Are we witnessing the slow demise of the air cooler?

[Mr McC]

One thing that you will find useful is to think beyond the desktop PC paradigm.

Many people here at TPU gnash their teeth when Apple is brought into the conversation but they have done a splendid job in bringing some computing technologies into the mainstream.

Computing isn't just strapping a CPU onto an ATX motherboard, plugging in a PSU and graphics card and installing Windows anymore. There are far more passively cooled computing devices on the planet today than twenty years ago.

Guilty as charged! I was limiting my scope to the desktop PC when I created the thread, but a less blinkered approach, beyond the enthusiast sector, is both more balanced and more interesting.

 

[Vario]

The current gen just needs undervolt and the clock backed down 200MHz and it will be in a normal range for air coolers such as NHD15S (<85C) with virtually no performance hit.

 

[Shrek]

I look forward to efficient chips and so air cooling.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I ran my 5900x on a Noctua NH-U9S for a 5-6 months until I had funds to pick up a new AIO. Temps pushed upwards of 90C while I used handbrake for multiple hours when I had a bunch of new complete TV series and movies to add to my plex server. The cooler worked, but it wasn't ideal for long, continued stints of high workloads.

Spoiler

I only used it because I needed a decent enough cooler that would fit my case to allow the top 200mm fan to be used, too. The 200mm is the main exhaust fan in the case, the other is a 120mm on the back. Without the top fan mounted and functional things would get too hot for everything. I got a H100i AIO now and temps don't go past low 70s when using handbrake.

If that little cooler could be just enough for a 5900X CPU running fairly demanding workloads, I think its big brothers should be able to handle the current line of CPUs for gaming just fine for gaming systems. Heavy workload systems may need better cooling, but in the end I don't see air coolers going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[caroline!]

The current gen just needs undervolt and the clock backed down 200MHz and it will be in a normal range for air coolers such as NHD15S (<85C) with virtually no performance hit.

B-but 5GHZ!!!!!!!

That's so dumb. Placebo number.

 

[hat]

I say no. The majority of computer users are not like us who are looking at reviews of high end processors on high end boards under big coolers with all their limits removed. Even big chips like i9s will run just fine with their stock limits set where they're "supposed" to be.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I ditched air cooling in favor of aio liquid cooling over a decade ago.... Still standard 120mm and 140mm air coolers aren't going anywhere. Nothing I've seen from Ryzen 7000/Intel 13th gen changes that.

 

[AlwaysHope]

my choice for the poll would be Air Cooling is going nowhere.
my 12700k at 5Ghz P, 4 Ghz E and 4.3 Ghz Ring runs an hour long blender render at almost 100°C fully stable with a tiny little NH U12S 120mm single tower cooler.
with the NH-D15 it's 2-3°C apart from my Kraken X73 at 100% pump speed.

Wow! but what ambient temp?
Lots of threads popping up discussing the fallout of AM5 temps in other parts of this forum but I see little if any discussion highlighting ambient temps. Not having a go at you personally, but some end users like operating their PCs in rooms with 20C. 25C or even 30C for some folks. This can have a significant bearing on how these new cpus boost & for how long of course.

 

[nguyen]

I say no. The majority of computer users are not like us who are looking at reviews of high end processors on high end boards under big coolers with all their limits removed. Even big chips like i9s will run just fine with their stock limits set where they're "supposed" to be.

Yup, having big&unreliable AIOs in your PC make the CPU boost 100mhz higher, so what LOL.

Not to mention most AIOs come with shitty fans that are loud AF, that temperature under normalized noise barely 5C better than cheap tower coolers.

 

[Dirt Chip]

It might be the start of the end for air.
It already started with AMD recommendation for 240/280AIO on 7900X/7950X. Moving forward to ZEN5 you might see even smaller die so even lower tier will need water to stay cool (or with decent frequency..)
The top preforming air coolers will stay, as they can mech or outperform even mid-level (good 240/280) AIO. The rest will gradually go away just as personal cameras (non DLSR) almost completely disappear as smartphone emerge. For small, low end (i3\R3), office computers air will stay of course as it is so much cheaper, just as you can find many basic cameras in car dashboard, home security\surveillance and such.

 

[mb194dc]

Not in the mainstream. For the high end yes, 200w+ CPU on air pushing limits.

Almost no one actually needs those CPUs. Gaming at high res isn't very CPU intensive at all.

