Processors

[ArtistUSA]

For an "AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor" I had chosen this cooler:

https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1378

But when I was about to order I noticed a liquid cooler is recommended for this CPU. I do not think that CPU cooler is a liquid one. Is that cooler appropriate for that processor?

[ArtistUSA]

I know now for sure that the cooler is not a liquid one.

Intended computer uses:

1) Intensive online combat gaming where high FPS is required
2) Rendering large, and complex, 3D images in Blender which will demand a lot from the CPU, and GPU.

This is intensive usage of the processor, and GPU card, so I chose an oversized the CPU Cooler with 7 heat pipes. It is rated to remove twice the 125W the maximum heating expected from the CPU. The question is will this oversize mean it will do as well as a liquid cooler?

The current computer shopping list (not yet ordered):

CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard	Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory	G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory (44 mm high)
Storage	2 x Hitachi Ultrastar He12 12 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive in RAID 1 Mirror
Video Card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB Founders Edition Video Card (900-1G611-2550-000)
Case	be quiet! Dark Base 900 ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply	SeaSonic PRIME Ultra Titanium 1000 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive	LG BH16NS55.AUAR10B Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer
OS	Pop!_OS 21.10

[johnnyenglish]

Hi,

that is not a bad pick in anyway, assuming you have clearance, because not all cases have the height necessary for it.

The Dark Rock is awesome, BeQuiet fans are awesome. I consider them on par with Noctuas which is the industry leading for fans. Big tower coolers are very efficient alongside with the best AIO's and will be much better than the cheap ones.

So what's the catch?

The looks. People tend to go AIO Watercooler for the looks, space limitations (specially on ITX boards/cases) and ram height clearance.

The only thing that your computer needs, is a nvme.

Cheers

[ArtistUSA]

Thanks for your reply. Physical appearance is not relevant to me. Only function is. I am going ahead with that Dark Rock cooler.

In regard to NVME, I do not trust SSD. If a cosmic ray bricks one, there is no sending it to a data recovery house to recover what is on them. Also they are far more expensive for the same storage one gets compared to hard disk drives. The only SSD arrangement I would possibly accept would be a pair of SSDs in a RAID 1 Mirror configuration, and the SSDs would have to be made by Intel.

https://techreport.com/review/26269/behind-the-scenes-with-intels-ssd-division/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqzv2YXMFRs

[johnnyenglish]

Just be sure the case is compatible with the height of that cooler.

Regarding NVME, don't worry too much about getting bricked, from my experience HDD will go down much faster with a normal use scenario. And the benefit of speed can help by a lot. If you are after professional use, EG: I wouldn't try video editing directly from a HDD, well I tried but its simply too slow caching just 10Gb of stuff into a HDD.

But if you still prefer HDD, just stick a small nvme as an OS drive without risking data. I grabbed a 1tb SN550 NVME WD Blue for under 100€, sure its DRamless but still faster than a SATA SSD, let alone a SATA HDD.

As for general longevity, I have a AMD Radeon SSD (OCZ) that I bought back in 2014 and still running pretty good so far. And you can always do RAID.
Even the server rooms were I work on, we are using HP Gen 10 with a ton of SSD on RAID 5

[freedomfries]

It is one of the recommended air coolers for this CPU. I have the Scythe Fuma 2 on my 5950X and it is sufficient if you plan to run it at stock speeds.