Cooling Recomendations Ryzen 1700X

I have been a long-time advocate for air cooling however I’m running into thermal issue with my current set up. At first, I was thinking about swapping out my case for a more air flow centric design. The wife of course brings be me back to earth by common sense and has made me question my thinking.

The case is an NZXT H440, I do like the styling it’s reasonably quiet and more than big enough for my build.

The cooler I’m running is the Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4 one of the few AM4 compatible air coolers around at the time I built my system. I have been a long-time user of Noctua but in the past it would have been the larger D14. I have used it in many builds for myself and others.

I’m not sure if it’s the cooler, case air flow or my bad luck in the silicone lottery but my CPU is running warm even at idle. While I type this its package temp is 40°C. also my max safe Overclock is 3.8GHz. I have never been able to achieve the magical 4GHz that everyone says is possible with this CPU.

So, what are your experiences with keeping the Ryzen 1700X cool. What I have “should” be good enough.

If it’s an AIO what models do you recommend. There is room in the case for quite a large radiator. I have little interest in LED’s so there is no way I’m going to spend more to have them. However, I understand it’s hard to avoid them these days so let’s keep them subtle.

I can’t get much more air through this case without it getting loud. I’m running three 120mm Noctua fans in the front, one in the roof and one 140mm in the back maintaining positive air pressure. They are on a silent speed profile. There is still a large volume of air moving through the case.

Specs:

  • AMD Ryzen 1700X
  • Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4
  • ASUS PRIME X370-PRO
  • Corsair CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 32 GB
  • NZXT H440
  • Corsair RM650x 650 W 80 Plus Gold
  • Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+
  • Crucial MX300 525GB
  • Crucial MX300 1TB

Replace your thermal paste…
That cooler, U12S, should be more than enough for 1700X…
I run my 1700X with a 240AIO at 30% fan speed. It barely reaches 50C stock…
Maybe you did something wrong with the OC… IDK, but that chip is cool as hell.
What voltages are you pushing through that chip?

PS: ooohhh, I see now…
Vega 64 is heating the air, the cooler is using the already warm air to cool the CPU…
There are a couple things you can do, one of which is to add a couple low speed fans as top exhausts to help take the hot air out and prevent each other from recirculating the warm air back into the case.
The other thing is to push the U12S fan a bit to move more air…
The thing is, the Vega is hot, the case is slightly more limiting airflow wise and you have overclocked it…

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Not all silicon is created equal, you could have gotten a dud. Also are you not even able to boot into 3.9 or 4 ghz or is it failing a stress test?

Also pete, the case isnt the most friendly to air flow its basically an R4 so he is sacrificing air flow for silence as well

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I’m fully aware of this.
I think in his case it’s a bit of everything - the case, the GPU, the cooler, maybe the overclock… God knows if the board doesn’t push more voltage than the settings…

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Voltage 1.36

As for the Vega heating the air I was suffering the same issue when I was running a 980Ti with blower type cooler. There is a large volume of air flowing through the case. 5 Noctua fans will do that :slight_smile:

Smoke testing the case shows good airflow. It could of ourse be better.

After typing up my question I have had a look at my BIOS and I’m currently having a look at some stuff. Right now I have dropped the voltage to 1.3V and backed the overclock to 3.6GHz it’s stable at the desktop but the CPU is still sitting at 35°C this to me feels to still be a little warm. Time to start messing with the fan speed as it’s currently very low.

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35 idle is fine…
Mine sits at 33 idle at stock.
If max load goes over 60 then you may start to wonder what’s wrong.

I have been playing with overclocks and voltages. Running Cinebench for busrt testing and OCCT for proper heat soaking.

I have a note pad full of scribbled down numbers. I can say a few things. I did not win the silicone lottery! 3.8GHz she is getting properly warm approching 80°C and with some instability. I don’t think it’s the case, Underload if I pull off the front cover and remove the dust filter giving unrestricted acsess to the fans the CPU temp does not change. So all of the work I have put into airflow would appear to overcome the natural disadvantage the case design.

I just think that with my CPU and the voltages she needs to be stable at a resonable speed she needs more cooling. I don’t think I’m going to get that extra thermal cappasity on Air, even with the D15 from Noctua.

So back to my original question… AIO recomendations? I don’t want to spend more money than I have to, but I also don’t want to be buying it twice by getting a cheaper one that isn’t upto the job.

I have a NH-U14S on a 1700 running 3.8GHz at 1.35V. All manual, all energy efficiency stuff disabled. I get 35°C idling and somewhere around 65 to 70°C when running prime. Idle my system is pretty quiet but it does ramp up a lot under heavy load.

I’m pretty sure you’re chip is ok, not great but not terrible either. If you can keep it in the 70°C range the instability should go away. Also what RAM (exact model) are you running and at what speed?

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RAM:
Corsair CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 32 GB

It will not run at 3200MHz however hard I have tried. So I’m running it at 3000MHz but I have tighted up the timeings a bit.

17,17,35 rather than 18,18,36 if it was running at 3200MHz

I very much approve of the brown, what with the GPU cooler you have a little more Noctua than me :slight_smile:

Wrong…
D15 is extremely powerful cooler. It outperforms most 240AIOs. For example, my 240AIO is performing 10C behind D14… And I have replaced it’s shit stock fans with much better fans and the thing still drags behind the D14…

If you want an AIO - find Arctic 360 AIO … it’s 360, its quiet and it’s good. 240 is pointless. You will be much better to get D15 or if you have the D14 you mentioned, get a bracket for it and mount that …

First test: ramp all fans to 100% to get temps down a bit. See if that helps with stability. The memory controller is producing quite a bit of heat as well in the 3000 range. Try 2666 with stock timings and look at temps and stability again.

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Sitting here with a 1700X under an NH-U12S, Idle: 30°C, Load max: 55°C

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Even though you may have 5 noctua fans that case has very limited openings to pull air through. Especially the front. I know because i have a 270R and same problem. Just for testing if you can take the front panel off and see how it does.
I am currently looking at modding my front panel by cutting a large section out of middle part and adding some large hex mesh. Currently at moment i am doing test and basically i have 2 140mm Noctuas at front and one at top in front of cpu cooler. No other changes except take front cover off and dropped about 7 degrees Celsius. on cpu and GPU.

I have already done that test. The CPU under full load with OCCT and I removed the front cover and fan filter. There was no change in CPU temps.

I a bit of an air flow freak someing I batteled with my last rig. Intel 3930K and a pair of 7970’s in crossfire in a Define R2 (super hot!). I learnt a fair bit about airflow. So when I built this one I did smoke tests to ensure that not only was the air flowing freely but also that there were no dead zones. I am happy that all of the air in the case is completly changed sereral times a minuet.

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I have the following:

Crosshair Hero VI
1700x
32 gig of ram (G skill I believe)
Corsair H80i
3 140 fans. Two in front and one in back.
RX 580
Thermaltake Core 71

Nothing is overclocked. I know boring.

I’m in the middle of a video conference and running other stuff. Hardly ever get over 23c.