Liquid coolers for Alder Lake

In general, that CPU should be okay with an air cooler.

Edited by MrCheetah - 17 Dec 2021 at 3:10pm

You CAN select the single fan AIO, and for $30, it's not a budget-breaker. The Alder Lake chips handle power management differently from previous generations, allowing longer stretches of max turbo, at pretty high loads (= higher temps). I would not question DS's recommendation if they insist on the dual fan config. It's not a place to skimp.

Originally posted by Cretae You CAN select the single fan AIO, and for $30, it's not a budget-breaker. The Alder Lake chips handle power management differently from previous generations, allowing longer stretches of max turbo, at pretty high loads (= higher temps). I would not question DS's recommendation if they insist on the dual fan config. It's not a place to skimp.

Its just I am leery of a liquid near my circuitry. Old school thinking but...

Is there a roadmap for more efficient/powerful air cooling?
I guess if I want the newer systems I must be more diligent in my maintenance to soothe my fears.


Edited by Threetall - 18 Dec 2021 at 9:14am

Originally posted by Threetall Is there a roadmap for more efficient/powerful air cooling?

Massive tower coolers that can generally compete with 240mm radiator liquid cooled setups are available, such as Noctua's NH-D15 and be quiet's Dark Rock Pro 4. Some companies that ship computers, such as Digital Storm, shy away from offering these components because they can do a lot of damage with careless shipper handling (even with good packing). Even though the cooling towers are typically aluminum they have some heft. And unlike radiators, which attach to the case, traditional CPU coolers rely on the motherboard PCB and backplate strength/rigidity. With enough momentum (i.e., PC slammed around during shipping), that cooler can damage the motherboard, CPU, and several other components, especially if it were to fully detach. Additionally, some of the large tower coolers have compatibility problems with certain motherboards and RAM (i.e., size/height of the heatsinks blocking the cooler or vice-versa).

I am a relatively new member to these forums, but have seen a few threads in which customers mention loose screws (i.e., rattling around inside the case), jostled out graphics cards, cable connections loose or unplugged, etc. This is not specific to Digital Storm, and I have no doubt PCs are packaged well. It is simply the nature of the (shipper) beast. Some situations are unavoidable, but (of course) DS should make decisions to prevent them when reasonably possible.

Edited by MrCheetah - 18 Dec 2021 at 10:13am

On my 12 year system that I recently replaced I had a LARGE massive Coolermaster Air Cooler for my OC i7. The only problem I had with it was that in order to clean the inner hidden heat fins you had to take it apart and remove the inner fan to clean it.

I had kept everything dust free but never thought about taking the whole air cooler apart and it ended up blocking airflow killing the fan and causing the CPU to overheat.

The fan was the only thing I replaced in the system in those 12 years and it wouldn't have died if I would had cleaned the inside by taking the thing apart.

By the way, I am still using the old system after replacing the fan.

I had the same concerns about liquid cooling and leaks as you did but after consultation with Forum members I went with the dual fan AIO on the new system I got a few weeks ago.

So far so good! I like how the AIO looks and how low the CPU temperature stays even when doing heavy processing.

I'm another one who has been very hesitant to get a liquid cooler. This is the only reason I had been considering getting a Ryzen 5600x instead of the i512600k even though I'd be paying pretty much the same $ for a lower performing system... It probably wouldn't make a noticeable difference for most games, but I'd also been missing out on some nice features, most notably the PCI-e 5.0 (That said, I'm not sure if I'd ever get a GPU or SSD that takes advantage of it as I tend to be just fine with low or mid tier cards since I mostly play indie games or older games).

But since it sounds like leaks with an AIO CPU cooler are very rare these days perhaps I should go for the better system.