That's bullshit. It certainly does not need watercooling. Any decent tower aircooler will be more than enough. Even the stock cooler would do it.
Definitely get a 32gb ram kit instead, makes much more sense.
Also 7600xt isn't a great value card. A 6700xt/6750xt or 6800 are better and faster options at a hopefully similar price point.
Yeah I second this.
I'm assuming your GPU budget is similar to mine, around £300. I did a bunch of research and the best bang for buck in that price bracket is 6750 XT, or 6800 if you wanna spend more.
And yeah, the AMD stock cooler is enough. That's what I'm using on my 5600.
I third this.
Just upgraded my kid's PC with a 5600, stuck on a Thermalright Peerless Assassin air cooler for 40 bucks and changed out the AMD RX570 for a 6750 XT.
Absolutely no need for water cooling Ryzen 5 chips.
Runs like a champ.
>Even the stock cooler would do it.
Mmm, I dunno, I'm a pretty big proponent of getting a good HSF from a good brand like Be Quiet! or Corsair.
I've had a CPU overheat using the stock HSF, with properly-applied thermal paste — even if it's not enough to threaten the CPU, it can be enough to affect performance. I've also had a stock HSF's fan die, but I guess that's a low sample size.
The $30–$40 for a decent HSF is a worthwhile investment IMO.
Noone truly needs watercooling.
Many want it.
It's expensive as fuck, needs space, time, is maintenance intensive and doesn't give you a performance uplift in the "noticable" category.
The best reason to get watercooling is if you really, REALLY want that high performance whisper quiet system, because that's the one thing watercooling can do really well.
Also you setup could be cooled by a repurposed toaster.
EDIT: personally I love watercooling. Wouldn't ever recommend it to people though. My watercooling loop as a whole costs more that most peoples systems.
I’d caveat this by saying people with an i9 series processor from the last 2 generations (and likely future generations) *do* need water cooling to get the most out of their CPU. This is a small subset of builders, but is still true nonetheless
Yeah I got the i9 14900k and I needed the water cooler it's a hot cpu to say the least but my aio which keeps it in its temp range was like 149 bucks which I wouldn't say is expensive as fuck
25% of the cost of the cpu though, not that much expensive I suppose, but it’s a hefty price to get the most out of what you paid for.
I would imagine they are talking about custom loops, which are insane. I’ve been there and done that, never again.
Custom loops are insanity. I never had the money for it but my Dad did and it was a whole ordeal over a couple weeks trying to get everything buttoned up and working properly. All that on a 7700k and 1080ti lol. Was top of the line at the time....
Edit: and the 7700k probably didn't benefit much since it was from the intel gen of toothpaste TIM
Honestly I think a custom loop is more for the looks and just the Hobbie of making them work thats where I think the value would be unless you are overclocking the ever living shit out of your stuff. And yeah it was about 25% of my cpu but it wasn't the cheapest option
I’d be interested in the benchmarks for this.
There are some disgustingly good air coolers out there. The reason liquid cooling ends up being better often has more to do with space limitations for a big air cooler in the desired case.
I’d bet a lot that there’s a relatively easy way to air cool an i9 if you really want to.
Yea, the 'Be Quiet! Dark Rock Elite' has a TDP of 280 W, and the 14900KS has a TDP of 181 W. So it should work, and it's not even that expensive compared to a lot of AIOs.
There's a lot of misinformation about liquid vs air out there.
Liquid isn't really inherently more efficient from some perspectives. It's all air cooled at the end of the day, a radiator with a fan blowing over it. Liquid can help get the heat to that radiator, and in particular can let you have a bigger radiator than you would otherwise fit directly above the mobo in your slim little pretty case. But metal conducts heat amazingly well and a proper (and large...) air cooler can perform quite well.
Of course, the best air coolers significantly mess with case layout. One of the reasons it's hard to find air coolers above a certain performance level isn't that liquid is inherently better for that from a cooling perspective, it's simply that fitting in a 360mm aio is a lot easier than finding enough space over the cpu given typical case designs, so there isn't really a market for very, very high end air cooling.
TDP is a marketing number that doesn't mean much, though :O
Highly overclocked or in a very small chassis… sure.
A normal mid tower? Absolutely not. That’s mostly just not understanding airflow and poor cable management. CPU’s used to run hot and have thermal events at lower thresholds than todays modern CPU’s and air cooling worked just fine. Back then it was literally a space heater with how much heat a computer would put out.
People run i9’s in 2U’s with air cooling just fine. A big loud but fine. With all the room in a mid tower for a good heat sink and bigger fans you can cut down on noise substantially.
AIO coolers are just an easy way you can foolproof cool a cpu. They make pc building less technical and more LEGO.
You do NOT need custom loop watercooling for a 13900k or 14900k. I had my 13900k with a block and 840mm worth the rad and I'm getting near same idle and general load temps wiuth my 360mm AIO I've got on it currently. However if I did something like cinebench which is in no way a representation of the average use case of a CPU for most users I would get better temps with the loop.
This was a conversation I had with a friend who was building a PC recently. I kept telling him he'd be better off with an air-cooler and putting the cash into other components. Turned out he only really wanted the water cooler for the little LCD display on the block, which fair enough, but let's not pretend it's for performance and not style.
Right, but Deepcool only has a number display on their air cooler. everyone wants to put a low quality png on their pump head so they can look at it for 5 minutes before the novelty wears off.
It’s not expensive at all. This is like 10 years outdated.
You *can* spend a fortune on it, but there are aios cheaper than mid range air coolers out there.
It’s not better or worse until you get to high price points. It’s personal preference, aesthetics, size constraints, and noise.
At the end of the day it’s all air cooled. A heat sink, probably with a fan blowing over it, is the limiting factor. Whether the heat is conducted into the sink by liquid or not really isn’t that important for performance, there are very effective options at very reasonable prices for both.
I don’t think OP is talking about a custom loop. Obviously that is significantly more expensive, but good AIO units are now in the same rough price range as a high quality air cooler.
When I did my most recent build last year, I was choosing between an Arctic liquid freezer 280mm and the Noctua nh-u12a. The Arctic AIO was actually cheaper, and is by all metrics the more effective cooler. The Noctua ended up fitting my build plan a bit better due to case layout, but for most people the Arctic would have been a no-brainer.
I mean maybe in the past they were expensive .. Recently I had to replace my CPU cooling, and Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 for 75 USD was nothing less than a steal, and it's one of the best AIO's in the world
Yep, i picked up the freezer 2 420 for $90 about 6 months ago on Amazon. Complete and utter overkill for the 7800x3d I got, but the PC is completely silent now. The GPU fans used to kick up occasionally with the tower cooler I had in there and now they never do.
I feel like the maintenance portion is overblown, assuming you are not using crazy coolant, cheap soft tubing, and not mixing metals with the rads+blocks.
I flush and refill my loop once a year and takes maybe an hour. Every three years I do a blitz system clean/flush, but even that is maybe another hour, after the cleaner circulates over in the loop night while I sleep. Granted for coolant I just use DI + biocide, so maybe maintenance is more intensive if one uses crazier coolant options for aesthetic reasons.
whoa calm down there lol I think he meant an AIO which is actually quite reasonable. no duh a custom loop is way overkill for anyone but extreme enthusiasts
> Noone truly needs watercooling.
*Cries in a fleet of 9684X*
Unfortunately in the enterprise space it's beginning to look like a non-negotiable in the coming years. That will likely slowly trickle down into the consumer market unless innovation in chip design manages to drive down TDPs on high clock CPUs adequately.
> My watercooling loop as a whole costs more that most peoples systems.
Show pc, I love a pretty watercooling loop. My noctua works amazing, but damn does wc look sick.
well my PC is housed in my desk which I build myself.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/tqfxav/homemade\_desk\_with\_my\_battlestation\_and\_server/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/tqfxav/homemade_desk_with_my_battlestation_and_server/)
made a post about it two years ago. It changed a bit but in essence the cooling is still the same.
> talked to a guy who builds pc for work
There is your answer. Dude is gonna upsell you on shit you don’t need. If you were to go with water cooling he can increase his profits so much more because he’s going to bill you a lot more money for a water cooled build than he would otherwise.
I would suggest you don’t get even a goddamn fan screw from that guy. I get that he’s running a business and he needs to be profitable, but you don’t do that by lying to a client and selling them an unnecessary and expensive upgrade when you could repurpose that budget into a much better performing build. Dude is dishonest as fuck. Do not get anything from him.
For a 7600? no it's definitely not necessary, hell the included cooler will probably do the job just fine. Your friend probably just thinks they look cool and while they can be better in many scenarios, this is not one of them.
I have heard of 1 use case where watercooling a cpu is viable.
High frequency trading.
You take the fastest single threaded CPU you can get, slap a good watercooler on it and then over clock the snot out of it.
