Picking the right air cooler

bobkn said:

The NH-D15 is Noctua's largest retail model, I think. It uses nonstandard 140mm fans with a 120mm hole pattern.

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Fan compatibility:
140x150x25 (with 120mm mounting holes), 140x140x25 (with 120mm mounting holes), 120x120x25 (optional NA-SFC12 fan clips required)
FAN Specification:

bobkn said:

Probably more than needed for a Ryzen 5 7600X.

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Yes and no. It depends. If you are pulling ~250 W frequently and for prolonged periods of time, then no, it definitely won't be overkill. Even if your case has washable dust filters and all, even if you don't mind the loud, high-pitched noise (some call reminiscinent of "whining") of fans running at significantly faster speeds than ~1,100 rpm, the rate at which dust clings to and accumulates on the cooler's surfaces and fans is still going to be, to a very large degree, determined by the rotation speed of the fans—with emphasis on "degree".

No matter the CPU cooler you choose to buy, maintenance is compulsory. A lot also boils down to how thick will be the cloud of dust that emanates from the computer when you turn it on, and how much dust you can tolerate before it makes you start to sneeze or clear your throat. If you don't care about that nor about things like reaching higher noise levels under very heavy load, don't buy the NH-D15 G2 LBC. Similarly, if you don't care about what might happen if the pump of an AIO liquid cooler fails, don't buy the NH-D15 G2 LBC, as something like the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 will knock it out of the water... literally.

bobkn said:

The NH-U12S may fit, but it's spec'd at 158mm tall with fan. There is probably a little adjustment possible in the fan height.

Shorter towers with 120mm fans may raise concerns about RAM clearance. However, the Silicon Power XPOWER Zenith 32GB don't look tall.

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In my view, these types of CPU coolers all underperform for a CPU that has the potential to pull ~250 W. The Ryzen 5 7600X is still a far distance away from being a medium-high power CPU. It's gob smack in the middle of the very high power ballpark unless of course you really want to wing clip it in this manner. Undervolting while at the same time also lowering the power draw further by deliberately putting a limit on it with settings CAN make logical sense, though. (E.g., if you want to build a near-silent HTPC with certain, specific, added capabilities like real-time upscaling in madVR.)

I don't own a 7600X.

It's spec'd with a nominal TPD of 105W, with a PPT (package power tracking ) of 142W.

Noctua chooses to not specify their coolers for maximum power dissipation. They do, however, have a compatibility list:


The NH-U12S redux looks good, if it fits.

This was the winner.

bobkn said:

I don't own a 7600X.

It's spec'd with a nominal TPD of 105W, with a PPT (package power tracking ) of 142W.

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Yeah, I meant ~150 W, not ~250 W. Sorry for the confusion, but anyway. In Cinebench R23 (multi-threaded) the Ryzen 5 7600X still reaches easily above 90 degrees Celsius. (Even, with the kind of entry-level 360mm AIO liquid cooler that offers slighlty better cooling performance than the Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC with the fans maxed out.)

Multi-threaded Cinebench R23 is still reasonably representative of "very high load" in the real world IMO, as "ultra high load" IMO would translate to something like running Blender cycles (or Prime95 with 128k FFT). So, with this CPU under sustained very high load, the Peerless Assassin 120 SE most definitely will get rather loud.

However, immediately I will add that "how loud is too loud" isn't for me to decide. Personally, I, wouldn't want to sit right next to a computer that generates THAT much noise for very long. (But then, noise cancelling headphones irritate my skin.)

I've purchased a Dark Rock Pro 4 for my Ryzen 5800x and it's been fantastic for me and much nicer looking than the Noctua colors. However, it does require 163mm of space, so it won't fit in this application.

I installed the cooler and, once I got an ARGB splitter, have all of the light and fan cables connected.

But the cpu fans and the back case fan seem to be spinning in opposite directions. I watched some YouTube videos on installing case fans. One video shows the case and cpu fans spinning the same directions as mine . Then I re-watched the video on installing the Thermalright Peerless Assassin. Everything seems right. I've attached 2 videos of a tour inside my computer case. Am I missing something?

Tasmania Green said:

I installed the cooler and, once I got an ARGB splitter, have all of the light and fan cables connected.

But the cpu fans and the back case fan seem to be spinning in opposite directions. I watched some YouTube videos on installing case fans. One video shows the case and cpu fans spinning the same directions as mine . Then I re-watched the video on installing the Thermalright Peerless Assassin. Everything seems right. I've attached 2 videos of a tour inside my computer case. Am I missing something?

