87
Switched back to air cooling after over a decade on AIOs
(lemmy.world)
Left is idle, right is under full gaming load (Helldivers 2). My previous rig (Intel) easily went up to 85-90°C in the same circumstances. Ambient temps are slightly elevated as well since we've been having ~30°C temps daily here for a while now.
To me this is almost ridiculous. I had never dreamed I could get my temps under load under 70. CPU is at stock speed since there is literally no reason to push it any further at this point. Can always choose to up the clocks later if I still want to.
Cooler is a Noctua NH-D15 G2. I don't see myself returning to watercooling any time soon. And Noctua has a new customer for life.
I ditched air cooling because of the sound of the fans ramping up and down whenever I did anything briefly intensive, like installing a package.
Thats an issue with how your fan curves are set up more than the cooler type. Not enough hysteresis and ramp smoothing.
Its also just less obnoxious with a good air cooler that's still fairly quiet at 100% fans.