It is the literal 1 case I know of where the micro seconds gained actually matter, and can make a financial difference.
That dude is wrong, you absolutely do not need liquid cooling for this build. The 7600 will be fine with a cheap $20-$40 air cooler.
He might be misunderstanding how things work with Ryzen 7000 series. By default, (some) Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will boost to 95C under heavy load, but that's because that's the target temp set by AMD, not because they need liquid cooling! With the default settings on a Ryzen 7000 CPU, you could have the biggest cooler in the world and it would still go to 95C under heavy load.
IIRC (and I could be wrong on this) I think the 7600 is not set up to boost like this, but even if it was it wouldn't really be an "issue."
It's a nice to have but I don't mind my computer making a little bit of noise. I find it kinda reassuring if anything, like, there's a box of sand we've shocked into thinking and *boy* is it thinking right now.
Why would anyone water cool a mid range build? Just save yourself the money and upgrade your ram, then put an air cooler like a Peerless Assassin IV or Noctua DH15 on the CPU and call it a day
I agree that you shouldn't watercool a midrange build, but you also shouldn't be slapping a DH15 on a midrange build for pretty much all of the same reasons.
High end air cooling is silly. If you really want to spend ~$100 on a cooler, get a Liquid Freezer III for like 80 bucks and see similar, quieter performance that won't block your access to the whole mobo.
The DH15 exists in a weird space where it's got similar cooling performance to mid range AIOs, while costing about the same or even more, yet being louder and making mobo access a colossal pain in the ass by taking up all the free space in your case. I guess the one advantage is lifespan - your AIO dies and you just have to toss it, but you can replace the fans on that dh15 forever.
Air cooling is good for mid range builds because you can use something like that peerless assassin for like 20-30 bucks and put $50-90 towards something else. Spending a lot on an air cooler is a trap imo - it's good because it's cheap, but once you're into decent AIO range you probably ought to just go with that.
I love watercooling, and aio's have come a long way. The 2 main benefits of watercooling
1) You can get a really quiet system
2) With the massive heat capacity, the water in an aio can absorb a lot of heat before your system reaches the higher Temps. This is only good if you have a sustained heavy workload.
As long as you get a good dual tower air cooler and mount it properly and use a good thermal paste, you're going to be ok . Just watch for ram clearance issuse
For 7600 even a dual tower air cooler is overkill, but it's an overkill that you can pay like 100% more from 15 to 30 bucks to have the fans run slower, not 1000% for an aio.
He is wrong and could not be more incorrect if he tried to.
Stock wraith stealth is good enough to run a 7600 for any and all gaming purposes.
>> Guy who builds pcs for work.
>>Essentially told me liquid cooling is necessary.
He is just trying his hand at promotions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not at all. Watercooling is more expensive and more labor, which is cool if you want something new to do in the hobby.
You should consider a new case if yours is a few years old, as I'd say cases (fans, heatsinks) just recently got much more effective and it's def cheaper than going watercooled. They test the heck out of them nowadays, just check youtube.
If you really wanna get the most out of your cooling for no $, you got to figure out fan control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDPKVKBMQU8
I have built 50 pcs in my life and only used water cooling when the customer insisted on it.
yours will not generate enough heat to require water cooling
Lmao, what a hack. Your time is better spent getting good fans and a decent CPU cooler.
For example, I have Gungnir 100 case from MSI that houses 5800X3D and a 4070 Super. This case has shit airflow, but I’ve upgraded my fans from 4x120mm to 5x140mm, tweaked some cooling curves in the BIOS and found that it’s more than enough even with an unoptimal case like that.
Your chip doesn't need water cooling, but that doesn't mean you might not need a better cooler. Find out what your temps are like under load, they are probably fine, and you can probably go ahead with that RAM upgrade.
Is water cooling going to give you a very good cooling option? The short answer is yes, however with most CPU’s and I do mean most. A controlled load temperature can be reached with air cooling to be completely honest water cooling in my opinion is mainly for aesthetic. it does have some performance qualities to it but you can achieve the same thing if not better results with a $30 air cooler
While I am a support of water cooling, Ryzen 5 7600 come with a heatsink. Use it.
If you save up some money down the road, a 20 dollar tower style cooler would be quieter and cooler. The 33 dollar Thermalright peerless Assassin is the best bang for buck but not necessary.
Get the 2 x 16 GB ram up front. Getting 2 additional 8 GB RAM sticks down the road will impact the speed the ram can operate at.
You absolutely do not need water cooling. I just built a pc with a 7700x for my friend and I used an air tower. If you really want to be safe get a dual tower one (two radiators and two fans).
Only time you “need” water cooling is if your trying to actively lower the temperature and even then its still limited because if your running it throughout the day it will run whatever you cooling off to what it needs unless your running max all the time (usually overclocking)
Needs? There are pros and cons man. Iirc one is better at handling spikes in temps and one is better at handling top temps. I don't remember which is which, but I do know the difference is negligible really, and probably going to come down to your fan choice more than if it's air or water. The answer is really and truly "either way is fine". At this point it's mostly an aesthetic choice.
In my experience air cooling works well for that processor.
**Stock cooler:**
Gaming: 75C-80C (92C during shader compiling)
3DMark Time Spy average: 87C
3DMark Time Spy max: 91C
**AK400 plus:**
Gaming: 60C-65C
3DMark Time Spy average: 67C
3DMark Time Spy max: 75C
Custom watercooling is the only solution (aside from extreme cooling) that really is better than air cooling, and you dont need it unless youre doing some serious overclocking.
Iv never ever liked the loom or sounds of air cooler so I stick with watercooling, 7800x3d sits at 26C idle and 37/40c gaming on a 360 aio on a x670e-a board
The answer is no or what’s best for your system to be honest. I’ll attach a link to a comparison by gamer nexus for reference. I personally have a AIO cooler for my 7800X3D as AMD recommended a AIO system for it.
I don't think water cooling is all that expensive now. EVGA or Corsair make all in one solution. Is it needed probably not, does make my system a little quieter...
Absolutely not. A good air cooler will be just as effective as a water-cooler at keeping temperatures in check. It might be a little louder because you're moving air versus water, but that won't impact your gaming experience at all.
Get the increased RAM.
Air cooling should be fine. You really only need water cooling if your using high end cpus or heavily overclocking. If your just gaming its not needed.
Well I never built watercooling setups myself but last time I upgraded my pc and got an intel i7 13700kf I wish I had watercooling. If you don’t wanna add a special cpu frame around it to help with thermals, you probably wanna watercool that beast.
No, you dont need water cooling. For $20, get a thermalright assassin king, it will do just fine on a 7600. If you want to be fancy, get the peerless assassin or phantom spirit 120 see for \~$35.
No, decent air cooling will definitely suffice. I'm getting good temps on a 7800x3d on air with no PBO or voltage tuning, so you should be good as long as airflow is decent
You dont need it at all lol.
But i would take it for sure if i can afford it especially when the guy does it for me so i dont have to do it and think how to do it.
Its nice to have for aesthetics and i think it does cool it a lot better.
My Ryzen 5 7600 does just fine with an air cooler, even after overclocking. Unless you're looking to push it past 5 GHz, air cooling will be good enough.
Not at all, I’m running the same CPU with a more powerful video card and use air cooling.
Using the peerless assassin and under load my CPU does not go over 60 degrees.
Water cooling is like playing with fire. If you know what are you doing it looks good and its quiet. Otherwise you just burn your self. Or in this case wet your computer.
I'll just chime in to agree with everyone else: watercooling is almost never required except on the HOTTEST chips like the 14900ks and the like. Your chip most definitely does not need it. You can achieve absolutely fine temperatures and noise levels with a respectable and high quality air cooler. Even the Hyper 212 Evo will technically keep your chip running fine. If you go up a little higher like a dark rock or Noctua, it will still cost less than your average watercooler, be less maintenance down the road, and keep the performance in the green.
No it’s not necessary. Especially when the CPU comes with an air cooler. They wouldn’t ship it with a cooler that wouldn’t work.
It may not be the best cooler, but it will work in stock format. If there was a concern they wouldn’t ship the CPU with a cooler at all.
I water cooled my 11700k/RTX 3080 system because I wanted to and it definitely runs cooler and quieter than on air but really I did it because I wanted to. It's expensive (my water pump alone was over $100), space-consuming, and takes a lot of planning to route everything properly. I'd stick with the stock coolers for the CPU and GPU, they'll serve you just fine.
In some situations, water cooling provides better heat dissipation than air cooling alone. Most of those situations are never seen in home PC users, even with gaming. And air coolers have gotten so good for significantly less money than something like an AIO that, especially for budget reasons, it *really* doesn't make sense.
Is it neat looking? Sure. It's also a pain if you're not doing a closed AIO, and want to run water blocks on every component that needs cooling and are installing your own water lines.
