running Cinebench R23.

With a “stock” power profile enabled, Arctic’s latest single-tower air cooler averages 54.3 ΔC (76.5C/169.7F) – less than 2 degrees C from the best result we have from dual-tower air coolers.

150W + GPU thermal results, noise levels

Our next test runs Cinebench on the CPU with a 150W power limit, while also running Furmark on MSI’s RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3x OC. This causes the GPU to consume ~295W of power. This test is designed to emulate the thermals of games, which primarily stress the CPU and GPU.

All of the air coolers here perform similarly, with a range of just 2.7 degrees C between the best dual-tower air cooler and the worst-performing result. Let’s take a look at the noise levels now, as that will be more important to most users in this scenario.

I measured 42.4 dBA from Arctic’s Freezer 36S with a Pyle PSP25 soundmeter. This isn’t exactly what I would call “loud,” but it certainly ain’t quiet, either. If you’re particular about noise levels, you might want to implement a custom fan curve.

Noise-normalized testing

Most testing is performed with the cooler tied to the default fan curve of our MSI X870E Carbon motherboard, but some of y’all prefer to see tests when the noise levels of coolers are equalized. This is especially important to those of you who prefer silent computers.

This next test has the CPU cooler noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA, with PBO enabled for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU. Our results have it near the bottom of the list, which makes sense considering that it’s only a single-tower, single-fan cooler.

With this review, we have another noise-normalized benchmark, measuring the amount of time the cooler is able to keep AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D under its peak temperature (TJ Max) of 95 degrees C while running Cinebench R23 multi-core, all while the fan is noise-normalized to 38.9 dBA.

Karhu DDR5 RAM thermals testing!

Your CPU cooler does not operate in isolation. It has an impact on not just your CPU’s temperatures, but also the other components in your build, like your RAM and GPU. To that end, I’ve run the Karhu RAM stress test. This places a load of ~153W on the CPU and ensures system RAM (DDR5 in my case) is fully stable. In this type of scenario, most AIOs tend to produce worse results than air coolers.

The results here are extremely interesting. I had expected DDR5 temperatures to be worse than dual-tower air coolers, but both Arctic’s Freezer 36S and DeepCool’s AK400 G2 single-tower air coolers performed better than all traditional results – being outperformed only by Silverstone’s IceMyst Pro 360 when equipped with VRM fans.

Conclusion

Arctic’s Freezer 36S punches above its weight and price class, offering performance comparable to many dual-tower air coolers with only one fan paired to a single-tower heatsink – all with a price starting at just $28.49. It’s not the quietest cooler, and it requires installing a contact frame for Intel systems (which makes it a poor fit for novice builders), but if you aren’t trying to overclock and you don’t want to overspend on cooling to get something a bit quieter, it’s worth considering.

Innovative London-based PC cooling firm Billet Labs is back with another water-cooled system, this time aiming for a completely passive, fanless build. The video below explains why this interesting build was conceptualized, how it was built, its benefits and drawbacks, and how it performs, all with an eye on thermals.

Felix from Billet Labs starts the video presentation standing next to another of the firm's special projects – Walley. This machine is wall-mounted and shows plenty of Billet Labs signature flair. Its multiple powerful fans can get rather noisy when the system is under duress, though. If the fan speeds are scaled back, things start to get uncomfortably warm. The new custom build, therefore, targets a gaming PC that is much quieter.

Regular readers may be familiar with Billet and founder Felix on YouTube, most recently for ‘Raddy,’ the Victorian radiator PC. However, Raddy proved to be a bit noisy for a living room gaming machine, and it included some fans, so its performance components are being reused here.

Felix reveals that the hulking cast-iron radiator cooled beast known as Raddy wasn’t silent due to cavitation bubbles in the pump, which necessitates radiator flushing once a week. Not a trivial task. Also, Raddy wasn’t a fully passive design as it incorporated fans.

So, the new PC and Raddy share a lot of the same components, particularly the performance parts like an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, and an Aorus Pro B850 motherboard.

