I have an older 3970x that dropped out of production and was considering using it for some random work loads. Currently, it’s paired with a Dark Rock Pro TR4 air cooler. I’ve looked at the Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 a bit…however, I usually go AIO watercoolers for all my CPU’s.
Image my completely overwhelmed loss as I attempted to understand all the different variants for sTRX4/TR4 coolers, coverage of the CPU and/or availability of products. So after much searching and more questions than answers, are there any recommendations for an AIO cooling solution for the 3970x? Motherboard is a TRX40 AORUS XTREME. Case can handle about anything as it is a Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition.
No need to go custom loop. Good full-coverage AIO’s ARE available.
SilverStone Technology XE360-TR5 360mm All-in-One Liquid Cooler for AMD TR5 / SP6, SST-XE360-TR5 from Amazon would be my first choice.
Second choice would be Alphacool 11771 Eisbaer Pro Aurora 360 CPU or the 420mm version. Also availablable from Amazon.
Both options fit the TR 3970 TR4 socket.
But if you already have custom loop parts except for the cpu block, I can recommend the Optimus PC Signature V3 Threadripper block. It’s what I use on my Epyc 7003 cpu hosts. Or the Watercool Threadripper block as second best choice.
With the XE360-TR5 it is mentioned in a reviewer comment about the extra spring tension. I’m assuming if this is an issue I just need some washers or some such to adjust?
I think I’m way overthinking this, but I tend to do that a lot. Thanks again for the assistance.
The extra spring tension is needed for the SP5 socket with its much larger amount of socket pins compared to SP3/TR4/SP6 socket. They need a greater amount of mounting force applied to the Gen4/Gen5 Epyc/Threadripper cpus to push the cpu fully down into the socket to counteract the larger amount of spring force the extra pins create in the those sockets.
Won’t have any affect on the smaller cpus since the mounting frame bottoms out against the socket anyway.
This cooler has the same coldplate for all the varieties of cpus it is designed for. All that changes is the interchangeable mounting bracket for each socket type that screws onto the coldplate.
You can easily use this cooler for all other AMD types/Intel cpus with just a change in the mounting bracket for $60.