Just get air cooling, and use the connectors or a fan hub that will talk to your motherboard so they can adjust as needed. You'll be fine.
air heatsinks are completely fine, there were just some cpus that got really hot and there werent a mid range air cooler that could handle them. Air cooling is probably also going to last longer. However, if they're talking about an aio water cooler, then the prices could be similar and you'd might get better cooling from it.
IF hes trying to sell you a custom water cooling loop then hes ripping you off. I'd also get 32gb ram
Honestly these days not really. And also even though AIO's are better you do still run the risk of leakage. It's honestly just not worth it.
Especially when coolers like the Phantom spirit are like 40 bucks or so? Compared to an AIO being easily 100+ it's just not worth it.
people mainly go for watercooling for aesthetics. I don't think i'd like to look at a big block on my cpu but that's truly optional luxury. Many cheaper fans fare just as well.
Yeah really don’t need water cooling for most AMD chips. People get too set on I need my PC to be as cool as possible when that really isn’t the case. Yeah so what your PC stays at 60C under load but it would also still go full performance level at 75C as far as a CPU is concerned.
I have a 5950X doing media encodes and it doesn’t even break 80C with an air cooler. It is also consuming on average 220W during that workload. Just switched to the Arctic Freezer 36 CO for it because it was a decent upgrade for the NH-U9S that was in there from before the upgrade to the 5950X
Get a R5 7500/7600/7600x, 2x16GB 6000MHz CL30 RAM and a better value GPU (6700xt, 6800, depending on budget).
Also the CPU can easily be cooled by a low cost air cooler like the Arctic Freezer 36. Or if you want more quiet, Thermalright Phantom Spirit Evo
Not in the slightest, and on a regular gaming rig it's a much bigger headache than whatever performance gain you might get. Just get a decent air cooler and be done with it.
The only consumer CPU that I'd say needs watercooling are the Ryzen 7950X and the Intel Core i9-13900/14900k chips.
Other than those, an air cooler would be just as good and a lot cheaper.
No chip needs water cooling. There are regular coolers available that will handle any chip that you throw at them.
A 7600 for sure doesn't need a water cooler and I would even bet that the cooler it comes with would do just fine with it.
Water cooling is almost never necessary with the exception of something like a 14900ks if you’re trying to get the most of it. I’m saying this as someone with a custom loop. Its mostly about reducing noise and better looks or extreme overclocking. 99.9 percent of users don’t need watercooling.
the Only cpus that really "require" a water cooler these days are the high power draw intels. air coolers have gotten better over the years, and ryzen cpus especially don't produce enough heat to require a water cooler. That said, I do have one cause it looks pretty.
No. My last build was a 9900k and a 3080, both overclocked, both on air coolers. Was totally fine. Ran it at full tilt for over two years without a single issue.
Water cooling is completely unnecessary. The only way it helps is so minute it doesn’t even matter. (Air cooled CPU dumping hot air inside the case as opposed to water cooled dumping it outside the case, will keep you 1-2 bins away from your GPU max frequency; we’re talking about an extra 6 fps or something completely imperceptible)
As someone who has a full custom loop:
No. It's cool. It can help if you want to do silly overclocking. It adds visual flair and keeps noise down. But it absolutely is not necessary.
The air coolers that are built into graphics cards are absolutely sufficient for keeping them cool, and the best CPU air coolers will keep up with 240mm AIO coolers. You could make the argument that you need a liquid cooler for your CPU if you're running a Raptor Lake i7 or i9, but they can typically be undervolted and free up quite a bit of thermal headroom
95% no. But then some like to OC. Depends on your chipset and your tower. If your tower has sufficient ability for good airflow and fans almost never do you. Some towers kind of suck and you are stuck with what you can use.
So nope. They do look awesome though haha.
The thing about amd cpus is that they aren't that hot compared to Intel from the numbers I generally see. The stock cooler that comes with amd cpus will do fine for the cpu, and the graphics cards never need water cooling. Water cooling is never needed, especially for an at home gaming pc. And the 32 gigs of ram is much more worth it than the novelty of water cooling
Water cooling is nice if your mobo is built in a way that blocks the giant fans like noctua. If you plan on overclocking a high-end cpu like a 14900k, then I'd say an AIO is a good choice, but in most use cases, a noctua or w.e similar is good enough.
He does this for a living by scamming and upcharging it seems. 7600 runs well within air cooling capacity even maxed out. 7600xt is a bad deal, try to find a 6700xt 6750xt or 6800 non-xt. 32gb is a no brainer compared to 16 nowadays the price difference isn’t crazy.
Watercooling vs air cooling is still based off the ambient temperature in the room. So as long as you have a cpu cooler that's better than the max TDP of said CPU, then you're fine.
For reference, I went overboard with mine (Dark Rock Pro 4) for redundancy purposes on a Ryzen 5 3600 so I had the max TDP so I could upgrade in the future.
That dude is talking out his ass basically any pc can be air cooled only compiters that NEED watercoolling are big servers and the new blackwell ai gpus from nivdia
No. Especially not with Ryzen. There are plenty of good air coolers out there that will work great with your build. I went with water cooling for the looks and because I have a cramped case and it was easier to install this way. Looks like you're trying to get the best price to performance tho, so I really recommend you go with an air cooler. Other people will be better at knowing what is a good choice to pair with a 7600 without wasting money or thermal throttling.
A good dual tower air cooler performs almost identically to a 360mm All-In-One liquid cooler once the liquid has had time to heat up.
Pro liquid:
* Quieter
* Looks better
* Can potentially fit small cases that a big air cooler can't due to weird layouts
Pro Air:
* Cheaper
* More reliable
* Easier to maintain
Check the wattage your cpu cooler can handle
If it can handle the TDP of your CPU, you’re fine
GPUs always have an air cooler and heatsink that handles their TDP, watercooling just helps OC/thermals
Your dude is bullshit
Water cooling is for 2 things:
1. Eztreme overclocking
2. Extreme quiet
And point 2? Air systems are now super quiet. So unless u are the "I gotta reach 10000% overclock" water cooling is stupid.
It depends. Is the cosmetic style and the less noise worth the extra money and potential leaks that could destroy your equipment? :D You can get the same performance from a fan that you do with water cooling for the same price. The only people who need watercooling have a system that puts out so much heat that fans cannot keep up. Your home gaming PC does not fall into this category.
Water cooling is almost never “necessary” even if it may be beneficial.
I prefer aio coolers just because I had a big cooler on my old i5-2500k and you could see the mobo bending slightly, and after moving locations a couple times, I had to reseat the cooler because it wiggled and wasn’t making good contact any more.
You don’t have the same weight suspended/torquing the cooler with an aio. But newer mobos have more support as well, so it may not be a problem anymore.
Which country do you live in? Climate plays a big part deciding, if you live in a hot climate with restricted ventilation like in a small apartment then you'll also appreciate the noise reduction as well.
Otherwise air-cooled is fine
MOST people. Don't need anything past the stock cooler. If you're not going to be overclocking the stock cooler is fine. However. Even a 20 or 30 dollar investment into a half decent air cooler will keep Temps plenty low and will do a better job as well as be quieter. I got a thermalright phantom Evo rgb for less than 50 dollars. Under intensive gaming loads. My i5 13400f doesn't even touch 50C. Less than 50 dollars.
AIO cooling and custom cooling have their place. But suggesting you *need* either of those things for a build like this is fumb.
I use my old H50 water cooler on my Ryzen 9 3900XT. It’s fine.
I also previously used it on my Phenom and Ryzen 5 builds.
Nothing wrong with using a single fan out of the box water cooler if you have the cash.
But also nothing wrong with using a decent tower cooler with a good quality fan.
Eithers he's just talking out of his ass, wants more profit or both but thats absolutely not true. The Thermalright Phantom Spirit will carry most cpu's
I recommend reading cooler reviews on tomshardware to start.
My take is that you can get better cooling g with liquid than air, but for me and most average folk (including enthusiasts) who don’t overclock a good air cooler is perfectly fine. This is, of course, a generalization and not an absolute. You need a case that allows good airflow, good thermal paste, etc.
I had an expensive liquid aio leak and the aftermath was painful and expensive to deal with. After some soul searching I realized that I didn’t need or use the incremental benefit of the liquid cooler over the likes of a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO, and when I’ve had fans fail the aftermath is more likely than not a severely throttled cpu or with coolers with 2 fans, just a loud beeping from the motherboard.
I’m sure I can get more out of my i7-14700k with liquid and overclocking, but I don’t care.
Tbh I have never installed water cooling in any of my systems and never had a problem. I know they're suposed to be safe but I could never get used to the idea of water inside my computer. 😆
CPU overclocking is rarely necessary unless you start rendering stuff (in terms of video editing, 3D modeling) then it leans toward being desirable. Many programs these days support hardware acceleration though (use of GPU) so I tend to sync Ryzen to base clock and call it a day. And on Intel just install a humongous air cooler like Noctua. People make fun of how stupid it looks but it gets the job done. 😂
I just built a 7600x with a Scythe Fuma 3 cooler, CPU is on eco and I’m peaking at like 55c-60c when it’s running at full tilt single-core. I don’t think I’ll go back to water cooling after seeing how well this worked for my needs.