The new build used a trio of radiators in different sizes, ranging from large to very large. They were arranged above the heat-generating components, taking advantage of what Felix describes as a convection chimney effect.

For about the next 30 minutes of the video, we get to witness the skills behind the Billet Labs build process. The main stages roughly consisted of building the platform (based on an 8mm aluminum plate), mounting the PC parts, adding cooling, and then plumbing. From about 33 minutes in, we get to see the new living room gaming PC fire up Windows 11 for the ‘first time,’ and performance / thermal testing commences.

Felix isn’t satisfied with the silence of the building at first. So he had to turn off the motherboard fan and also adjust the pump speed to 80%. The machine was then tested until temperatures began to level off, over various workloads. Testing began with idling for half an hour, playing Peggle for a while, and then running Cinebench for half an hour. Things got serious as Halo 3 was fired up for a session. In the real gaming tests (Halo 3, Expedition 33, Cyberpunk 2077), the GPU never thermal throttled, but the CPU would a little as it hit 95 °C or more.

More stress testing was initiated, culminating in running Cinebench and FurMark simultaneously. This pulled over 450W of power and brought the radiator water temps up to 60C+, which is the maximum rated level for the pump. A throttling CPU was observed again in these tests. A full table of tests, power output, and temperatures is shared in the Reddit post embedded below.

In conclusion, Felix reckons passive water cooling alone isn’t really enough for a powerful modern gaming rig. Even a single case fan would probably be enough to make a world of difference. So, stay tuned for a follow-up video where you can see how the same Billet Labs PC performs with a 120mm fan atop, pulling air upwards, accelerating that chimney effect.

For anyone who has built their own PC, you probably know that incredible feeling of accomplishment when you finish. For an enthusiast, there’s just nothing like it. Flipping on the power switch, then pressing the power button on the case, and that sense of relief once you actually see the BIOS screen and watch it all come to life, accompanied by a swathe of RGB lighting illuminating the chassis like a warehouse rave.

There's the added benefit of hearing the machine finally take its first breaths, the fans spin up, creating a rush of air through your case. But then there’s that ever-constant hum in the background of those fans and the wind noise and other vibrations that make up the whole of the noise coming from your PC.

There are a few people out there, masochists perhaps, who don’t care about noise. The rest of us strive to have a quiet PC. Why a silent PC, some may ask? A silent PC helps with immersion if you’re a gamer, or can improve productivity by not being a loud distraction. You may be thinking, “I’ll just buy quiet fans and be OK.” And, in part, you’re not wrong.

But noise comes from a variety of sources. Be it fans on your case or on your AIO/CPU Air Cooler, a video card, or even chipsets and VRM heatsinks; fans are everywhere. There’s also noise from hard drives, pumps in an AIO or custom loop coolers, the ever-annoying coil whine, and even resonant vibrations from the chassis.

The good news is that, aside from coil whine, everything else is something you can mitigate in some fashion. Unfortunately, coil whine is something you simply have to tolerate, unless you want to apply clear nail polish to the chokes/inductors. You may be able to RMA the product due to coil whine, but you could be in the same boat after if it's a problem that plagues you later down the line.

Noise in your PC is, in fact, a byproduct of heat and airflow, and achieving the quietest PC possible requires balancing multiple competing factors. You also have to consider the tone versus loudness. Specific frequencies, like the high-pitched squeal of the chokes, can be more unappealing than lower-frequency noises. Building a quiet PC is not just about fans and buying better parts, but about working within the physical limits of your setup and figuring out how much money you’re willing to spend on silence.

Why it's challenging: the physics problem

The higher your processor or video card’s TDP/TBP (Thermal Dynamic Power/Total Board Power), the louder it gets, or the more cooling area you need to keep things quiet. The more powerful a system is, the more headwinds you face to keep it cool and prevent thermal throttling. In other words, it requires more effort to remove the heat from a fire-breathing 600W RTX 5090 and a 200W Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 than it does from a 250W RTX 5070 and a 120W Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Thermal density on the dies themselves has also increased dramatically over the last several years. As more transistors are packed into a tiny space and stacked on top of each other, it becomes physically harder to remove the amount of heat generated within the same space. Because of this and other factors, keeping today’s high-end processors at or below their throttling points has become increasingly difficult, requiring larger coolers and more airflow to keep them running at peak performance.

