Hi everyone,

Getting ready to purchase an i9-9900K (maybe the KS, don't know).  Trying to decide whether I want to water cool it or air cool it. 

Which path do you recommend for overcocking the i9-9900K?   Which cooler do you recommend?

Thanks!

Rich Boll

Wichita KS

Water.  I haven't air-cooled since the 2000's.  I don't regret making the switch.  It costs more, but it's almost always cooler and quieter (depending on what products you are comparing) and it always looks better (if you care about that).  

I just bought a corsair H80i for my 9900k, got it running at 5 ghz, keeps it around 52C idle, when i fire p3d it usually runs between 70 to 75C. 

I have the 9900K running at 5000 Mhz with this,waterhttps://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Hydro-Performance-Liquid-Cooler/dp/B00B4OCW7K cooling,max temps I see 70c

This is my system,

COOLER MASTER Stacker 830 Evolution Case
Monitor Model: Asus VG248 @ 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
OS:Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 17763) (17763.rs5_release.180914-1434)
MBD: Asus ROG MAXIMUS XI HERO (WI-FI)
CPU: Intel Core i9-9900K @ 5.00GHz Hyperthreading On
CPU Cooling:Corsair Hydro Series H110 280 mm High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
RAM: 64 GB XyperX Predator DDRR4 @ 3200 MHz
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080
SSD: 2 Ea Samsung 860EVO 1Tb
HDD: Seagate ST3250310AS 250GB
HDD: Seagate ST1000LM010-9YH146 1TB
HDD: Seagate BUP Slim BK 2TB
HDD: Seagate BUP Slim BK 2TB
Corsair K70 Rapidfire Illuminated Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
Microsoft Hardware USB Mouse Trackball Explorer
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick
Saitak X52 Hotas
PFC Cirrus 2 Console
SaiteK Pro Flight Combat Rudder Pedals
CP Flight 737 MCP Pro
Open Cockpits,
2 x NAV 737 module
2 x COM 737 module
1 x ATC 737 module
1 x ADF 737 module

Passmark Score 7894

Edited November 19, 20196 yr by BIGSKY

Corsair water cooler.  I have one on my 9900.

What are the thoughts on this Corsair cooler for the i9900K?

Corsair Hydro Series, H115i PRO RGB, 280mm. Dual 140mm ML PWM Fans, Advanced RGB Lighting & Fan Control w/ Software. Liquid CPU Cooler. CW-9060032-WW. Support: Intel 2066, AMD AM4.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16835181138?Item=N82E16835181138

Check out the PC used to test it.

The question has been discussed many times on this forum. My Noctua NH-D15 single fan cools the 9900K at 5.2Ghz (HT off 1.3V, C States all active) to less the 70C P3d and less than 80C on Realbench 2.43. You have to adjust the fan curve appropriately for max cooling at full load.

Disadvantages compared with a water cooler: Very large heatsink. A second fan may foul the memory. A bit more stress on the MB if you move the PC regularly. Not as elegant. Brown fans are ugly but can be replaced with other colours.

Advantages compared with a water cooler. No leak risk. Significantly cheaper.

Pretty sure there is an alternative from Noctua that reduces the memory fouling and is similar in cooling performance but I've had mine for several years on different CPU's.

 

You should drop Linus Tech a line he can`t do 5.2ghz stable on all cores without throttling and Der8auer and Gamers Nexus can`t and 8Pack.    

6 hours ago, DescendDescend said:

The question has been discussed many times on this forum. My Noctua NH-D15 single fan cools the 9900K at 5.2Ghz (HT off 1.3V, C States all active) to less the 70C P3d and less than 80C on Realbench 2.43. You have to adjust the fan curve appropriately for max cooling at full load.

Disadvantages compared with a water cooler: Very large heatsink. A second fan may foul the memory. A bit more stress on the MB if you move the PC regularly. Not as elegant. Brown fans are ugly but can be replaced with other colours.

Advantages compared with a water cooler. No leak risk. Significantly cheaper.

Pretty sure there is an alternative from Noctua that reduces the memory fouling and is similar in cooling performance but I've had mine for several years on different CPU's.

 

I've had 2 leaks in over 10 years and both were due to the use of acrylic material.  Neither leak caused any component damage.  I no longer use acrylic parts and haven't had a leak in 5+ years since.  If you're worried about leaks, all of the all-in-one water-cooling solutions cover leaks in their warranty.  If their product leaks and kills your components, they will replace your components.