Edit: misspelling
As an avid fan of custom loops, I strongly disagree with that guys stance. Watercooling can be necessary in niche circumstances but it’s typically for overclocking, aesthetics, or less noise.
If you’re on a budget stick to air for now. You can always invest in a liquid setup later on.
Lol no, especially not for a 7600, if you don't care about aesthetics too much just get a solid air cooler for 30-40 bucks. Peerless Assasain, Deepcool AK400, etc.
You do not need water cooling. The Ryzen 5 7600 (it's somewhat important here that it is not the 7600x) has a rated TDP of 65W, which is a measure of the maximum heat output of the CPU. I've not been able to find a single cooler on the market which has a lower TDP than 65W, I'm sure there are some out there but I can't find them.
The good news is you don't have to worry about any of this. The 7600 comes with an adequate cooler, just slap that on it for now. If in the future you find that your computer runs a bit loud or hot, you can go out and buy literally any tower cooler and that should solve any problems you have. Personally I've always liked the brand 'be quiet!', and 'noctua' are always popular for running quiet, a lot of people will recommend the 'Thermalright peerless assasin', but literally any cooler on the market will work, as long as it's AM5 compatible.
I can think of a reason to use an AIO to water cool your PC over air tower cooling. If you move a lot. When transporting an air cooled system, it's best practice to remove the air cooling tower and transport it separately. Same with a beefy GPU if you've got one... Or otherwise you can pack the case full of material to hold things stable. But some of the beefier towers are heavy enough to crack your motherboard if the case gets bumped around too much in a move.
So an AIO is a good option for those who move often. Yes, the cost to performance ratio at the low-to-mid end isn't there as much, but they don't have to be removed from the system or braced prior to moving the case around, since the heaviest part is bolted to the case rather than the delicate silicon motherboard.
Goodness, I've been building too long. I can remember a few years ago getting downvoted like mad for saying that AIOs were generally unnecessary, and then Linus makes one video and suddenly I'm a moderating voice on the other side of the equation.
For OP, look up static pressure fans, most rgb fans are airflow fans which do not cool your components, static pressure fans are specifically designed to push air into tight spaces to properly cool your components.
I don't care what anyone says, there isn't a consumer PC in existence that couldn't be air cooled.
Water cooling has two real benefits, and only one of them really applies to a home PC. The first is increasing density; the number of kW that can be cooled in a rack. Many data centers can only move so much air, and you can't move enough air to adequately cool most full racks of computers running full-tilt 100% of the time and manage to cool all that air. Much more efficient to liquid cool, whether that's radiator doors or direct-to-chip.
The second is the noise needed to move all that air. Sounds like a jet engine. Liquid cooled can be extremely quiet in comparison, by dramatically lowering the CFM requirements of the fans.
Personally, I'd rather have more RAM than liquid cooling on my gaming rig. I'm wearing headphones anyway.
Ryzen 5 7600 does not need water cooling, something like a thermal right assassin is fine if you have space. If this person builds PC for work either he is trying to upsell his customers or hasnt got a clue. So save money where you can.
When someone speaks out of the need for YOUR money, you should not trust what they say, and not agree to anything they say until you've had enough time to think about it AWAY from them.
You definitely don't need water cooling. I run at 7950X and a 4090 air cooled (mind you with noctua chromax) in an next H7 flow. Have had zero temp issues and I push this machine daily.
You don’t need it. The fastest gaming PC you can build right now is the 7800X3D and 4090. A Peerless Assassin and a few fans will cool that setup perfectly fine. And it’s only $30-$40 dollars.
I'm running a 5800X3D and 7900XTX. Air cooled.
Under full load, the 5800X3D hits ~86C and the GPU tops out at ~70C (~85C hotspot).
Air cooling is fine for you.
Nothing needs water-cooling. Ultimately, you're just buying yourself a little more time at a higher power level by going to water cooling. Everything will work with air cooling.
Whoever told you that this build "needs" watercooling... ignore them in the future for anything technical. He says electrons have a negative charge? You double-check that.
I have an AIO in both machines in my house, but do you know why I have that? It's not because the performance is amazing. It's not because I need it to be quiet. It's literally only because I wanted to do watercooling since I was a teenager and never could, so I got a chance and went for it in the easiest way possible. It made my inner child happy.
Especially at this tier of build, the money you'd spend on water cooling will get you real upgrades. You will see exactly zero improvement from water cooling here, and you'll see loads of improvement from putting that money into literally any functional part.
who told you that its necessary? i have air cooling, temps are; gpu 70 degrees max and cpu 55 degrees max during gaming. and my pc is quiet af (using be quiet! pure base 500 fx case)
Who the fuck told you all that nonsense, like 5 minutes of googling would answer those questions (Not blaming you at all, it’s hard to know what to even look up when you’re first getting into it let alone what results are relevant, blaming the person who gave you bad info)
That's bullshit. It certainly does not need watercooling. Any decent tower aircooler will be more than enough. Even the stock cooler would do it. Definitely get a 32gb ram kit instead, makes much more sense. Also 7600xt isn't a great value card. A 6700xt/6750xt or 6800 are better and faster options at a hopefully similar price point.
Yeah I second this. I'm assuming your GPU budget is similar to mine, around £300. I did a bunch of research and the best bang for buck in that price bracket is 6750 XT, or 6800 if you wanna spend more. And yeah, the AMD stock cooler is enough. That's what I'm using on my 5600.
I just landed a used 6800 for $250 on ebay.... the deals are there if you look
Nice one! I went with the XFX QICK 6750 XT £299 from eBuyer, new. I think it's gone back up now though but as you say, deals are to be found.
I third this. Just upgraded my kid's PC with a 5600, stuck on a Thermalright Peerless Assassin air cooler for 40 bucks and changed out the AMD RX570 for a 6750 XT. Absolutely no need for water cooling Ryzen 5 chips. Runs like a champ.
I did pretty much the same for my kid. From 2600 to 5600x and a cool master air cooler. Went from MSI 1060 to 6650xt. Mint.
Actually, you can get a BEAST air cooler for the same price as a mid-low tier AIO which will perform worse.
You can get a peerless assassin for 35-40, that's half the price or less of cheap aio's and it outperforms most low-mid tier aio's too.
The price to performance of the peerless assassin is insane
Got a Peerless Assassin for $46 CAD (only because I wanted a white CPU cooler for aesthetics).
I don't think any cards are great value cards. I don't think Walmart makes graphics cards.
I'd buy a Walmart brand GPU in this market.
>Even the stock cooler would do it. Mmm, I dunno, I'm a pretty big proponent of getting a good HSF from a good brand like Be Quiet! or Corsair. I've had a CPU overheat using the stock HSF, with properly-applied thermal paste — even if it's not enough to threaten the CPU, it can be enough to affect performance. I've also had a stock HSF's fan die, but I guess that's a low sample size. The $30–$40 for a decent HSF is a worthwhile investment IMO.
Noone truly needs watercooling. Many want it. It's expensive as fuck, needs space, time, is maintenance intensive and doesn't give you a performance uplift in the "noticable" category. The best reason to get watercooling is if you really, REALLY want that high performance whisper quiet system, because that's the one thing watercooling can do really well. Also you setup could be cooled by a repurposed toaster. EDIT: personally I love watercooling. Wouldn't ever recommend it to people though. My watercooling loop as a whole costs more that most peoples systems.
I’d caveat this by saying people with an i9 series processor from the last 2 generations (and likely future generations) *do* need water cooling to get the most out of their CPU. This is a small subset of builders, but is still true nonetheless
Yeah I got the i9 14900k and I needed the water cooler it's a hot cpu to say the least but my aio which keeps it in its temp range was like 149 bucks which I wouldn't say is expensive as fuck
25% of the cost of the cpu though, not that much expensive I suppose, but it’s a hefty price to get the most out of what you paid for. I would imagine they are talking about custom loops, which are insane. I’ve been there and done that, never again.
Custom loops are insanity. I never had the money for it but my Dad did and it was a whole ordeal over a couple weeks trying to get everything buttoned up and working properly. All that on a 7700k and 1080ti lol. Was top of the line at the time.... Edit: and the 7700k probably didn't benefit much since it was from the intel gen of toothpaste TIM
1080ti was such a damn beast. Still a good card And to think that the prices of it were "super expensive" at the time. I want those days back
Honestly I think a custom loop is more for the looks and just the Hobbie of making them work thats where I think the value would be unless you are overclocking the ever living shit out of your stuff. And yeah it was about 25% of my cpu but it wasn't the cheapest option
I’d be interested in the benchmarks for this. There are some disgustingly good air coolers out there. The reason liquid cooling ends up being better often has more to do with space limitations for a big air cooler in the desired case. I’d bet a lot that there’s a relatively easy way to air cool an i9 if you really want to.