Ideally, you want laminar airflow where air moves uniformly, parallel, and in the same direction at a constant velocity, but that’s nearly impossible inside a PC case. Moving air creates turbulence, which generates sound. Turbulence in fans can come from many sources, including the shape of the blades and the air passing over them, as well as being in front of or behind mesh panels, grills, heatsinks, or radiators. In short, when airflow encounters obstructions, it becomes audible as it weaves through and around them. There’s also the consideration of how multiple fans react together. If some are running at slightly different speeds, they can produce a rhythmic, off-putting resonance.

Since we know that more power and performance mean more heat, and that fans need to move more air to cool, more airflow means louder operation. And there lies the rub. If you cherish silence more than anything, something has to give. Between high-performance, cooling, and silence, you need to pick two. One will almost always be compromised for another.

Another noteworthy point is that diminishing returns of silence are also very real. While in general it’s easy to reduce noise from loud to moderate, it’s harder to go from moderate to very quiet, and even more difficult to move from very quiet to ‘near silent.’ Each small improvement requires disproportionately more effort, compromise, or cost. Massive AIOs or custom water-cooling loops aren’t cheap, and most silent fans and cases aren't either.

What can you do about it?

The first thing to be reminded of at this point is that it’s all a balancing act. You can only make a machine that outputs 750W so quiet without thermal throttling, losing performance, or spending a lot of cash. Therefore, setting your expectations is key, especially if you’re running a high-power machine. Even though it can be an uphill battle with some hardware, there are ways to get a quieter PC, at a cost or for free, even if your PC matches the output of a personal space heater. The good news is that everything below applies to any machine, be it an HTPC or a monster full-tower gaming rig.

What you can do for free

One of the first things you can do without spending any money is clean out the dust in your case, especially your dust filters, and from the components, like the CPU and GPU heatsinks and power supply intake. The more they get clogged with dust, the less air passes through to cool your system, lowers usable thermal dissipation surface area, and the more turbulent (and louder) the airflow can get, and the faster your fans need to spin to keep temperatures down.

Case placement is another factor you can easily change and matters for both dust and noise. Under the desk, or further from ear level, is ideal, so long as it’s not sitting directly on carpet (the worst place for dust!) and has access to cool air for the intakes. Proper cable management also helps, though it is often a minor detail, as most cables are tied up in the back and out of the way of fast airflow.

Another good way to reduce noise is to optimize your PC’s airflow and adjust your fan speeds. If you can run them slower, adjust it via the BIOS or through your motherboard’s software, like Armory Crate, Gigabyte Control Center, etc., and keep an eye on temperatures afterward to make sure you’re not starving any components for cool air. In the linked article, we discuss the importance of airflow, the good and bad of positive versus negative air pressure, and how to achieve those states, and it is, without a doubt, worth a full read.

At a high level, intake CFM (Cubic Feet /Minute - it’s not just fan count!!) greater than exhaust CFM is a positive-pressure environment, while more CFM exiting the case than coming in yields a negative-pressure environment. There are pros and cons to both configurations, but positive-pressure tends to be the most commonly used.

With positive airflow, the increased ‘pressure’ inside forces air out of the exhaust fans and vents, preventing dust from entering through cracks and crevices. Positive pressure is ideal for preventing dust build-up. It makes sense to use it with a high-airflow case with front mesh, a tower air cooler, and optimal for blower-style graphics cards, as it creates a balanced airflow pattern inside your chassis and keeps the temps of your core components in check.

Negative pressure is the opposite, where, at the cost of increased dust inside your chassis, it’s getting air out of the case at a greater rate. It’s good for preventing hotspots due to the vacuum effect, to use with restrictive front panels, and for small-form-factor PCs where clean airflow is hard to come by. It can even offer lower video card temperatures in specific cases, such as a restricted front panel, where heat is quickly removed from the chassis.

