Best CPU Coolers 2026: AIO and Air Coolers

Whether you’re after the highest clock speeds possible or looking to build a PC that's near-silent under load, you should to choose your CPU cooler carefully. The best CPU cooler for your build will dictate your processor's temperatures and contribute to its fan noise.

In high-end systems, a great cooler can also deliver better performance by keeping your CPU's boost clocks higher for longer periods. We test dozens of PC air coolers and all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler models every year. You'll find our picks for the best coolers below to keep your CPU temps under control. And if you're after a liquid cooler in particular, check out our Best AIO Coolers page for even more excellent cooler options for your system's CPU.

ASRock has dipped its toes into AIO liquid cooling market, some with a pumpless design, we'll see at CES. The plan to release coolers across the Taichi, Phantom Gaming, Steel Legend, Challenger, and Pro, and workstations lineups with most using a more traditional pump configuration. We also have a visits scheduled with Cooler Master, Corsair, Lian Li, and others who are expected to show off some new coolers and AIOs for 2026; some which could make our best list. Keep an eye out here for updates!

While AIOs and air coolers come with their own fans, case fans are also critical in keeping temperatures down. The cooler the air hitting AIO or heatsink, the cooler your CPU temperatures will be. That said, we've started fan testing at Tom's and have published our first Best PC Case Fans article covering several recent PC fans including some from Noctua, Arctic, Phanteks, and more. Find out which fans perform best for your needs, be it quiet operation, high-performance, or RGBs, we have you covered and expanding testing testing more fans as we speak.

Best Air Coolers

Best AIO Coolers

The Best Air Coolers You Can Buy Today

Best Air Cooler for Most People

Thermalright's Peerless Assassin 120 SE lives up to its name, delivering the best performance from an air cooler that we've tested on Intel's Alder Lake at a price that undercuts the competition. In our tests, it performed so well when cooling our Core i9-12900K that we re-tested it multiple times to be sure the results were correct. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE cooled the CPU when it was drawing over 200 watts better than our tested competition, and at lower thermal/TDP settings, it performed much better than the competition.

The cooler's two 120mm fans did their job of dissipating all that heat at low noise levels, making at just 34.5dB at max speed, and 33dB at 50% speed. It's also available in in silver/gray, white or black, so it should fit in with most build themes if you care about matching aesthetics. Whether you care about value or not, you should consider this cooler for your next system build, so long as your case has room for it.

Read: Thermalright Peerless Assassin SE review

Best Big Air CPU Cooler

Thermalright has long been delivering impressive cooling at prices that most of competition can't match. But the Royal Pretor 130 shattered my expectations, once again raising the bar for what I consider possible with air cooling, both in terms of maximum theoretical performance and when its fans are set to run quietly. And unlike big air alternatives from brands like Noctua or Be Quiet, the price of this cooler is reasonable, typically selling for just above $50 in the U.S.

That said, unless you're running one of the highest-end consumer CPUs under sustained productivity workloads that task all all available cores, or you need the quietest possible performance, most people should be happy with a lower-end, lower-priced cooler like Thermalright's Peerless Assassin 120 SE, which typically sells for $15-$20 less than this cooler. But if you’re looking for the best air cooler on the market and don't mind spending around $50, the Royal Pretor 130 is what you should buy.

Read: Thermalright Royal Pretor 130

Best Mid-size Air CPU Cooler

With the Mugen 6, Scythe brings performance and noise levels comparable to high-end models available from BeQuiet! and DeepCool, at a lower price. If you’re after a well-performing air cooler with low maximum noise levels, the Mugen 6 and Mugen 6 Black Edition are well worth considering.

There aren’t many other quiet coolers at this price level, aside form Thermalright’s Phantom Spirit 120. It can dissipate slightly more watts for high-end CPUs, but it does so at higher maximum noise levels.

Read: Scythe Mugen 6 review

Best Entry-Level Air Cooler

You shouldn't use it for overclocking, but for those looking for an aftermarket cooler on a tight budget, Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE is the best option on the market at the moment. Our testing shows it delivers essential cooling performance sufficient for most users, while also keeping noise levels low. Its one-year warranty is less than most of the competition. But if the fan goes in a couple of years, you can probably afford to replace it considering how affordable this cooler is.

Read: Thermalright Assassin X 120 R SE review

Best Fanless CPU Cooler

Noctua’s NH-P1 is a unique fanless cooler that delivers truly silent cooling, at the cost of slightly reduced cooling thermal performance. Don't look to this cooler if you need every last bit of performance for overclocking. But if you’re a user who prefers silence and runs more common workloads, it's a great option. Even if you run intense multi-core workloads, there won’t be much of a performance loss, as we saw in our Cinebench R23 tests using AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Not only is Noctua’s NH-P1 the strongest fanless solution available for typical PC users, it's also the only one that is easily available for purchase. The $119 USD price will be tough for many to take, but that’s the price of a niche product with strong performance.

