What would be a good CPU upgrade for an ASUS Z87-PRO?

[Lazybones]

As long as the case is deep enough monster AIR coolers from Noctua and BE QUIET! seem to work just fine, as long as you also have good case air flow. No pumps and leaks.

My video card is the only noisy thing in my primary PCs case these days.

[Mr. Analog]

As long as the case is deep enough monster AIR coolers from Noctua and BE QUIET! seem to work just fine, as long as you also have good case air flow. No pumps and leaks.

My video card is the only noisy thing in my primary PCs case these days.

Ha-hah they just called me back and told me that the replacement cooler they recommended didn't have the right bracket for my CPU so we had to go with a different one.

Again I pay someone else to have these headaches 🙄

[Tom]

The only way you need/want a AIO is if you need more than a 240mm RAD. (eg dual 120mm fans). A beefy air tower cooler (eg Noctua NH-D15) will do the same or a better job than a 240mm rad in many cases. Don't even think about a 120mm AIO for cpu cooling these days. Some budget air coolers do better than 120mm AIOs and are significantly cheaper.

And by better job, I mean in actual cooling performance, noise, and cost. I only went for an AIO because I speced my workstation to handle a 3900x or 3950x (or something better later on) when it came out. So I got a 360mm AIO (tripple 120mm fans). It's a bit overkill for my 3700x but it means I'm always boosting as much as this little chip can. So thats nice. It's kept super chill.

One of these days I should open the computer up and do a through cleaning. I blew out some dust after the move, but I think its been long enough to warrant replacing thermal compound on both the cpu and gpu.

[Melbosa]

The only way you need/want a AIO is if you need more than a 240mm RAD. (eg dual 120mm fans). A beefy air tower cooler (eg Noctua NH-D15) will do the same or a better job than a 240mm rad in many cases. Don't even think about a 120mm AIO for cpu cooling these days. Some budget air coolers do better than 120mm AIOs and are significantly cheaper.

I would offer that there is more reasons for an AIO that what you are saying.  Sometimes its based on the chip, the case, the other components, the congestion, and a few other reasons.

In @Mr. Analog case, his i9 is rated to run quite hot and while you can get away with air cooling, he also has a 3080 pushing temps in his cause at the same time. Prior to moving to a new Case, he was basically requiring the AIO to even work in his current setup.

In my case with my 3090, and my i9, my case temps/CPU were significantly higher pre-AIO vs post AIO. You will find that in the past pump failures and leaks were way more common that today.  I have had 3 systems now with AIOs, two from Alienware, one from Corsair, and all have significantly helped with heat and are significantly quieter under load than the Air Equivalent. None have failed.

I had a Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler ($135 at today's cost) prior to my Corsair Hydro Series H100x High Performance 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler ($114 at today's cost) and its significantly better at cooling and noise at idle and at load.  So I would say costs again are not always AIO > Air for results.

It really comes down to what you want, what you are looking for, and what works for you. Every case (pun unintended but intended) is different, and I would not force anyone either way.  I am just saying AIOs have come a long way, and while so has Air cooling, I wouldn't consider Water cooling elitist, high end, or ONLY for certain situations anymore.  I think you are now in the era of preference, cost, and constraints weighing when making the Air vs Water choice.  Its never been easier to get into Water cooling with AIOs IMO.

[Melbosa]

I would also add, experience will dictate preference.  I am now 13 builds into AIO, and another 8 builds with Air, in the past 3 years for Friends/Family/Clients.  Most had their own preference of parts and choice, some had to go AIO for conditions I won't get into.

Of those 21 builds (3 are mine btw), I have had 2 with heating problems with Air that had to move to AIO, 1 with DOA for AIO, and 2 barring issues with Air, one replaced on warranty, other had to replace with another Air choice. I have not had an AIO fail in the 3 years other than the DOA.

I'm just a small foot print of metrics, but there is my experience so far, without getting into details of Case, Air Flow Dynamics, Manufacturers and Models.

[Lazybones]

AIOs come with fans and everything to get air in from the outside so that they have going for them.

I have a be quiet! DARK ROCK 4 rated up to 200W cooling my Ryzen 9 3900X  works great even with all cores going 100% under a cinibench stress test.

I also swapped in a few Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 PWM case fans.. The redux series are much cheaper than the standard series and perform very well. I wanted to make sure I had good quite case air flow for both the CPU air cooler and my 3060 Ti GPU.

Been very happy with the performance of it all so far. I re-used my previous case so the fans where up for replacement anyway.

[Melbosa]

AIOs come with fans and everything to get air in from the outside so that they have going for them.

Yes I figured that was evident, but if it wasn't thanks for pointing it out.  In my comparisons, I was just using AIO vs AIR as a common reference now when discussing how to cool a CPU, even though AIO uses Fans; but yeah it is nice being an All-in-One (AIO) solution, its a Pump, Mount, Fan(s), Rad and Tubing preassembled.

[Mr. Analog]

I'm really hoping going AIO is the right choice because the first one they tested had a pump failure right out of the box.

Suffice to say my confidence is shaken...

[Lazybones]

I'm really hoping going AIO is the right choice because the first one they tested had a pump failure right out of the box.

Suffice to say my confidence is shaken...

There is NOTHING wrong with AIO, I only mention that I chose air cooling for the simplicity and cost, however the difference in cost is much smaller these days.

Yes I figured that was evident, but if it wasn't thanks for pointing it out.

I only mention it as a pro for AIO. I knew you already understood that.