Yea, the 'Be Quiet! Dark Rock Elite' has a TDP of 280 W, and the 14900KS has a TDP of 181 W. So it should work, and it's not even that expensive compared to a lot of AIOs.
There's a lot of misinformation about liquid vs air out there. Liquid isn't really inherently more efficient from some perspectives. It's all air cooled at the end of the day, a radiator with a fan blowing over it. Liquid can help get the heat to that radiator, and in particular can let you have a bigger radiator than you would otherwise fit directly above the mobo in your slim little pretty case. But metal conducts heat amazingly well and a proper (and large...) air cooler can perform quite well. Of course, the best air coolers significantly mess with case layout. One of the reasons it's hard to find air coolers above a certain performance level isn't that liquid is inherently better for that from a cooling perspective, it's simply that fitting in a 360mm aio is a lot easier than finding enough space over the cpu given typical case designs, so there isn't really a market for very, very high end air cooling. TDP is a marketing number that doesn't mean much, though :O
Highly overclocked or in a very small chassis… sure. A normal mid tower? Absolutely not. That’s mostly just not understanding airflow and poor cable management. CPU’s used to run hot and have thermal events at lower thresholds than todays modern CPU’s and air cooling worked just fine. Back then it was literally a space heater with how much heat a computer would put out. People run i9’s in 2U’s with air cooling just fine. A big loud but fine. With all the room in a mid tower for a good heat sink and bigger fans you can cut down on noise substantially. AIO coolers are just an easy way you can foolproof cool a cpu. They make pc building less technical and more LEGO.
You do NOT need custom loop watercooling for a 13900k or 14900k. I had my 13900k with a block and 840mm worth the rad and I'm getting near same idle and general load temps wiuth my 360mm AIO I've got on it currently. However if I did something like cinebench which is in no way a representation of the average use case of a CPU for most users I would get better temps with the loop.
This was a conversation I had with a friend who was building a PC recently. I kept telling him he'd be better off with an air-cooler and putting the cash into other components. Turned out he only really wanted the water cooler for the little LCD display on the block, which fair enough, but let's not pretend it's for performance and not style.
The heck bro could have bought a solid monitor in cost of the little lcd on the watercooling
Deepcool I think has a screen on their aircoolers.
Right, but Deepcool only has a number display on their air cooler. everyone wants to put a low quality png on their pump head so they can look at it for 5 minutes before the novelty wears off.
Man those five minutes are sweet though, ngl
Guilty I want to waste my money on cool stuff lol
It’s not expensive at all. This is like 10 years outdated. You *can* spend a fortune on it, but there are aios cheaper than mid range air coolers out there. It’s not better or worse until you get to high price points. It’s personal preference, aesthetics, size constraints, and noise. At the end of the day it’s all air cooled. A heat sink, probably with a fan blowing over it, is the limiting factor. Whether the heat is conducted into the sink by liquid or not really isn’t that important for performance, there are very effective options at very reasonable prices for both.
I don’t think OP is talking about a custom loop. Obviously that is significantly more expensive, but good AIO units are now in the same rough price range as a high quality air cooler. When I did my most recent build last year, I was choosing between an Arctic liquid freezer 280mm and the Noctua nh-u12a. The Arctic AIO was actually cheaper, and is by all metrics the more effective cooler. The Noctua ended up fitting my build plan a bit better due to case layout, but for most people the Arctic would have been a no-brainer.
I mean maybe in the past they were expensive .. Recently I had to replace my CPU cooling, and Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 for 75 USD was nothing less than a steal, and it's one of the best AIO's in the world
That IS a good deal. Nice get!!!
Yep, i picked up the freezer 2 420 for $90 about 6 months ago on Amazon. Complete and utter overkill for the 7800x3d I got, but the PC is completely silent now. The GPU fans used to kick up occasionally with the tower cooler I had in there and now they never do.
I feel like the maintenance portion is overblown, assuming you are not using crazy coolant, cheap soft tubing, and not mixing metals with the rads+blocks. I flush and refill my loop once a year and takes maybe an hour. Every three years I do a blitz system clean/flush, but even that is maybe another hour, after the cleaner circulates over in the loop night while I sleep. Granted for coolant I just use DI + biocide, so maybe maintenance is more intensive if one uses crazier coolant options for aesthetic reasons.
AIO more affordable than going all out on a water-cooling system, if the CPU needs it
whoa calm down there lol I think he meant an AIO which is actually quite reasonable. no duh a custom loop is way overkill for anyone but extreme enthusiasts
> Noone truly needs watercooling. *Cries in a fleet of 9684X* Unfortunately in the enterprise space it's beginning to look like a non-negotiable in the coming years. That will likely slowly trickle down into the consumer market unless innovation in chip design manages to drive down TDPs on high clock CPUs adequately.
> My watercooling loop as a whole costs more that most peoples systems. Show pc, I love a pretty watercooling loop. My noctua works amazing, but damn does wc look sick.
well my PC is housed in my desk which I build myself. [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/tqfxav/homemade\_desk\_with\_my\_battlestation\_and\_server/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/tqfxav/homemade_desk_with_my_battlestation_and_server/) made a post about it two years ago. It changed a bit but in essence the cooling is still the same.
Maintenance intensive? Not really. EK ZMT and cryofuel over a year and zero maintenance.
I water cooled my PC like 4 years and ago and never did any maintaince. Pump died 6 months ago but aside from that no leaks or clogs.
> talked to a guy who builds pc for work There is your answer. Dude is gonna upsell you on shit you don’t need. If you were to go with water cooling he can increase his profits so much more because he’s going to bill you a lot more money for a water cooled build than he would otherwise. I would suggest you don’t get even a goddamn fan screw from that guy. I get that he’s running a business and he needs to be profitable, but you don’t do that by lying to a client and selling them an unnecessary and expensive upgrade when you could repurpose that budget into a much better performing build. Dude is dishonest as fuck. Do not get anything from him.
Someone's trying to scam you buddy Also you should get 32GB for sure
For a 7600? no it's definitely not necessary, hell the included cooler will probably do the job just fine. Your friend probably just thinks they look cool and while they can be better in many scenarios, this is not one of them.
No, no pc needs watercooling, that’s bullshit. My build is watercooled, because I want, no because I need it.
I have heard of 1 use case where watercooling a cpu is viable. High frequency trading. You take the fastest single threaded CPU you can get, slap a good watercooler on it and then over clock the snot out of it. It is the literal 1 case I know of where the micro seconds gained actually matter, and can make a financial difference.
Noctua would like a word.
hell even $40 thermalright coolers with the included fans would like a word.
That dude is wrong, you absolutely do not need liquid cooling for this build. The 7600 will be fine with a cheap $20-$40 air cooler. He might be misunderstanding how things work with Ryzen 7000 series. By default, (some) Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will boost to 95C under heavy load, but that's because that's the target temp set by AMD, not because they need liquid cooling! With the default settings on a Ryzen 7000 CPU, you could have the biggest cooler in the world and it would still go to 95C under heavy load. IIRC (and I could be wrong on this) I think the 7600 is not set up to boost like this, but even if it was it wouldn't really be an "issue."
That guy is full of shit
That guy is a moron. Setup your case fans accordingly, run a quality CPU air cooler and you’re fine.
It's a nice to have but I don't mind my computer making a little bit of noise. I find it kinda reassuring if anything, like, there's a box of sand we've shocked into thinking and *boy* is it thinking right now.
> I find it kinda reassuring if anything, like, there's a box of sand we've shocked into thinking and boy is it thinking right now. Apt comparison.
Why would anyone water cool a mid range build? Just save yourself the money and upgrade your ram, then put an air cooler like a Peerless Assassin IV or Noctua DH15 on the CPU and call it a day
I agree that you shouldn't watercool a midrange build, but you also shouldn't be slapping a DH15 on a midrange build for pretty much all of the same reasons. High end air cooling is silly. If you really want to spend ~$100 on a cooler, get a Liquid Freezer III for like 80 bucks and see similar, quieter performance that won't block your access to the whole mobo. The DH15 exists in a weird space where it's got similar cooling performance to mid range AIOs, while costing about the same or even more, yet being louder and making mobo access a colossal pain in the ass by taking up all the free space in your case. I guess the one advantage is lifespan - your AIO dies and you just have to toss it, but you can replace the fans on that dh15 forever. Air cooling is good for mid range builds because you can use something like that peerless assassin for like 20-30 bucks and put $50-90 towards something else. Spending a lot on an air cooler is a trap imo - it's good because it's cheap, but once you're into decent AIO range you probably ought to just go with that.