Read: Noctua NH-P1 review

Best AIO Coolers You Can Buy Today

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler

If your primary cooling concern is the lowest possible CPU temperatures and you don't want to pay extra for RGB or a screen, Arctic's 360 mm Liquid Freezer III Pro is, hands down, the best option I've ever tested, whether you're using a high-end AMD or Intel CPU. Nothing else even comes close.

Just note that its radiator and fans together are 63 mm thick, so it won't fit in every case. And its default settings are arguably overkill for even a 9950X3D or a 14900K. So if you're sensitive to fan and pump noise, you'll want to tune things down a bit. Aslo, Intel users will have to install an included contact frame, which makes installation more complicated. Installation is pretty standard for AMD users.

Aside from performance, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro also wins on price. Its $125 U.S. MSRP is competitive or below many other big-name cooling brands. But the cooler is also often on sale for much less. When we wrote this, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 mm was selling for just $88 on Amazon. At that price – or really at any price around $100 – it's hard to argue for any other AIO cooler.

Read: Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro review

Best Budget Curved Screen AIO

If you’re in the market for a new AIO and like huge screens, Thermalright’s Wonder Vision 360 UB ARGB is one of the best we’ve recently tested. Sporting a large, high-resolution 6.7-inch detachable curved screen that sets it apart from most of the competition, good cooling performance, low noise in common scenarios, and a lower price than competing curved-screen AIOs, this makes a great cooling solution for anyone who wants a screen on their AIO without the sticker shock.

Our testing revealed that the Wonder Vision handles more than 255W with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU; however, they said it gets loud when maxed out (47 dBA peak). Quiet isn’t its specialty during high-load scenarios, but it operates quietly in other scenarios. Still, the claim to fame for this AIO is the detachable 6.7-inch, 2,400 x 1,080-resolution anamorphic screen that can be mounted elsewhere, even outside your case. Thermalright stands behind this AIO with a long six-year warranty, too.

Read: Thermalright Wonder Vision 360 UB ARGB Review

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

Thermalright continues to prove it's a market leader, raising the bar for performance and value with the Grand Vision 360. This 360mm AIO’s thermal results were better than previous coolers we’ve tested, both with Intel's current Core Ultra 9 285K and the older Core i7-14700K.

Its cooling performance wasn't drastically better than close competitors from Be Quiet and NZXT, but at $129 in the US, its more affordable than those alternatives, while offering up more features.

Unlike most AIOs in this price range, the Grand Vision 360 includes a fancy LCD screen with tons of preset customization options. And while not everyone wants or needs that in their cooler, Thermalright at least delivers the feature at a lower price than most competitors, and doesn't sacrifice cooling performance for a flashy LCD. If you’re looking for an LCD-equipped AIO that cools extremely well and doesn’t break the bank, Thermalright’s Grand Vision 360 is the liquid cooler you’re looking for.

Read: Thermalright Grand Vision 360 Review

Best Budget 360mm AIO Cooler

ID-Cooling, much like rival Thermalright, has established itself as a company that delivers solid colling performance at budget-friendly prices. Its FX360 INF 360mm AIO, while not the cheapest in the company's lineup, is still quite affordable at around $80. For that price, you get RGB fans and an infinity mirror on top of the CPU block, a tube of one of the best thermal pastes we've tested, and shockingly great performance for the price.

The ID-Cooling FX360 INF was within striking distance of the best coolers we've tested, just one watt below the best results we've seen cooling the Core i7-14700K with no power limits. And it kept our newer Core Ultra 9 286K more than 10 degrees Celsius below its throttling threshold. And even more impressively, it did all that with a maximum noise level of just 44.4 dBA – and when tied to our test system's default fan curve during our heavy gaming test, the cooler topped out at just 40.9 dBA. Those are both some of the quietest results we've seen from an AIO.

You could spend more – and you'll likely have to spend a lot more – to get slightly better cooling performance and / or aesthetic features like a customizable screen on the water block. But if all you care about is keeping your CPU cool and your system quiet while adding some RGB lighting to your rig, ID-Cooling's FX360 INF is one of the best – and most affordable – 360mm options we've tested to date.

Read: ID-Cooling FX360 INF review

Best Multipurpose AIO Cooler

There is still room for innovation in the CPU cooling market, as evidenced by Silverstone's IceMyst AIO line. The 360mm model we tested performed generally quite well in our testing, but apart from that, this cooler lets you add multiple additional fans (which cost $16 each) on top of the CPU block that can easily be positioned to help cool VRMs, RAM, SSDs, or other nearby components. While not everyone needs this additional cooling, it's a unique option not available from any other AIO or air cooler. And the IceMyst is also priced less than most high-end AIO coolers.

