I've had an iBUYPOWER prebuilt for nearly two years and want to improve its cooling. It currently has a 240mm iBUYPOWER AIO and three stock RGB fans. The fans are noticeably loud even at idle, and the CPU sometimes reaches 85°C or higher during gaming. I'm considering replacing the cooler with a 360mm AIO and upgrading the fans, preferably with a total budget of $250 or less. Corsair is one brand I'm considering, but I'm open to better recommendations. Since this would be my first PC modification, I'd also like to know whether installing a new AIO and fans is mostly plug-and-play or if I'll need to change BIOS settings afterward. I want to avoid making a serious mistake during the installation.
2 Answers
A 360mm Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro would be a strong choice and is often available for around $70–$100. It performs very well for the price, so you could still stay comfortably under your $250 budget. Installation should be mostly plug-and-play: mount the cooler, connect the pump and radiator fans to the appropriate headers, and make sure the pump is receiving power. You generally won’t need major BIOS changes, though checking the fan and pump curves afterward can help with noise.
Before replacing everything, confirm that the 85°C reading is definitely the CPU temperature and not the graphics card. A 240mm AIO should usually handle a CPU reasonably well, so loud fans and high temperatures could also point to a clogged radiator, failing pump, poor fan curve, or old thermal paste. Cleaning the system, checking that the pump is running, and repasting the CPU with a good compound may solve the problem. If the fans are still too loud afterward, replacing them with quality PWM fans is a sensible next step.
I checked both MSI Center and Intel’s utility, and they’re consistently reporting that the CPU is the component reaching 85°C or higher.