On the hardware side of things, starting from your CPU, you can adjust the voltage, called Vcore, through your BIOS or via overclocking software to use less power under load. Typically, you do this by using an offset that reduces voltage globally across all speeds and loads. On many AMD processors, this is even a good way to get more performance, as you can undervolt and overclock, raising the CPU multiplier for higher boost clocks. For many Zen 4 and Zen 5-based processors, you can often undervolt by 10-20mv and still boost your peak clock speed by 100-200 MHz.

On my personal Ryzen 9 9900X3D, I achieved a stable -15 mV undervolt and a +200 MHz overclock. It isn’t a night-and-day difference performance-wise, but if we can get more from less, why not? Obviously, your mileage may vary, but this reduced the maximum load temperature by several degrees and lowered the part's power consumption by up to 2%.

You can also limit your GPU's power usage by manually adjusting the voltage, the voltage curve, or by lowering the power limit. I find it easier to lower the power limit on very powerful and power-hungry cards, since it's a simple slider. You can also set an FPS limit to match your monitor’s refresh rate, so the card won’t try to produce any frames past that limit, whether it’s 120, 165, 180, or 240 Hz, thus saving power.

For example, I set a couple of my games, mainly esports titles, to a 240 FPS limit, and with my graphics card, an RTX 5090, it rarely breaks 400W. Whereas, when left to its own devices, it will try to output every frame it can, and use the full 600W+ power budget, assuming you don’t have any other bottlenecks. Graphics cards also have variable-speed fans you can adjust via software (MSI Afterburner, for example), and this is another good way to hear the sounds of silence. But be careful here, as video cards will drop ‘boost bins’ as temperature rises until it’s below a threshold. The cooler your card, the longer it stays at maximum boost clocks.

Paying for the premium of silence

You can buy a new case with sound-dampening materials like the be Quiet! Silent Base 802 ($199.99) or other silent options such as the Dark Base Pro 901 ($199.90), Fractal Design Define 7 ($204.99), or even the old Antec P101 Slient, if you can find it. The downside of these cases is that you lose the front mesh and airflow, so if you have high-power components, the internals could run warmer than in a more free-flowing design, raising your internal temperatures and, thus, fan speeds and noise. If those options won’t work, you can take a look at our Best PC Cases article to see what we picked out across a wide variety of sizes.

Often, cheap stock fans that come with cases, especially off-brand chassis, are often noisey and inferior to those you purchase from popular quiet fan brands like Noctua, be quiet!, or Arctic. Buying quiet fans based on their specifications is a good start, physically, and will allow you to go from loud to moderate with just a little effort. Our Best PC Fans article can certainly help with that endeavor. If money is no object, we liked the Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 (2x @ $64.95, or one @ $34.95). If these are too expensive, our pick for best budget silence-optimized fans is the Arctic P120 Pro. Also, the larger the fan, the more air it can move, and generally quieter while moving the same amount of air.

When picking parts for your PC, you can choose quiet parts from the beginning, such as CPU coolers, like the Noctua NH-D15 Chromax.black ($129.95), the be quiet! Dark Rock Elite or Dark Rock Pro V (both are $84.90), or the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120SE ($39.90) for a budget-friendly air cooler option.

In the world of AIOs, one of the best for silence is the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 (360mm $129.50), or the budget Montech HyperFlow Silent (360mm $76.00 - though our review said it wasn’t the quietest on the market). If you need a high-performing AIO with silence in mind, the Corsair iCue Link Titan 360RX RGB AIO ($159.99) and its magnetic bearing dome fans had “chart-topping noise-normalized performance” and the “Lowest noise levels in common scenarios” according to our review. Custom water cooling is another way to reduce noise compared with air coolers or AIOs. While you can replace the fans on those devices, a custom loop lets you pick your own radiator, fans, and pump to optimize for performance, quiet, or a balance of both. While this cooling method costs more than the other options, you have complete control over the parts that make noise and greater control over the pump and fans. You can also expand it to add more radiators for more cooling capacity and reduced fan noise.