BTW, disabling HT has turned your chip into a 9700k, and also dropped 10C off your peak temps.  Saying you get 5.2GHz without HT @ 80C in stress tests is equivalent to 90C if you didn't gimp your chip.  If you spent the extra $50 or so on water cooling you could re-enable HT and get the full benefit of the $150 costlier 9900k vs. the 9700k.  

4 hours ago, rjfry said:

You should drop Linus Tech a line he can`t do 5.2ghz stable on all cores without throttling and Der8auer and Gamers Nexus can`t and 8Pack.    

It's because he disabled HT, essentially turning his chip into a 9700K.  This drops 10C (or more) off of peak temperatures.  I measured 10C drop way back in the day on a 3770k, the last time I used this trick to hit a higher clock speed.  On a modern chip it could be a larger difference given the doubling of core count and even higher thermal density.  

I used a custom water loop for several years without issues until a while ago when it got clogged up and my graphics card overheated and died.

Went back to air cooling and peace of mind.

Water cooling IS more effective if you maintain the system properly, but don't expect to gain any significant performance increase.

11 minutes ago, neumanix said:

I used a custom water loop for several years without issues until a while ago when it got clogged up and my graphics card overheated and died.

Went back to air cooling and peace of mind.

Water cooling IS more effective if you maintain the system properly, but don't expect to gain any significant performance increase.

Don't expect to gain any signifcant performance?  Maybe not for an AIO but for a custom loop if you
1) choose appropriate components for the thermal dissipation workload
2) build it correctly
3) maintain it correctly
there will definitely be a sizeable delta between component temperatures vs. air cooling

If by "performance" you mean component performance, that comes down to the silicon lottery and one's comfort level with over-volting.  The improved cooling performance granted by a custom water cooling loop is, in my experience, enough for an additional 1-2 Turbo bins on modern Intel CPUs (without exceeding the maximum recommended voltage) and on modern Nvidia GPUs while the reduced temperatures are often only good for something like 25-100MHz, the biggest difference comes in the form of maintaining peak clock speeds over time, rather than constantly throttling and boosting, rinse and repeat.  This can result in more consistent frametimes, the number one factor in perceived "smoothness" while playing games.

If you're willing to throw component longevity out the window and over-volt beyond recommended tolerance, you can gain another 1-2 Turbo bins above that and another 100MHz or so on the GPU.  Personally, I don't push my components this hard any longer because I always tell myself "I'm going to keep this system" but then I always upgrade when the next great thing comes around.  

This is all simply not achievable on air cooling, because you straight into TjMax as air coolers lack the thermal dissipation capacity required to remove that much heat, that quickly.  

So sure, if you want a cheap, easy solution and don't care about overclocking WITHOUT COMPROMISES, then go with air cooling.  Otherwise you have to do things like turn a 9900k into a 9700k and still hit 80C in stress tests 😄

Edited November 19, 20196 yr by TechguyMaxC

I have been using the same Thermalright Silver arrow with 2 fans for over 6 years now. On my latest build I had to modify it with a dremel to accommodate the DRAM on MB. I also lapped it and the CPU heat spreader and replaced the TIM with coolaboratories liquid metal. Its a 8086K at 5.3ghz on all 6 cores at 1.4v stability test with CPU: OCCT 4 and CPU: Linpac for 1 hour. Tempretures did not exceed more than 84c. The most crucial thing I think is ambient temperature. I used to run my systems in an enclosure that was exposed to outside sub zero temperatures when I lived in Toronto. I live in a more temperate climate now but I have in the past experimented with feeding the output from an air conditioner into the case with great results i.e. completing 3dMark06 at 5.5ghz. In fact I'm still number 49 on the 3DMark06 hall of fame https://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/18095473

When I originally posted that It was in the 30's 😁 So I am a proponent of air cooling

Edited November 19, 20196 yr by Avidean

Even Silicon Lottery cannot supply a CPU that will run all cores at 5.3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

	Avidean	52329	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti	Intel Core i7-8086K Processor
Submitted June 7 2019 CPU model Intel Core i7-8086K Processor CPU clock speed 4001 MHz Physical/logical CPUs 1 / 6 CPU cores 6 CPU manufacturing 14 nm Motherboard ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. ROG MAXIMUS X APEX GPU model NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti GPU vendor Asustek Computer, Inc. No. of cards 1 GPU memory 11264 MB GPU core clock 1518 Mhz GPU memory clock 1388 Mhz GPU driver NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

      It must have changed I have the steam paid version of 3D Mark.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 20196 yr by rjfry