[Mr. Analog]

Just a small update, the machine booted to BIOS but not to Windows in the shop the tech there figured it was just Windows unable to boot due to the extreme change in hardware. SO! I just finished creating a bootable USB drive with a brand spanking new ISO of windows 10 on it (thank you Visual Studio subscription for the many... MANY keys)

I'm not sure if I should boot this baby up tonight but I have everything ready in case I decide to.

[Tom]

The only way you need/want a AIO is if you need more than a 240mm RAD. (eg dual 120mm fans). A beefy air tower cooler (eg Noctua NH-D15) will do the same or a better job than a 240mm rad in many cases. Don't even think about a 120mm AIO for cpu cooling these days. Some budget air coolers do better than 120mm AIOs and are significantly cheaper.

I would offer that there is more reasons for an AIO that what you are saying.  Sometimes its based on the chip, the case, the other components, the congestion, and a few other reasons.

Yeah. There can be many things to consider, including Performance, Price, Noise, and Preference.

Performance and noise are dependent on your particular set up and preference. So there's some inter-dependencies.

That said, what I said above was strictly based on over all performance. Many tests have been done to show that most air tower coolers will out perform 120mm AIOs in cooling performance, noise, and cost. There's just about no reason to get a 120mm aio EXCEPT if its the only way you can cool a given cpu in a given case (eg: low profile cases). Most medium to large sized tower air coolers will outperform 240mm AIOs in cooling, noise and cost as well. By a significant margin. But again, preference and your system config may dictate that a 240mm AIO could be better. It all depends.


I have had some experience with AIOs. Years ago I got my first AIO, a 240mm Swiftech that had a couple pump failures and wasn't the quietest thing ever, BUT I don't blame AIOs for that, it was Swiftech doing its own thing to try and work around Asetek's pump patent and Swiftech's design was faulty. Then for this latest machine I got a 360mm AIO, so it had some head room for a 3950x class cpu.

One thing to keep in mind with an AIO is that the orientation you mount the radiator matters, it can effect the pump's lifetime AND the amount of noise it makes. Another thing is if you dislike changes in noise and noise level, you should probably fix the pump speed to max if the noise level is bearable. I try to build/buy/configure my main PCs to be super quiet, or at the very least not annoying when they are audible. So for this workstation, I tested things out after watching some videos about this stuff, and noticed that when you let the pump be controlled by the temperature, I hear more noise or at least noise /changes/. But if the pump is on full, I almost never hear it at all. The fans I let be controlled by PWM because they are super quiet, and because the AIO has a ton of thermal mass it keeps the temperature from oscillating which keeps the fan speed from oscillating eg: ramping up and down relatively quickly. Which I have learned I can't tune out nearly as easily as constant fan drone. I rarely ever notice my "new" workstation. It's pretty darn silent most of the time. Partially because I have two "noisier" systems in the corner of the room (which are actually pretty quiet all things considered). If I peg the cpu and gpu, it starts to get audible, and if it were to run like that all the time I'd probably have to do something.

So yeah, many reasons to consider an AIO.

Regarding the dead AIO, its likely random chance. All products will have a certain percentage of DOA and SIDS. AIOs are no different. As I mentioned above, the orientation your radiator is mounted can effect the lifetime of your AIO's pump, and potential noise. Try to ensure that the pump is lower than the top of the water level in the reservoir/radiator. If the pump is higher than the top of the water level, air bubbles can be introduced into the pump/loop which is often quite audible and will slowly degrade the pump's life. It's not an immediate death sentence or anything, but it might make the pump only last a couple/few years instead of whatever its rated tor. That may be fine for you. If I had a certain setup where I wanted to use a very specific case and the only option was to mount the RAD below the pump/water-level, I'd do it. But if you have the choice and flexibility to "properly" mount the AIO it's a good safe thing to do.

[Melbosa]

Just a small update, the machine booted to BIOS but not to Windows in the shop the tech there figured it was just Windows unable to boot due to the extreme change in hardware. SO! I just finished creating a bootable USB drive with a brand spanking new ISO of windows 10 on it (thank you Visual Studio subscription for the many... MANY keys)

I'm not sure if I should boot this baby up tonight but I have everything ready in case I decide to.

Yeah we were worried about that when we dropped it off.  If your boot USB fails, look into RUFUS (if you weren't already using it) to build your bootable USB.

My suggestion would not be a repair of Windows.  If you know what is on the system and you have everything you need off it, I would suggest a format and rebuild with the amount of hardware changes you made!  Fresh is better in this case IMO.

[Mr. Analog]

Just a small update, the machine booted to BIOS but not to Windows in the shop the tech there figured it was just Windows unable to boot due to the extreme change in hardware. SO! I just finished creating a bootable USB drive with a brand spanking new ISO of windows 10 on it (thank you Visual Studio subscription for the many... MANY keys)

I'm not sure if I should boot this baby up tonight but I have everything ready in case I decide to.

Yeah we were worried about that when we dropped it off.  If your boot USB fails, look into RUFUS (if you weren't already using it) to build your bootable USB.

My suggestion would not be a repair of Windows.  If you know what is on the system and you have everything you need off it, I would suggest a format and rebuild with the amount of hardware changes you made!  Fresh is better in this case IMO.

I need to pull a few documents off it so the plan is a fix, then a format and complete reinstall

[Mr. Analog]

Well... I had to completely nuke my partitions in order to do anything with the installer so... starting freshhhhhhh

I only lost a few things in the process so no big deal IMO

Things are FAST

[Mr. Analog]

Disco inferno

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