Hey everyone! I'm looking to improve my CPU temperatures since I've been using the stock cooler for my Ryzen 5 5600x for quite a while now. It doesn't give me any major issues, but my gaming temps often hit the 70s to 80s °C range, and I'd love to lower those a bit. My case has a height restriction of 155mm for CPU coolers, so I want to know what air coolers might fit and perform better than the stock one. I've stumbled upon the Thermalright Assassin X120 Refined SE, which is 148mm tall, and I'm curious if it's a decent upgrade. Also, given the tight fit in my case, I'm a bit anxious about choosing a cooler—especially since my case model has a confusing array of variations, and I worry about the clearance since it seems that just 1mm could be crucial. Would love to hear your suggestions and thoughts!
1 Answer
Absolutely, any tower cooler will likely outperform the stock cooler due to better heat dissipation. Bigger coolers usually mean more surface area, which helps with cooling. The Thermalright Assassin X120 Refined SE should definitely be better than the stock cooler! Just keep in mind that while it's designed to fit your height requirement, you might want to double-check the specific dimensions once you have it.
So, since this one is designed to sit sideways compared to the stock cooler, it likely has more surface area, right? Is having only 7mm of space under the 155mm limit generally okay, or is that too risky?