Is Aftermarket CPU Cooling Worth It? - Overclocking Examination
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,358 words · ~6 min read
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a long while back I made this video
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looking into whether or not premium PC cooling fans were worth it this raised
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another question however one that some people are actually rather uncomfortable
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discussing is aftermarket CPU cooling
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even worth it I understand why this can be a difficult conversation people often
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don't like P their purchasing decisions coming to question but in 2015 with much
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of the hardware development world going to less power draw and lower thermal
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output is is it needed anymore let's
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find out and stay tuned for a course for gaming update coming soon where we'll
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explore how many CPU cores are really needed for gaming in
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2015 The Cooler Master Nova touch tkl utilizes exclusive hybrid capacitive
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switches powered by toer and is now available at a more affordable price
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click now to learn more many a time in the history of PC
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Builders a young Jimmy or Jane has sat at the checkout window wondering if they
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should spring for a better CPU Cooler at the cost of a weaker component elsewhere
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hours have been spent researching this question but to no avail whatever shall
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they do if they're not interested in overclocking or Aesthetics the obvious
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answer is just to stick with the stock cooler and invest elsewhere but if they
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want to overclock is it worth it how
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much is worth it there are a lot of potential Avenues to look look at this
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from one we won't be exploring is custom water cooling Loops they are too
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expensive although there's some exceptions they're perform better
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although there's some exceptions you get the point essentially custom water
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cooling is an extreme variable because it's well custom there's a metric ton of
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benefits to custom water cooling but many of them come at the cost of well
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cost at paxis 2015 I did a top five
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gaming desktops of the Intel Booth uh video one of the systems shown in that
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video the main gear one had around $1,000 in just fittings alone now I know
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not everyone's doing that and if you are you know what that's freaking awesome
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and if you're interested in that that's great please post your build in the
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build log section of the Forum because it's probably going to be beautiful and
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I'm probably going to want to see it but this video may not really cater to you I
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personally water cool custom water cooling but I spent about a quarter of
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that on my whole setup including all the fittings and everything and I expect most people that are newly
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getting into water cooling will be getting topthe line processors anyway so
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the whole is it worth it question is less likely applicable to them because
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improved water cooling is directly on their CPU performance upgrade path now
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if someone is getting a processor that does have potential upgrades now we're
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talking what we will be testing is a Cooler Master T4 in order to represent a
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fairly average example of a low to mid-range air cooler at about $ 30ish
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and a Cooler Master seiden which will represent the Dual 120 mm rad and the
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similarly performing large dual air Tower coolers like the Noctua nhd15 at
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around $100 is do last and definitely least in terms of performance is the
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general run-of-the-mill No Frills Intel stock cooler which is bundled with your
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processor the antagonist in the story will be the Intel
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4690k an extremely commonly recommended and purchased processor that will be
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testing these coolers at 3 different settings one is the stock setting of a
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3.5 GHz base frequency and a 3.9 GHz
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boost frequency and next is a slight gahz overclock of all cores running at 4
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GHz but a pretty hefty voltage increase running at 1.25 volts and lastly it will
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run into another slightly higher frequency of 4.3 gz and a heavier
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voltage increase of 1.35 volts please note that you could run these voltages
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and get much higher clock speeds I was simply cranking up the voltage to turn
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up the heat next up up we have the cmt4
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and before you comment down below that I'm a horrible human being because I
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didn't use the hyper 212 Evo I know I'm
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sorry we somehow don't have one in office I honestly have no idea how Linus
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has gone this long without having one in stock yeah anyways it's slightly more
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expensive and will perform slightly better than the T4 and as you can see
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the general message would have probably been somewhat similar overall the 1.35
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volt overclock resulting in a 95 Dee processor and some throttling wasn't
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great but this small upgrade allowed us to run at 1.25 volts at essentially the
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same temperatures as the stock cooler at stock speeds and voltages on the CPU a
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solid Improvement for just 28 bucks lastly we have the siden 240 this cooler
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was able to achieve a very nice stock speed load temperature of 47° and tied
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the stock Cooler's stock clock thermal output but at 1.35 volts giving you a
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lot more room to play with but the siden 240 has a really awkward price position
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when compared to a 4690k because a 4690k
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is $240 and a 4790k which is hyperthreaded and has a much higher
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boost clock of 4.4 GHz is $340 exactly $100 more very similar
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pricing to a siden 240 in conclusion is
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it worth it I'll give you a solid maybe
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from the raw performance numbers it looks like if you don't want to
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overclock don't upgrade if you want to overclock but don't have a ton of budget
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get something like a hyper 212 Evo if you have a fair amount of budget upgrade
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your processor or if you're already at the top of the line just get whatever
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your budget allows but that's not the whole story either is it some people
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care a lot about Aesthetics I could call them shallow but I do as well maybe I'm
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shallow I don't know and then there is some silus junkies as well I know people
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that run custom water cooling setups for just their entire systems and don't even
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have an overclock they just do it so they can turn their fans and their pumps
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super low and run their computer at a whisper quiet level what solution is
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best for you for me it's custom water cooling I've had a bunch of my kit for a
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while so upgrading doesn't really cost that much money I really like the
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Aesthetics and it's just fun are you someone who's going to try to save a
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bunch of money and not buy an aftermarket cooler are you going to go for like the affordable but kind of
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badass get a little bit more out of your processor range or are you pretty much
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already up there and just want something cool and easy let me know in the
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comments down below or even if you're custom water cooling which is super badass comments down below over on the
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forum either one totally works let me know also down below this video you'll
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be able to see a link for shirts that are definitely not a Twitch Plays
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Pokemon shirt although Twitch Plays Pokemon was awesome Nostalgia anyways over on the
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Forum as well there should be a support us link where you can change things like
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your Amazon affiliate links to our affiliate codes so we get a small
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Kickback whenever you buy things over there which is actually super helpful
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and there's tons of other ways to support Media Group as well like going
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on the Forum or watching videos anyways thanks for watching I'll see you guys
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next time