I ordered a prebuilt PC with a few custom changes and it currently includes a be quiet! Pure Rock Pro LX air cooler for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Will that cooler be sufficient, or would an AIO or different air cooler be worthwhile? The only radiator mounting position available is on top of the case, and I noticed the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 280mm is heavily discounted to around €75. I'm also curious whether an AIO would make a noticeable difference in noise. The system comes with Polartherm by Thermal Grizzly thermal paste pre-applied. Is it worth replacing, and if so, what thermal paste should I use?
2 Answers
The Pure Rock Pro LX should be completely fine. It has a dual-tower design, six heat pipes, and two fans, while the 7800X3D is not especially difficult to cool during gaming. There’s no need to spend extra on an AIO just for this processor.
The 7800X3D typically uses around 70 W while gaming and reaches roughly 120 W in demanding stress tests, so your cooler has plenty of capacity. Even a basic single-tower cooler could handle it in a pinch. The included thermal paste should also be good enough, so I’d leave it alone unless you need to remove and reinstall the cooler. Replacing it with another mainstream paste is unlikely to produce a meaningful improvement.
The processor can appear to run hot because heat doesn’t move away from the chip as quickly as it does on some other CPUs. A larger cooler cannot completely overcome that limitation, which is why AMD set conservative power and temperature limits. Up to 89°C is within its normal operating range, and its relatively low power draw means a single-tower cooler can still work adequately.
Thanks, that clears it up.