 

[Flanker]

Considering how I'm quite comfortable playing games with 60hz vsync, I can probably stick with air cooling for quite a long while

 

[Shrek]

Where is the option: Air cooling will always have a place?

 

[Space Lynx]

If people would just set stronger fan curves and have good fans that don't make loads of noise at higher rpm like Noctua or Aer-P, we would be witnessing the demise of all AIO's.

Also, my 7700x will be getting a -30 undervolt, only hits performance 0.5% across the board, but comes with 30 celsius temperature drop.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

If people would just set stronger fan curves and have good fans that don't make loads of noise at higher rpm like Noctua or Aer-P, we would be witnessing the demise of all AIO's.

Also, my 7700x will be getting a -30 undervolt, only hits performance 0.5% across the board, but comes with 30 celsius temperature drop.

Doubtul decent fans like ML Pro, Noctua a12x25, Phanteks T30 help aio as well.

Both cooling types have a purpose and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Space Lynx]

Doubtul decent fans like ML Pro, Noctua a12x25, Phanteks T30 help aio as well.

Both cooling types have a purpose and aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

yeah but with a slightly stronger fan curve on air, they cool the same regardless, within 5 celsius of the best AIO.

also fan curves don't help AIO's as well as they do on air

 

[oxrufiioxo]

yeah but with a slightly stronger fan curve on air, they cool the same regardless, within 5 celsius of the best AIO.

also fan curves don't help AIO's as well as they do on air

I've used both cooling types extensively they seem to gain about the same within margin of error going with some 3000 RPM jet engines on them (which is pointless my 360 aio running fans at less than 1k rpm already keeps my 5950X below 70C under full load as it is) but 63-65c looks good vs 67-69c I guess. Maybe that will change once I upgrade to a next gen cpu....

To me the whole air cooler vs aio argument has always been dumb there are valid reasons to use either and they don't always come down to raw performance.

Aren't you the one desperately looking for a budget case that fits a 420mm aio?

 

[Pumper]

No, you just need to optimize your hardware instead of running default, because the current default is whatever gives max performance.

 

[64K]

We're on an enthusiast site so there is considerable enthusiast thinking about things and that's fine but most PCs are used in businesses where MS Office is one of the biggest needs. They don't need high performance CPUs and don't overclock at all and may only get an i3 or equivalent. They don't need anything but the stock cooler that comes with the basic CPU. Before I retired I worked for a company that employed around 7,000 people. Almost all of them needed a PC or laptop and none of them used anything but stock Dells. I can't imagine what my boss would have said to me if I had suggested that we need to toss in the trash those perfectly good stock coolers that had already been paid for and put in water coolers. I'm pretty sure he would have laughed at me and he would have been right to do so.

 

[gffermari]

It's not going anywhere.
The hardware will adapt to air cooler's and normal 240/360 AIO capabillities.

 

[Frick]

Long.

Not everyone uses a PC to play videogames. You don't need a 32-core CPU running at 6GHz to run Microsoft Excel.

There are definitely situations in which you want a really high end system just for Excel, but it's not the kind of stuff you do at home.

 

[xtreemchaos]

I can say for sure if its Air towers, passive coolers, aio liquid coolers or custom loops thay are all air coolers and there all the best we have and we will be using for a long time unless we have another ice age and we can stick our riggs in a tub of veg oil and leave outside i know im taking daft but i havnt had me tablets yet today. .

 

[AusWolf]

Air coolers will always have a place in office / HTPC / small form factor builds. Just not in high-end desktop.

I can say for sure if its Air towers, passive coolers, aio liquid coolers or custom loops thay are all air coolers and there all the best we have and we will be using for a long time unless we have another ice age and we can stick our riggs in a tub of veg oil and leave outside i know im taking daft but i havnt had me tablets yet today. .

But your tub of veg oil is also cooled by air.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Air cooling will never become obsolete unless the chips start running 5w or less. But even then, 5w chipsets typically have a heat sink.

Processors, if where released at their defaults so the user had to overclock, like the old days, could get away with any heat sink. Most processors at their base frequency don't really run that hot.

 

[Night]

No, you just need to optimize your hardware instead of running default, because the current default is whatever gives max performance.

Why not just buy a cheaper CPU with lower operating temperature or the previous gen if you would plan on having 7900X undervolted for example. Seems like a logical choice. 5900X runs at 67 °C under full load.