Has anyone here successfully air cooled a Core Ultra 7 265? I'm curious about the temperatures you've managed to achieve. I've been hearing a lot about the Phantom Spirit cooler, but I'm not sure if it's capable enough for this chip. To give you some background, I recently scored a great deal on a Core Ultra 7 265K bundle for $439, which includes the 265K processor, a Z890 motherboard, and 32GB of RAM. I was initially eyeing the 7600X3D, but it would cost me at least $529 plus a long drive to get it. On a budget, I'd prefer to keep costs down.
4 Answers
Most standard dual tower coolers should handle the Core Ultra 7 265 just fine. What really matters is understanding its wattage under full load.
The Core Ultra 7 265 is pretty efficient, so it shouldn’t be a problem to keep it cool with a decent air cooler.
Plan for about 253W at full load. I ended up going with a 360mm radiator for my setup.
Just a heads up, Arrow Lake CPUs tend to perform better with high frequency RAM. If you don’t fully utilize the CPU’s core counts, you might find it lagging behind the 7600X, depending on your RAM speed. An air cooler should suffice for gaming and everyday tasks. Just ensure your case has good airflow, as full CPU usage for extended periods might cause throttling.
I have 2x 16GB of DDR5 at 6000 CL36. While it's not the very best, it's still pretty decent. Also, the Intel game bundle helped convince me, since I was going to grab BF6 anyway.
Finding TDP data has been a bit challenging for me too. It seems like companies don’t make it easy to find that info, often just letting users guess.