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I'm not certain, but I believe that you have the front fans oriented to blow out of the case. They should be blowing in. I suggest that you check that.

The fan on the cooler and the rear fan are oriented as I'd suggest.

surprise for those that do not know how to work on computers, often, with some coolers for the cpu, you have to take motherboard out of case to access the back of the motherboard to attach the cooler hardware mounts. Lots of pc cases do not have access the area near the cpu on the motherboard to do this while it is in the pc case. If you build your own pc's you already know this. so, make sure you get the cpu cooler that you know how to install. FYI.

Tasmania Green said:

But the cpu fans and the back case fan seem to be spinning in opposite directions. I watched some YouTube videos on installing case fans. One video shows the case and cpu fans spinning the same directions as mine . Then I re-watched the video on installing the Thermalright Peerless Assassin. Everything seems right. I've attached 2 videos of a tour inside my computer case. Am I missing something?

Click to expand...

You have them all oriented correctly. The confusion comes from the fact that the Thermalright fans spin clockwise whereas your case fans spin counterclockwise. If in doubt, look at the curvature of the fan blades.

The convex side is the intake.



The concave side is the exhaust.



The fan in the example pictures above spins counterclockwise, i.e., when you look at the front side of the fan, which is the side with the label that spins when the fan spins (the first picture in this specific example). So, in this specific example, the fan blows air from its front side to its back side. (A fan that blows air from its back side to its front side is called a reverse blade fan—which you do not have.)

To compare, this is the (clockwise-spinning) Thermalright fan:

hdmi said:

You have them all oriented correctly. The confusion comes from the fact that the Thermalright fans spin clockwise whereas your case fans spin counterclockwise. If in doubt, look at the curvature of the fan blades.

The convex side is the intake.

The concave side is the exhaust.

The fan in the example pictures above spins counterclockwise, i.e., when you look at the front side of the fan, which is the side with the label that spins when the fan spins (the first picture in this specific example). So, in this specific example, the fan blows air from its front side to its back side. (A fan that blows air from its back side to its front side is called a reverse blade fan—which you do not have.)

To compare, this is the (clockwise-spinning) Thermalright fan:

Click to expand...

Thanks HDMI. That's a very thorough explanation and I appreciate it.

I took my computer down to a repair shop and the guy also said that I had installed everything correctly. And when he learned that this is the first computer I've built, he gave me a compliment by saying that I had done a good job. That was nice to hear.

Now this is over I can just have fun with my computer. Yay!

hdmi said:

You have them all oriented correctly. The confusion comes from the fact that the Thermalright fans spin clockwise whereas your case fans spin counterclockwise. If in doubt, look at the curvature of the fan blades.

The convex side is the intake.

The concave side is the exhaust.

The fan in the example pictures above spins counterclockwise, i.e., when you look at the front side of the fan, which is the side with the label that spins when the fan spins (the first picture in this specific example). So, in this specific example, the fan blows air from its front side to its back side. (A fan that blows air from its back side to its front side is called a reverse blade fan—which you do not have.)

To compare, this is the (clockwise-spinning) Thermalright fan:

Click to expand...

That's well done.

I misjudged the view of the front fans. I didn't care which direction they spun; I was looking for the intake/output sides.

If I had the PC in front of me, I would have started it up and noticed the direction of the airflow.

Also, some fans are marked to show the airflow direction. Not all are.

The side with the braces between hub and frame is normally (always AFAIK) the exhaust side.

barreleye said:

The side with the braces between hub and frame is normally (always AFAIK) the exhaust side.

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Now that you mention it...

That would be the simplest way to spot the goes_outa side.

I learn something new every day. While forgetting two old things.

barreleye said:

The side with the braces between hub and frame is normally (always AFAIK) the exhaust side.

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Not always.

Makes sense for people into RGB fans and see-through cases, but that's not me. I skimmed the posts that appeared before mine before posting, and they seemed concerned with the orientation of the fan blades, and I would never be able to remember convex/concave given I can go months to years without thinking about fans at all. I would hope a fan that deviates from the standard would be marked with the airflow direction. This made me think of the Scythe Fuma 2 cooler I used a few years ago, which has fans that spin in opposite directions, but the braces are still on the exit sides of both. This gives a different effect than you would get by simply turning a standard fan around or taking a standard fan and putting the brace on the other side for aesthetic purposes.