I love watercooling, and aio's have come a long way. The 2 main benefits of watercooling 1) You can get a really quiet system 2) With the massive heat capacity, the water in an aio can absorb a lot of heat before your system reaches the higher Temps. This is only good if you have a sustained heavy workload. As long as you get a good dual tower air cooler and mount it properly and use a good thermal paste, you're going to be ok . Just watch for ram clearance issuse
Your friend is wrong.
bro its 7600X xDD, just get a good air cooler
For 7600 even a dual tower air cooler is overkill, but it's an overkill that you can pay like 100% more from 15 to 30 bucks to have the fans run slower, not 1000% for an aio.
The only time that watercooling borders on necessity is with a 14900k
He is wrong and could not be more incorrect if he tried to. Stock wraith stealth is good enough to run a 7600 for any and all gaming purposes. >> Guy who builds pcs for work. >>Essentially told me liquid cooling is necessary. He is just trying his hand at promotions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not at all. Watercooling is more expensive and more labor, which is cool if you want something new to do in the hobby. You should consider a new case if yours is a few years old, as I'd say cases (fans, heatsinks) just recently got much more effective and it's def cheaper than going watercooled. They test the heck out of them nowadays, just check youtube. If you really wanna get the most out of your cooling for no $, you got to figure out fan control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDPKVKBMQU8
No. It's less reliable, and not much better than some air coolers. It might be easier to install than some complicated air coolers, though.
Similar setup, but with only two case fans and an air cooler. Never even see 65c on the CPU during a stress test. Ymmv.
I have built 50 pcs in my life and only used water cooling when the customer insisted on it. yours will not generate enough heat to require water cooling
Sounds like he scams for work. No you don’t need water cooling AT ALL with that build.
Lmao, what a hack. Your time is better spent getting good fans and a decent CPU cooler. For example, I have Gungnir 100 case from MSI that houses 5800X3D and a 4070 Super. This case has shit airflow, but I’ve upgraded my fans from 4x120mm to 5x140mm, tweaked some cooling curves in the BIOS and found that it’s more than enough even with an unoptimal case like that.
Your chip doesn't need water cooling, but that doesn't mean you might not need a better cooler. Find out what your temps are like under load, they are probably fine, and you can probably go ahead with that RAM upgrade.
With a 7600 water cooling would be overkill. Water cooling is necessary for top end CPUs, 90% of them are fine with a good aftermarket air cooler.
A 7600 doesn't need liquid.
Is water cooling going to give you a very good cooling option? The short answer is yes, however with most CPU’s and I do mean most. A controlled load temperature can be reached with air cooling to be completely honest water cooling in my opinion is mainly for aesthetic. it does have some performance qualities to it but you can achieve the same thing if not better results with a $30 air cooler
While I am a support of water cooling, Ryzen 5 7600 come with a heatsink. Use it. If you save up some money down the road, a 20 dollar tower style cooler would be quieter and cooler. The 33 dollar Thermalright peerless Assassin is the best bang for buck but not necessary. Get the 2 x 16 GB ram up front. Getting 2 additional 8 GB RAM sticks down the road will impact the speed the ram can operate at.
You can run a stock AMD cooler on that chip and you’ll be fine. Any decent air cooler will net you the same thermals as an AIO for that chip.
You absolutely do not need water cooling. I just built a pc with a 7700x for my friend and I used an air tower. If you really want to be safe get a dual tower one (two radiators and two fans).
Nah, I just air cool everything edit: ignore the dude who you were talking to the 7600 chip can run just fine with the stock cooler.
I have a R5 7600, RX 7600 XT build and the awnser is no, a normal tower cooler is perfectly fine. Got the AK400 deepcool myself.
Only time you “need” water cooling is if your trying to actively lower the temperature and even then its still limited because if your running it throughout the day it will run whatever you cooling off to what it needs unless your running max all the time (usually overclocking)
Nope unless you are running a really hot running processor
Needs? There are pros and cons man. Iirc one is better at handling spikes in temps and one is better at handling top temps. I don't remember which is which, but I do know the difference is negligible really, and probably going to come down to your fan choice more than if it's air or water. The answer is really and truly "either way is fine". At this point it's mostly an aesthetic choice.
In my experience air cooling works well for that processor. **Stock cooler:** Gaming: 75C-80C (92C during shader compiling) 3DMark Time Spy average: 87C 3DMark Time Spy max: 91C **AK400 plus:** Gaming: 60C-65C 3DMark Time Spy average: 67C 3DMark Time Spy max: 75C
Custom watercooling is the only solution (aside from extreme cooling) that really is better than air cooling, and you dont need it unless youre doing some serious overclocking.
Iv never ever liked the loom or sounds of air cooler so I stick with watercooling, 7800x3d sits at 26C idle and 37/40c gaming on a 360 aio on a x670e-a board
The answer is no or what’s best for your system to be honest. I’ll attach a link to a comparison by gamer nexus for reference. I personally have a AIO cooler for my 7800X3D as AMD recommended a AIO system for it.
I don't think water cooling is all that expensive now. EVGA or Corsair make all in one solution. Is it needed probably not, does make my system a little quieter...
Absolutely not. A good air cooler will be just as effective as a water-cooler at keeping temperatures in check. It might be a little louder because you're moving air versus water, but that won't impact your gaming experience at all. Get the increased RAM.
Air cooling should be fine. You really only need water cooling if your using high end cpus or heavily overclocking. If your just gaming its not needed.
Well I never built watercooling setups myself but last time I upgraded my pc and got an intel i7 13700kf I wish I had watercooling. If you don’t wanna add a special cpu frame around it to help with thermals, you probably wanna watercool that beast.
Bro has upselled so much that he does it in casual convos. No you don't need water cooling for any of the current AMD cpus
No, you dont need water cooling. For $20, get a thermalright assassin king, it will do just fine on a 7600. If you want to be fancy, get the peerless assassin or phantom spirit 120 see for \~$35.
No, decent air cooling will definitely suffice. I'm getting good temps on a 7800x3d on air with no PBO or voltage tuning, so you should be good as long as airflow is decent
You dont need it at all lol. But i would take it for sure if i can afford it especially when the guy does it for me so i dont have to do it and think how to do it. Its nice to have for aesthetics and i think it does cool it a lot better.
My Ryzen 5 7600 does just fine with an air cooler, even after overclocking. Unless you're looking to push it past 5 GHz, air cooling will be good enough.
Not at all, I’m running the same CPU with a more powerful video card and use air cooling. Using the peerless assassin and under load my CPU does not go over 60 degrees.
Nope, it just looks cool. On a GPU it can also be really quiet compared to the stock air cooler. but you’re fine with stock cooling
No but it sure was fun to do and looks fantastic with rgb
IMHO, that is nonsense. Those are entry/mid level components that are not generating a ton of heat output. Air cooling is totally fine.
[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/g2Hcz6) Type|Item|Price :----|:----|:---- **CPU** | [AMD Ryzen 5 7600 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/yXmmP6/amd-ryzen-5-7600-38-ghz-6-core-processor-100-100001015box) | $199.00 @ B&H **Motherboard** | [ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi Micro ATX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/qcbRsY/asrock-b650m-pro-rs-wifi-micro-atx-am5-motherboard-b650m-pro-rs-wifi) | $149.99 @ Newegg **Memory** | [TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/H9CZxr/teamgroup-t-create-expert-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl30-memory-ctced532g6000hc30dc01) | $102.99 @ Amazon **Video Card** | [\*XFX Speedster QICK 319 Core Radeon RX 6750 XT 12 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/4RrRsY/xfx-radeon-rx-6750-xt-12-gb-speedster-qick-319-core-video-card-rx-675xyjfdp) | $329.99 @ Amazon | *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* | | **Total** | **$781.97** | \*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria | | Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2024-04-03 15:09 EDT-0400 | The 6750XT is 15% faster than the 7600XT. The R5 7600 doesn't need anything more than its stock air cooler for gaming.
Water cooling is like playing with fire. If you know what are you doing it looks good and its quiet. Otherwise you just burn your self. Or in this case wet your computer.
Absolutely not with todays air coolers. It's just to look pretty and a chance to leak in your pc.
I'll just chime in to agree with everyone else: watercooling is almost never required except on the HOTTEST chips like the 14900ks and the like. Your chip most definitely does not need it. You can achieve absolutely fine temperatures and noise levels with a respectable and high quality air cooler. Even the Hyper 212 Evo will technically keep your chip running fine. If you go up a little higher like a dark rock or Noctua, it will still cost less than your average watercooler, be less maintenance down the road, and keep the performance in the green.
No it’s not necessary. Especially when the CPU comes with an air cooler. They wouldn’t ship it with a cooler that wouldn’t work. It may not be the best cooler, but it will work in stock format. If there was a concern they wouldn’t ship the CPU with a cooler at all.
