Yep, a watercooler is more noisy than a good air cooler...  Cant go wrong with a good air cooler imo.

If you are going for one of the aircoolers make sure they fit in your case, wouldn't want to end up with a awesome aircooler that needs 155mm and find the case only supports 140mm.

Alright! Installed a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE and now the CPU barely breaks a sweat even under heavy load! Everything is back the way it should be. Thank you all for your help!

Maybe one last question: Does it matter which way I point all my fans, I've now set it up so air gets pulled in at the back, then sent through the big cooling blocks, then out the front. I have 3 spare fans lying around that I could mount to the top of the case, but looking at OpenHardwareMonitor it's probably not necessary... 🙂

Nice result! 

I think the general consensus is to have air coming in through the front, and being expelled out the back, but if it's working fine and not bothering you, I'd leave it as is 😃

Bought a Noctua NHD15 and never looked back. I suspect I will be throwing it on future PC's as well. Watercooling is generally a waste of time. AIO's break, get noisy and perform normally similar to the NHD15 some watercoolers will outperform it. And you will need a case that fits it... but a lot of AIO's are hit and miss... 

Basically in like 2010 I used to do this.. but it became pointless. Been so happy going back to a high quality quiet air cooler.

bla:

 

Alright! Installed a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE and now the CPU barely breaks a sweat even under heavy load! Everything is back the way it should be. Thank you all for your help!

 

Maybe one last question: Does it matter which way I point all my fans, I've now set it up so air gets pulled in at the back, then sent through the big cooling blocks, then out the front. I have 3 spare fans lying around that I could mount to the top of the case, but looking at OpenHardwareMonitor it's probably not necessary... 🙂

 

 

 

what case do you have? most are set up for front intake and rear/top exhaust. 

andrew75:

 

Yep, a watercooler is more noisy than a good air cooler...  Cant go wrong with a good air cooler imo.

 

Except when they don't provide enough cooling. I used a Peerless Assassin 120 SE on an intel 14700k and it wasn't providing enough cooling under load. They seem to recommend AIOs for that chip.  So I installed an NZXT 280 AIO which is the largest that will fit in the case,  and that definitely cools it better. and also seems quieter. It also has a small LCD screen so I can see the temps and loads  on it and other info. Also installed an antibending  thermal frame. I could undervolt it to trying bringing down the temps, and I tried doing this initially and it worked to some degree, but it was producing some errors in event viewer that pointed to possible file corruption with the undervolting.  Reverting it back stopped producing the errors. 

mattwnz:

 

Except when they don't provide enough cooling. I used a Peerless Assassin 120 SE on an intel 14700k and it wasn't providing enough cooling under load. They seem to recommend AIOs for that chip.  So I installed an NZXT 280 AIO which is the largest that will fit in the case,  and that definitely cools it better. and also seems quieter. It also has a small LCD screen so I can see the temps and loads  on it and other info. Also installed an antibending  thermal frame. I could undervolt it to trying bringing down the temps, and I tried doing this initially and it worked to some degree, but it was producing some errors in event viewer that pointed to possible file corruption with the undervolting.  Reverting it back stopped producing the errors. 

 

Given the 14700k absolutely drinks power like a fish drinks water, and can routinely get up to 280w+ under full core load, its no surprise an air cooler will struggle, they tend to top out at about 200W of cooling power, which is your I5 and I7, 12th and 13th Gen and below and all Ryzen, except maybe the 7900x and up.

mattwnz:

 

andrew75:

 

Yep, a watercooler is more noisy than a good air cooler...  Cant go wrong with a good air cooler imo.

 

 

 

 

Except when they don't provide enough cooling. I used a Peerless Assassin 120 SE on an intel 14700k and it wasn't providing enough cooling under load. They seem to recommend AIOs for that chip.  So I installed an NZXT 280 AIO which is the largest that will fit in the case,  and that definitely cools it better. and also seems quieter. It also has a small LCD screen so I can see the temps and loads  on it and other info. Also installed an antibending  thermal frame. I could undervolt it to trying bringing down the temps, and I tried doing this initially and it worked to some degree, but it was producing some errors in event viewer that pointed to possible file corruption with the undervolting.  Reverting it back stopped producing the errors. 

 

The peerless assassin is a lower to mid range (though good) aircooler (the price kinda tells you that) that is designed to handle upto about 200W. There are more powerful models designed to work with hotter CPU's ie Frost Commander and the higher end Noctua and beQuiet coolers with 140mm fans. Need to chose the correct one for the job.

eonsim:

 

 

 

 

 

The peerless assassin is a lower to mid range (though good) aircooler (the price kinda tells you that) that is designed to handle upto about 200W. There are more powerful models designed to work with hotter CPU's ie Frost Commander and the higher end Noctua and beQuiet coolers with 140mm fans. Need to chose the correct one for the job.

 

That is really the issue, finding the information on what is the best ones to use and what wattage they can cool. Intel don't provide a list of recommended ones either for their chips. The same goes with AIOs , although lots of video comparison reviews which also compare them with air coolers, and a lot of the AIOs seem to do better. Don't think I could fit a 140  air cooler in my case and I did look at the Noctua but, I think my case was just a bit too narrow and the RAM position may also be an issue. 

noctua have a wonderful tool on their site for telling you if a cooler will fit a case