Quiet air cooler for AM4 3100 ?

romperstomper

I'm looking for a quiet air cooler for my 3100. Not interested in overclocking and bonus points if it is future-proof for 5800x (or similar)

Not interested in AIO, air only please. A good balance of quiet and value orientated as my gaming machine is built on a budget. Thank you

dragonkin

I got a noctua nh-u12s as I wanted a quiet air cooler it is very quiet. Also noctua are generally future proof.

it’s expensive tho, have a look at the artic range they are generally very good too, I replaced my 140mm case fans with arctic fans, they’re very good.

romperstomper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119827511#Comment_119827511

this guy?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noctua-NH-U12S-Performance-Cooler-redux-1700/dp/B08WPDD6GD/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=18OR9VNIIXCOO&keywords=Noctua+NH-U12S&qid=1667479177&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIyLjI4IiwicXNhIjoiMS45MiIsInFzcCI6IjEuODEifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=noctua+nh-u12s%2Caps%2C82&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&smid=A38F5RZ72I2JQ

K.O.Kiki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119828144#Comment_119828144

That's their budget model. IMHO, that particular fan is kinda crap. And they don't shower you with accessories like in their brown or black models.

Either pony up for the premium Noctua, buy one second hand (their customer support will still look after you) or get a cheap Arctic Freezer / Thermalright whatever for half the price.

No joke, my friend runs a 5800X on an Arctic Freezer 13X. I never checked temps, but it doesn't crash!

dragonkin

Yeah that’s the one I got the chromex version which is all black but I think it’s basically the same except for the colour.

it’s not as good as their premium models but I’m only cooling a 12600k so I think it’s fine. Very quiet.

Jon Doe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058270021/quiet-air-cooler-for-am4-3100

AM4 coolers are bound to drop in price... why do you need the cooler now and the CPU later? Is your current cooler busted?

romperstomper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119831172#Comment_119831172

sorta busting my balls as it is loud

Homelander

People tend to radically overestimate their cooling needs as well and there's a lot of unjustified negativity around "high" temps.

What you want to avoid is super high temps that lead to throttling, but this is only going to happen if you've got some atrocious mismatch of CPU and cooler, eg a 13700K with a €15 cooler.

I used a ton of €15 Arctic coolers on all kinds of Intel processors and never had any issue, obviously temps were higher compared to a proper tower cooler, but still completely within the realm of normal operating temperatures.

Obviously I'm not talking about expensive top of the range, killer gaming CPUs, but for mainstream CPUs, stock and cheap aftermarket coolers are 100% fine.

If you already have a stock AMD cooler that's completely fine. You could easily afford to just lower fan speed to reduce noise and still not have to worry about temperatures.