Seeking Advice on CPU Cooling selection

[Forum Man]

My current rig is very old. Like myself !!.
I am configuring a new desktop system based around an AMD RYZEN 9 7900 CPU.
I need to select a Cooling unit. I am unfamiliar with this notion.
I thought CPUs were cooled with air blown over the cooling fins!! Things have changed.
What should I specify and why? What are the issues?
I have no interest in over clocking or gaming.
If noise is an issue, I would go for the most silent solution. My chosen case size is a large full tower.
Advice appreciated please.
FM

 

[TonyCarter]

We can’t advise on individual components as we won’t know if they‘re suitable for the whole build.

Could you read the below and answer some the questions posed…

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[Forum Man]

Thank you for your interest.
I chose the first cooling option on the list.
The config below is a work in progress, but here goes:

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7900 12 Core CPU (4.0GHz-5.4GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X670 AORUS ELITE AX (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6E)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz (1 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W CX SERIES™ CX-750 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
DeepCool AK400 Performance CPU Cooler ZERO DARK
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

 

[TonyCarter]

Your config is missing the price and config link from the bottom, but for now could you tell us what you’re using it for (gaming only, video encoding, rendering, CAD, AI, trading, etc.) so we can advise better.

But based on the CPU selection, I’d suggest the slightly more powerful Deepcool AK620 air cooler…or one of the Corsair Capellix AIO liquid coolers.

1 stick of RAM will reduce performance, so 2x16GB will perform better than 1x32GB, and the sweet spot for AMD AM5 CPUs is 6000MHz…but the benefits of this will depend on usage.

There are also better options for the storage choices…but it’s much easier for us to advise once we know the usage, budget, monitor and have the config link to play with.

 

[Forum Man]

Thank you for those comments.
Full config below. I'm new to PCS so bear with me please.
Budget is max £1600.
Requirements:
Full Tower case. Quiet as possible. Instant response times.
I run multiple browsers with multiple tabs open on each. Genealogy is one hobby.
I run VMWARE for virtual machines - older windows and especially Linux
Room for +3 existing HDDs from my old system (3x3TB)
I do some video editing (Filmora)
I do 3D printing and run the associated design software (CAD-like).
Support for existing dual monitors - one HDMI and one DVI (old - maybe replace soon)
Mobo supports just one monitor so will add USB 'cable' for second screen.
500GB SSD for Win 11 Pro (I have a licence)
1TB SSD for Onedrive
8TB HDD for videos/films/books library (non critical) and various other backups
No Gaming and No fancy lights required on the case
Hoping to get another 10 years from this investment !!!!!!!
Concerned about possible WIN 12 hardware requirements but . . . . hope AI cards will be available.
Initially I don't think I need a graphics card. Maybe add one later.
Large power supply to future proof the config and cater for the extra HDDs. and a graphics card.

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7900 12 Core CPU (4.0GHz-5.4GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5)
Motherboard
GIGABYTE X670 AORUS ELITE AX (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 4.0, Wi-Fi 6E)
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz (1 x 32GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W CX SERIES™ CX-750 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
DeepCool AK400 Performance CPU Cooler ZERO DARK
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £1,352.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.ie/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/xuY0pYvQ9p/

 

[Forum Man]

TonyCarter said:
There are also better options for the storage choices…but it’s much easier for us to advise once we know the usage, budget, monitor and have the config link to play with.
Tony, please see corrected config above. Your comments on storage options would be very welcome.
FM

 

[TonyCarter]

The comment around the storage was because there are some m.2 drives available that have much better write endurance than the Samsungs...and some customers have been a bit put off when Samsung released their newest offerings with dodgy firmware that basically destroyed the performance within about a month.

The reason for asking for usage was that there are different recommendations for gaming, productivity, audio/video/graphic work.

So for gaming we'd recommend a very fast windows drive purely for the OS/apps/game installers, and a larger one just for game installs to keep everything running nice and not overloading a single drive with gaming requests whilst the system is doing its stuff.

For media creation, we recommend something similar, but have an extra very fast drive to use as a cache or to store working assets/projects so there's no bottleneck loading them.

For your usage, I don't think it's as important to have multiple large & very fast drives, but reliability will be key.

So here's what I'd suggest...

Case
CORSAIR 5000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE - if you want quieter, then Fractal Define 7 (or 7XL) Quiet case is also available for £30/60 more
Processor (CPU)
AMD Ryzen 9 7900 12 Core CPU (4.0GHz-5.4GHz/76MB CACHE/AM5) - I'd normally consider the extra cores of the 16-core 7950X for about £100 more - but this would trigger the need for a bigger AIO liquid cooler, which would add more noise when working hard
Motherboard
ASUS® TUF GAMING X670E-PLUS WIFI (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E) - has 2 display outputs (HDMI and DP) and PCIe 5.0
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 5200MHz (2 x 16GB) - 2 sticks perform better than 1 stick
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU) - not a very strong iGPU on the AMD chips, but enough for displaying up to 4 monitors (split between the HDMI/DP/USB-C ports); but a relatively low-power, cheap Nvidia GPU could be added in the future if you wanted to accelerate any video/rendering
1st M.2 SSD Drive
512GB SOLIDIGM P44 PRO GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 7000MB/sR, 4700MB/sW) - much better endurance/reliability than the 980 Pro
1st M.2 SSD Drive
1TB SOLIDIGM P41+ GEN 4 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (up to 4125MB/sR, 2950MB/sW) - the baby brother of the one above, equally reliable, but not as fast
1st Storage Drive
8TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE - would prefer the Ironwolf version for endurance, but they're relatively noisy
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RMe SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET - RM models have better components than the CX and are more efficient, which means lower heat and silent mode when not using lots of power - it also has fully modular cables, meaning they detach from the PSU for better cable management - the 750w does give you some headroom for adding a GPU down the line
Power Cable
1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
DeepCool AK620 ZERO DARK High-Performance Dual Tower CPU Cooler - about double the cooling power of its baby brother, which should mean it will be quieter at the same workload
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card
ONBOARD 2.5Gbe LAN PORT
USB/Thunderbolt Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED - it will come with a test build installed, but you do a clean install if you want to ensure stability - do not just activate it
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media
NO RECOVERY MEDIA REQUIRED
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft 365® (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Price: £1,392.00 including VAT and Delivery
Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.ie/saved-configurations/amd-am5-pc/cd994uT5H9/

 

[Forum Man]

Wow. What you have said in your reply takes time and effort.
Many many thanks.
I don't believe in karma, but you never know for sure
Have a great day.
FM