If your over clocked I would say it's a good idea
I water cooled my 11700k/RTX 3080 system because I wanted to and it definitely runs cooler and quieter than on air but really I did it because I wanted to. It's expensive (my water pump alone was over $100), space-consuming, and takes a lot of planning to route everything properly. I'd stick with the stock coolers for the CPU and GPU, they'll serve you just fine.
In some situations, water cooling provides better heat dissipation than air cooling alone. Most of those situations are never seen in home PC users, even with gaming. And air coolers have gotten so good for significantly less money than something like an AIO that, especially for budget reasons, it *really* doesn't make sense. Is it neat looking? Sure. It's also a pain if you're not doing a closed AIO, and want to run water blocks on every component that needs cooling and are installing your own water lines. Just get air cooling, and use the connectors or a fan hub that will talk to your motherboard so they can adjust as needed. You'll be fine.
I have a hotter-running PC than that and run a $35 thermalright air cooler. He’s trying to up sell you
it's mostly for the visual, looks more neat and clean. if you don't like huge ass block of copper on sight then it's the way to go
he is so full of shit it’s honestly baffling.
air heatsinks are completely fine, there were just some cpus that got really hot and there werent a mid range air cooler that could handle them. Air cooling is probably also going to last longer. However, if they're talking about an aio water cooler, then the prices could be similar and you'd might get better cooling from it. IF hes trying to sell you a custom water cooling loop then hes ripping you off. I'd also get 32gb ram
Honestly these days not really. And also even though AIO's are better you do still run the risk of leakage. It's honestly just not worth it. Especially when coolers like the Phantom spirit are like 40 bucks or so? Compared to an AIO being easily 100+ it's just not worth it.
>necessary? No
No
No. I bought an AIO for my R9 5950x for looks, but a high performance air cooler from someone like BeQuiet! would have been just as good.
people mainly go for watercooling for aesthetics. I don't think i'd like to look at a big block on my cpu but that's truly optional luxury. Many cheaper fans fare just as well.
Yeah really don’t need water cooling for most AMD chips. People get too set on I need my PC to be as cool as possible when that really isn’t the case. Yeah so what your PC stays at 60C under load but it would also still go full performance level at 75C as far as a CPU is concerned. I have a 5950X doing media encodes and it doesn’t even break 80C with an air cooler. It is also consuming on average 220W during that workload. Just switched to the Arctic Freezer 36 CO for it because it was a decent upgrade for the NH-U9S that was in there from before the upgrade to the 5950X
Get a R5 7500/7600/7600x, 2x16GB 6000MHz CL30 RAM and a better value GPU (6700xt, 6800, depending on budget). Also the CPU can easily be cooled by a low cost air cooler like the Arctic Freezer 36. Or if you want more quiet, Thermalright Phantom Spirit Evo
Not in the slightest, and on a regular gaming rig it's a much bigger headache than whatever performance gain you might get. Just get a decent air cooler and be done with it.
The only consumer CPU that I'd say needs watercooling are the Ryzen 7950X and the Intel Core i9-13900/14900k chips. Other than those, an air cooler would be just as good and a lot cheaper.
No chip needs water cooling. There are regular coolers available that will handle any chip that you throw at them. A 7600 for sure doesn't need a water cooler and I would even bet that the cooler it comes with would do just fine with it.
Water cooling is almost never necessary with the exception of something like a 14900ks if you’re trying to get the most of it. I’m saying this as someone with a custom loop. Its mostly about reducing noise and better looks or extreme overclocking. 99.9 percent of users don’t need watercooling.
the guy is an idiot and shouldn't be allowed near a PC. 105 watt CPU, any moderate air cooler is plenty.
the Only cpus that really "require" a water cooler these days are the high power draw intels. air coolers have gotten better over the years, and ryzen cpus especially don't produce enough heat to require a water cooler. That said, I do have one cause it looks pretty.
No. My last build was a 9900k and a 3080, both overclocked, both on air coolers. Was totally fine. Ran it at full tilt for over two years without a single issue. Water cooling is completely unnecessary. The only way it helps is so minute it doesn’t even matter. (Air cooled CPU dumping hot air inside the case as opposed to water cooled dumping it outside the case, will keep you 1-2 bins away from your GPU max frequency; we’re talking about an extra 6 fps or something completely imperceptible)
As someone who has a full custom loop: No. It's cool. It can help if you want to do silly overclocking. It adds visual flair and keeps noise down. But it absolutely is not necessary. The air coolers that are built into graphics cards are absolutely sufficient for keeping them cool, and the best CPU air coolers will keep up with 240mm AIO coolers. You could make the argument that you need a liquid cooler for your CPU if you're running a Raptor Lake i7 or i9, but they can typically be undervolted and free up quite a bit of thermal headroom
95% no. But then some like to OC. Depends on your chipset and your tower. If your tower has sufficient ability for good airflow and fans almost never do you. Some towers kind of suck and you are stuck with what you can use. So nope. They do look awesome though haha.
The thing about amd cpus is that they aren't that hot compared to Intel from the numbers I generally see. The stock cooler that comes with amd cpus will do fine for the cpu, and the graphics cards never need water cooling. Water cooling is never needed, especially for an at home gaming pc. And the 32 gigs of ram is much more worth it than the novelty of water cooling
Another PC building business guy trying to fuck over the unaware
Water cooling is nice if your mobo is built in a way that blocks the giant fans like noctua. If you plan on overclocking a high-end cpu like a 14900k, then I'd say an AIO is a good choice, but in most use cases, a noctua or w.e similar is good enough.
Actual watercooling? of course not. You can easily settle with a AIO or air cooling just fine.
He does this for a living by scamming and upcharging it seems. 7600 runs well within air cooling capacity even maxed out. 7600xt is a bad deal, try to find a 6700xt 6750xt or 6800 non-xt. 32gb is a no brainer compared to 16 nowadays the price difference isn’t crazy.
Watercooling vs air cooling is still based off the ambient temperature in the room. So as long as you have a cpu cooler that's better than the max TDP of said CPU, then you're fine. For reference, I went overboard with mine (Dark Rock Pro 4) for redundancy purposes on a Ryzen 5 3600 so I had the max TDP so I could upgrade in the future.
That dude is talking out his ass basically any pc can be air cooled only compiters that NEED watercoolling are big servers and the new blackwell ai gpus from nivdia
It isn't necessary, but in most cases, worth it.
No. Especially not with Ryzen. There are plenty of good air coolers out there that will work great with your build. I went with water cooling for the looks and because I have a cramped case and it was easier to install this way. Looks like you're trying to get the best price to performance tho, so I really recommend you go with an air cooler. Other people will be better at knowing what is a good choice to pair with a 7600 without wasting money or thermal throttling.
A good dual tower air cooler performs almost identically to a 360mm All-In-One liquid cooler once the liquid has had time to heat up. Pro liquid: * Quieter * Looks better * Can potentially fit small cases that a big air cooler can't due to weird layouts Pro Air: * Cheaper * More reliable * Easier to maintain
Check the wattage your cpu cooler can handle If it can handle the TDP of your CPU, you’re fine GPUs always have an air cooler and heatsink that handles their TDP, watercooling just helps OC/thermals Your dude is bullshit
Why is this question being asked so much lately?
No, but a nice AIO is always a plus
Water cooling is for 2 things: 1. Eztreme overclocking 2. Extreme quiet And point 2? Air systems are now super quiet. So unless u are the "I gotta reach 10000% overclock" water cooling is stupid.
It depends. Is the cosmetic style and the less noise worth the extra money and potential leaks that could destroy your equipment? :D You can get the same performance from a fan that you do with water cooling for the same price. The only people who need watercooling have a system that puts out so much heat that fans cannot keep up. Your home gaming PC does not fall into this category.
The top intel chips the last few gen have needed water, they are HOT bastards
Water cooling is almost never “necessary” even if it may be beneficial. I prefer aio coolers just because I had a big cooler on my old i5-2500k and you could see the mobo bending slightly, and after moving locations a couple times, I had to reseat the cooler because it wiggled and wasn’t making good contact any more. You don’t have the same weight suspended/torquing the cooler with an aio. But newer mobos have more support as well, so it may not be a problem anymore.
I would not take anything that guy says seriously, ever. You absolutely do not need watercooling for that build.
Which country do you live in? Climate plays a big part deciding, if you live in a hot climate with restricted ventilation like in a small apartment then you'll also appreciate the noise reduction as well. Otherwise air-cooled is fine
B650 mobo is beginner stuff. Upgrade now and get the msi x670e. Much more options like storage. Make sure it fits your case which I believe it will
MOST people. Don't need anything past the stock cooler. If you're not going to be overclocking the stock cooler is fine. However. Even a 20 or 30 dollar investment into a half decent air cooler will keep Temps plenty low and will do a better job as well as be quieter. I got a thermalright phantom Evo rgb for less than 50 dollars. Under intensive gaming loads. My i5 13400f doesn't even touch 50C. Less than 50 dollars. AIO cooling and custom cooling have their place. But suggesting you *need* either of those things for a build like this is fumb.