We tested both the 360 and 240mm IceMyst AIOs and they performed well overall, generally landing close tot he best-performing alternatives in terms of thermal dissipation. But if you set the IceMyst cooler's fans to a quiet 38.2 dBA, as well as its competitors, Silverstone’s 360mm cooler performed better than any cooler we've tested, dissipating 237 watts. The 240mm model also did well, removing 228W of heat.

The only real downside is that you'll have to do some fan speed tweaking to get the best results. By default, Silverstone sets the IceMyst's fan speeds higher than they need to be, making them louder than necessary. But take a few minutes to set a custom fan curve in your BIOS or motherboard software, and these coolers offer the best noise-normalized performance we've tested so far. Plus, if you want to add some additional cooling to components around your CPU, you can do so for as little as $16 extra.

Read: Silverstone IceMyst 360 and 240mm AIO Review

Best 280mm AIO Cooler

With the right design, you don’t need a 360mm AIO or a loud cooler to keep modern high-end CPUs from throttling -- and Lian Li’s Galahad II LCD 280 proves it. Its performance is amongst the best we’ve seen from any AIO, and its limited 280mm radiator size means that it will fit in many cases where a 360mm model won’t. The LCD screen atop the cooling plate is vibrant and adds eye-catching functionality, too.

At $229, the Galahad II LCD 280 is on the fairly expensive, but if the LCD display isn’t important to you, the non-LCD versions of the Galahad II are available for $159.99 for the 360mm version and $119.99 for the 240mm model. That's a lot more affordable for what should be performance that's just as impressive as this model.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II LCD 280 Review

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler

I never imagined that a 240mm AIO would have this level of thermal domination. Lian Li’s Galahad Trinity II Performance 240mm got surprisingly close to and even outperformed 360mm AIOs in our testing that were previously considered among the best available.

You can’t go wrong with Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity 240mm if you're after a cooler that performs well. Our testing shows it's the best-cooling AIO of its size on the market. It's also quiet under most conditions, and is reasonably priced at only $119.99.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 Review

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

After testing, I found Cooler Master’s new MasterLiquid 240 Atmos especially impressive. The company improved its flagship AIO in several key areas: Noise levels are low in most common workloads, and despite its smaller 240mm profile, this is one of only a handful of AIOs I’ve tested that can keep Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature, even in the most thermally demanding scenarios.

Cooler Master also backs the quality of this product with rated lifespans of over 160,000 hours for the fans and 210,000 hours for the pump, combined with a 5-year warranty.

Lian Li's Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 cools just slightly better and sells for a little less. But Cooler Master's Atmos includes an ARGB controller box for syncing your lighting with other components. If you have a use for the controller, which would cost about $20 on its own, these two coolers are effectively evenly priced.

Read: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 Atmos Review

Best 120mm Closed-Loop Liquid Cooler

Why you might not want a 120mm AIO

Generally, you can get better performance with air cooler at a lower price than a small 120mm AIO. And an air cooler won't add the underlying hum of pump noise to your PC. But there are certain systems, whether they be extremely compact, or just with very little clearance above the CPU socket and no space to mount a larger 240mm radiator, where 120mm AIOs are your best (or perhaps only) option.

We tested four popular models of these compact liquid coolers. And while Enermax LiqMaxFlo SR 120mm wasn't hands-down the best performer when it comes to cooling, it offered the best balance of cooling ability, quiet noise levels, and price (selling for around $80 when we wrote this).

Enermax's cooler also has a unique feature in its CPU-block-mounted RGB fan, which adds a splash of color while also helping to circulate air around your VRMs and RAM. In extremely tight cases where you might have to use a 120mm AIO, that extra airflow can be a very helpful feature.

Read our 120mm AIO roundup: Testing Be Quiet, Corsair, Cooler Master, and Enermax models

Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake S cooling tests

If you're considering building around one of Intel's latest Core Ultra desktop processors, you won't need to spend as much as you might think on cooling. Arrow Lake S sports a more efficient design (though there are some serious tradeoffs in performance, particularly in gaming), so you shouldn't need as much cooling performance as you would or did with previous-gen Raptor Lake chips.

Our testing links below will tell you what kind of cooler you'll need to keep the latest Ultra 7 and Ultra 9 CPUs running fast and cool.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K cooling testing

Intel Core Ultra 7 265K cooling testing

Quick Shopping Tips

When choosing the best CPU cooler for your needs, consider the following: