In Some Cases, Air Coolers May Serve Your Threadripper Better Than Liquid

AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper is an interesting beast for a number of reasons. The most interesting aspect to me is its value proposition. Upwards of $999 for a CPU is undeniably pricey, but despite that top-end price, Threadripper still delivers a more competitive part than Intel (something price changes could change in an instant, though I don’t see it happening on the blue side).

Another interesting aspect of Threadripper is simply how large its chip and socket is. Installing a Threadripper chip actually feels like an accomplishment. It’s not a matter of simply dropping in the chip and closing the top – it’s a matter of using a Torx screwdriver to make sure each of the three socket screws are at the perfect tightness. Even Intel’s 18-core chip doesn’t feel quite as exciting to install (though nothing is wrong with simplicity).

Because Threadripper’s physical chip is so large, it immediately meant that the vast majority of coolers on the market would not provide 100% coverage of the entire area. Generally speaking, this won’t matter too much, as the most important part of a chip to be cooled will still be located directly beneath the cooler’s coldplate, and that means its heat will dissipate fairly efficiently.

Our good friends over at Gamers Nexus have a wrench to throw into these gears of thought, though, as they found that air coolers which provide 100% chip coverage can actually deliver better cooling performance than the liquid-cooled competition which don’t.

At equal noise levels, air-cooling can prove better than liquid if full chip coverage is offered

That said, you can’t assume that any ol’ cooler is going to prove sufficient enough, even if it does offer full coverage on the die. Steve notes that the NH-U12S from Noctua should be avoided, because it saves you a few bucks at the expense of much higher temperatures. The NH-U14S, meanwhile, looks to be a great choice if you’re going the air-cooled route.

It’s important to note that air by default isn’t going to perform better than liquid; it’s only when match-ups with varying IHS coverages are compared to one another. When liquid coolers begin to flood the market which offer full coverage like these Noctua coolers, they’ll ultimately show improved performance in a head-to-head battle.

If you want to dig even deeper, you can watch the video above, or hit up GN‘s full article right here.