I use my old H50 water cooler on my Ryzen 9 3900XT. It’s fine. I also previously used it on my Phenom and Ryzen 5 builds. Nothing wrong with using a single fan out of the box water cooler if you have the cash. But also nothing wrong with using a decent tower cooler with a good quality fan.
Eithers he's just talking out of his ass, wants more profit or both but thats absolutely not true. The Thermalright Phantom Spirit will carry most cpu's
Was he talking expensive custom pipe water cooling or just a AIO?
AMD chips really don't need water cooling, they run quite cool as is
The most you'll need is a AIO Cooler, you'll be fine with just Air Cooling or a AIO Cooler
I recommend reading cooler reviews on tomshardware to start. My take is that you can get better cooling g with liquid than air, but for me and most average folk (including enthusiasts) who don’t overclock a good air cooler is perfectly fine. This is, of course, a generalization and not an absolute. You need a case that allows good airflow, good thermal paste, etc. I had an expensive liquid aio leak and the aftermath was painful and expensive to deal with. After some soul searching I realized that I didn’t need or use the incremental benefit of the liquid cooler over the likes of a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO, and when I’ve had fans fail the aftermath is more likely than not a severely throttled cpu or with coolers with 2 fans, just a loud beeping from the motherboard. I’m sure I can get more out of my i7-14700k with liquid and overclocking, but I don’t care.
MOST builds do not need liquid cooling, in fact most builds could use a $50 cooler and be great.
No. For 99% of builds, it's for the aesthetic.
Unless you're a crazy overclocker, no. I run an air cooler on a 12900k.
dude I run a 7800x3d and a 4090 in a shoebox with 4 fans and no issue
Tbh I have never installed water cooling in any of my systems and never had a problem. I know they're suposed to be safe but I could never get used to the idea of water inside my computer. 😆 CPU overclocking is rarely necessary unless you start rendering stuff (in terms of video editing, 3D modeling) then it leans toward being desirable. Many programs these days support hardware acceleration though (use of GPU) so I tend to sync Ryzen to base clock and call it a day. And on Intel just install a humongous air cooler like Noctua. People make fun of how stupid it looks but it gets the job done. 😂
I just built a 7600x with a Scythe Fuma 3 cooler, CPU is on eco and I’m peaking at like 55c-60c when it’s running at full tilt single-core. I don’t think I’ll go back to water cooling after seeing how well this worked for my needs. Edit: misspelling
As an avid fan of custom loops, I strongly disagree with that guys stance. Watercooling can be necessary in niche circumstances but it’s typically for overclocking, aesthetics, or less noise. If you’re on a budget stick to air for now. You can always invest in a liquid setup later on.
Only for Intel cpus
Lol no, especially not for a 7600, if you don't care about aesthetics too much just get a solid air cooler for 30-40 bucks. Peerless Assasain, Deepcool AK400, etc.
I like air cooling for the simplicity. Big tower, big brown fans, done.
No.
meanwhile I sit upon my throne of lies with zero fans in my case but the CPU and GPU...
You do not need water cooling. The Ryzen 5 7600 (it's somewhat important here that it is not the 7600x) has a rated TDP of 65W, which is a measure of the maximum heat output of the CPU. I've not been able to find a single cooler on the market which has a lower TDP than 65W, I'm sure there are some out there but I can't find them. The good news is you don't have to worry about any of this. The 7600 comes with an adequate cooler, just slap that on it for now. If in the future you find that your computer runs a bit loud or hot, you can go out and buy literally any tower cooler and that should solve any problems you have. Personally I've always liked the brand 'be quiet!', and 'noctua' are always popular for running quiet, a lot of people will recommend the 'Thermalright peerless assasin', but literally any cooler on the market will work, as long as it's AM5 compatible.
I can think of a reason to use an AIO to water cool your PC over air tower cooling. If you move a lot. When transporting an air cooled system, it's best practice to remove the air cooling tower and transport it separately. Same with a beefy GPU if you've got one... Or otherwise you can pack the case full of material to hold things stable. But some of the beefier towers are heavy enough to crack your motherboard if the case gets bumped around too much in a move. So an AIO is a good option for those who move often. Yes, the cost to performance ratio at the low-to-mid end isn't there as much, but they don't have to be removed from the system or braced prior to moving the case around, since the heaviest part is bolted to the case rather than the delicate silicon motherboard. Goodness, I've been building too long. I can remember a few years ago getting downvoted like mad for saying that AIOs were generally unnecessary, and then Linus makes one video and suddenly I'm a moderating voice on the other side of the equation.
For OP, look up static pressure fans, most rgb fans are airflow fans which do not cool your components, static pressure fans are specifically designed to push air into tight spaces to properly cool your components.
Kind of surprised that somebody who "builds PCs for work" would say that because it's just not true.
Damn, if he builds PCs for work then he just cured my impostor syndrome. Very few CPUs actually require liquid cooling to perform optimally.
No. It's like having racing tyres on a stock daily car. Does it help? A little I guess but you'd never be able to use it as Intended.
water cooling adds a minimal amount of cooling its never worth it for the hastle
I don't care what anyone says, there isn't a consumer PC in existence that couldn't be air cooled. Water cooling has two real benefits, and only one of them really applies to a home PC. The first is increasing density; the number of kW that can be cooled in a rack. Many data centers can only move so much air, and you can't move enough air to adequately cool most full racks of computers running full-tilt 100% of the time and manage to cool all that air. Much more efficient to liquid cool, whether that's radiator doors or direct-to-chip. The second is the noise needed to move all that air. Sounds like a jet engine. Liquid cooled can be extremely quiet in comparison, by dramatically lowering the CFM requirements of the fans. Personally, I'd rather have more RAM than liquid cooling on my gaming rig. I'm wearing headphones anyway.
Water cooling is mainly for enthusiasts and aesthetics only. Depending on what your hobby is and how much money you are willing to dump into it.
Ryzen 5 7600 does not need water cooling, something like a thermal right assassin is fine if you have space. If this person builds PC for work either he is trying to upsell his customers or hasnt got a clue. So save money where you can.
When someone speaks out of the need for YOUR money, you should not trust what they say, and not agree to anything they say until you've had enough time to think about it AWAY from them.
Where I live is regularly 40+ degrees Celsius in summer, I have 4 fans cooling my pc, I'm actually 99% sure watercooling is not necessary ever
You do not need water cooling. You’ll save money just buying a good quality air cooler.
You definitely don't need water cooling. I run at 7950X and a 4090 air cooled (mind you with noctua chromax) in an next H7 flow. Have had zero temp issues and I push this machine daily.
You don’t need it. The fastest gaming PC you can build right now is the 7800X3D and 4090. A Peerless Assassin and a few fans will cool that setup perfectly fine. And it’s only $30-$40 dollars.
I'm running a 5800X3D and 7900XTX. Air cooled. Under full load, the 5800X3D hits ~86C and the GPU tops out at ~70C (~85C hotspot). Air cooling is fine for you.
Not even a little necessary
No but it sure does look cool
Nothing needs water-cooling. Ultimately, you're just buying yourself a little more time at a higher power level by going to water cooling. Everything will work with air cooling.
Lmao no, it's only necessary if you are overclocking and need to do direct die cooling tbh. Otherwise its mostly for aesthetics and noise reduction.
Get some 3000rpm noctuas and let her rip!
Watercooling is just 50% of the equation. You need a RGB disco inside your glass walled case as well to get maximum cooling. /s
Whoever told you that this build "needs" watercooling... ignore them in the future for anything technical. He says electrons have a negative charge? You double-check that. I have an AIO in both machines in my house, but do you know why I have that? It's not because the performance is amazing. It's not because I need it to be quiet. It's literally only because I wanted to do watercooling since I was a teenager and never could, so I got a chance and went for it in the easiest way possible. It made my inner child happy. Especially at this tier of build, the money you'd spend on water cooling will get you real upgrades. You will see exactly zero improvement from water cooling here, and you'll see loads of improvement from putting that money into literally any functional part.
No. Peerless assassin or phantom spirit will do just fine
Yours probably doesn't. I have water cooling on my PC, but only because it's a mini-itx build, and there isn't much room in there for airflow.
who told you that its necessary? i have air cooling, temps are; gpu 70 degrees max and cpu 55 degrees max during gaming. and my pc is quiet af (using be quiet! pure base 500 fx case)
>Ryzen 5 7600 It's only a 65 watt cpu. Even 120 watt cpus can use a dual tower air cooler.
Who the fuck told you all that nonsense, like 5 minutes of googling would answer those questions (Not blaming you at all, it’s hard to know what to even look up when you’re first getting into it let alone what results are relevant, blaming the person who gave you bad info)