Cooling
Cooling solutions
Do You Need Thermal Paste for a New CPU Cooler?
Almost never. New coolers ship with paste, and every AIO comes with it pre-applied. Here is the one situation where you actually need to buy a separate tube.
Does the Ryzen 7 7800X3D Need an AIO, or Is Air Cooling Enough?
The 7800X3D is power-limited and can't be overclocked, so an AIO buys no frames over a good air cooler. Here is what actually keeps this chip cool and what a liquid loop does and doesn't change.
Do You Need an M.2 Heatsink for a PCIe 5.0 SSD?
A PCIe 5.0 SSD runs hot enough to throttle with no cooling at all — but the M.2 heatsink your motherboard already ships with stops that. Here is when a separate heatsink is worth buying and when it does nothing.
240mm vs 360mm AIO: Is the Bigger Radiator Worth It?
At matched noise, a 360mm AIO runs only about 1-3°C cooler than a 240mm of the same family, and near-zero in games. Here is when the extra radiator actually earns its price.
Air Cooler vs AIO: What Actually Keeps a CPU Cool
A good tower air cooler holds a modern gaming CPU within a couple degrees of a 240mm AIO, and a 360mm AIO only pulls ahead under sustained all-core loads. Here is when liquid cooling is actually worth the money.