Antony Leather is Custom PC’s modding editor @antonyleatherARCTIC’s Freezer
50TR can keep
a 24-core
Threadripper
3960X in check- an amazing feat
for an air cooler
Adding water to the
Threadripper cooling
equation results in
lower temperatures,
quieter noise levels
and higher boost
frequenciesWhile AMD’s first and second
generations of Threadripper only
had niche appeal, with their sub-par
gaming performance and lacklustre
grunt in some lightly threaded
workloads, its 3rd-gen Threadripper
CPUs are much better all-rounders.
If you have the cash, they make for
superb multi-threaded powerhouses
that also keep up with tasks outside of
content creation and rendering. While
AMD’s 7nm Zen 2 architecture offers
clear benefits, though, the Threadripper
3960X and 3970X are still toasty
customers, requiring decent cooling
and at least an 800W power supply.
A CPU with a thermal design power
(TDP) rating of 280W is going to be
out of reach of most air coolers, but
some larger models are able to cope.
ARCTIC’s Freezer 50TR is a beast of
an air cooler, with 120mm and 140mm
fans spinning at up to 1,800rpm and
blowing air through a pair of large
heatsinks, each of which is equipped
with four 6mm heatpipes. However, if
you’re spending this much on a system,is it worth considering more elaborate
cooling? AMD’s CPUs do respond
better to lower temperatures, boosting
to higher frequencies at stock speed.
To investigate, I pitched the ARCTIC
cooler against a bunch of water-
cooling components from Corsair’s
HydroX range, including an XR5
360 radiator, three 120mm ML120
fans, XD5 RGB pump and an XC9
RGB waterblock, to see if it’s worth
spending more on elaborate cooling
for the latest Threadripper CPUs.
The ARCTIC cooler was certainly as
quiet as the Corsair cooling system when
idle at stock speed, but with the 24-core
Threadripper 3960X CPU under load,
the ARCTIC cooler was much louder than
the Corsair rig with the standard cooling
profile. Its delta T of 60°C, reported as
82°C in Ryzen Master minus a 22°C
ambient room temperature, is decent
for an air cooler, but it certainly doesn’t
leave any room for overclocking. The
peak all-core boost was 3.991GHz.
Switching to the Corsair water-
cooling loop, the temperature dropped
by 10°C to a delta T of 50°C. This is
significantly cooler, and the fans were
also much quieter. Interestingly, theall-core boost frequency sat 50MHz
higher too, reaching nearly 4.05GHz.
There’s clearly a benefit to
splashing out on liquid cooling for your
Threadripper CPU. The ARCTIC Freezer
50TR was happy to sit with our CPU
at full load at stock speed, and just
about managed to keep temperatures
within check. That’s impressive for
an air cooler, and it’s definitely worth
considering, especially as it costs just
£60, and doesn’t come with worries
about pump failures or leaks.
Its noise levels and cooling couldn’t
match our custom water-cooling
loop, though, with a clear benefit on
both counts. The custom loop opens
up enough headroom for overclocking
too, while allowing higher stock speed
boost frequencies. The price difference
is considerable, but you can also save a
significant amount of money by opting
for the 24-core Threadripper 3960X
over the 32-core 3970X.
The former is over £500 cheaper- this more than pays for a high-end
liquid-cooling system, which means
your PC will make a far more pleasant
noise while you’re throwing multi-
threaded workloads at it.
Cooling 3rd-gen
Threadripper