Major contributing parts to noise out of the way, other things matter too. When silence is golden for your build, consider moving to SATA-based SSDs to eliminate noise if you're using HDDs for anything other than cold storage, where they’re inactive/sleeping most of the time. Another potential upgrade that could save some decibels is your power supply. Most of these days run in a ‘hybrid’ mode, where the fan stays off until a certain temperature or load is reached. But the more efficient it is, think Gold/Platinum/Titanium 80 Plus or Cybenetics certifications, the better chance it remains silent at light to medium loads. The be quiet! Dark Power 13 ($111.90) is a solid choice for quiet operation and reliability. If that doesn’t work for you, please check out our Best Power Supplies guide for other options.

Takeaways

Building a quiet PC can be quite challenging, especially if you’re trying to make it ‘near-silent’, as there are many considerations that go into making something that quiet. If you have a power-hungry system, it’s going to be that much more difficult to knock off some decibels compared to a low-power system, as it has less heat to evacuate. Still, there are plenty of things you can do to improve your acoustic performance from obnoxious to tolerable without emptying your wallet or losing performance.

• Dust and clean out your case
• Adjust fan curves
• Undervolt your CPU or GPU
• Set FPS limits in your games
• Move your PC away from ear-level
• $ - Rubber isolation for fans/HDD/pumps
• $$ - Upgrade to a more efficient power supply
• $$$ - Replace fans/coolers/case with ‘silent’ models

In the end, making a quiet PC isn’t as easy as slapping “silent” fans in your case and calling it a day, though that is a start. Every watt of power your system uses becomes heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. Between fan turbulence, pumps, vibration, coil whine, and even the way air moves through the mesh on your case, countless factors are working against true silence.

The reality is that building a quiet PC is one massive tightrope walk, balancing performance, acoustics, and cooling. The closer you get to silence, the more effort, money, and compromise it tends to require. You may never eliminate noise, especially with today’s high-powered hardware. Still, with the right expectations, some tuning, and perhaps a bit of cash, you can turn an obnoxiously loud system into something more pleasing to the ear.

You’ve probably seen a few examples of PC DIYers installing figurines in their elaborate, RGB-infused fishtank builds. Chinese TechTuber Soda Baka has scaled this phenomenon up to create a tower PC large enough for a human to work and play inside. What looks like a figurine in some of these PC pictures is actually the TechTuber posing. The video is shared on China’s Bilibili.

We aren’t 100% sure of the purpose of this build, other than spectacle, due to things getting lost in translation. However, a short skit in the video (machine translated) indicates the build was influenced by Baka’s little cousin being barked at by his mom “You play computer games all day, why don’t you just live in a computer!” Something like that.

We also get the feeling this is a canny video sponsorship deal as air conditioners start to become highly desirable, now that we are moving into warmer months in the Northern Hemisphere.

The human-habitable PC tower project gets underway with Soda Baka sketching and modeling before the construction begins in earnest. We see various huge components being fabricated, that look like case fans, GPUs, AiO CPU coolers, RAM sticks and so on. The TechTuber doesn’t forget to add splashes of RGB lighting, of course.

Some real-PC stuff is installed in the mega-PC, so there’s something to do once the side panel is put on… You can see Soda Baka sitting at a compact desk playing a game on the screen attached to the AiO – how modern.

Now things heat up, literally, as to simulate PC-scale heat at this large scale some hot-coal sauna installations are used. We see the TechTuber boosting the heat/humidity levels with a bottle of water. Apparently it doesn’t take long for the enclosed computer room (in the PC) temperatures to rise above 100°F (38 degrees Celsius).

Because all the huge fans and coolers are fake, our trapped TechTuber has to turn on the installed 12kW AC unit, which boasts 820m³/hr air circulation to cool the ‘PC system.’ Quickly enough the atmosphere changes to become “like a spring evening in the North [of China].” Was it all an elaborate Midea 3^rd Gen Pro AC unit sponsorship promotional video? Maybe it was.