TweakTown's 2025 CPU Cooler Testing and Methodology Update

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Introduction

Although our aging CPU cooler test rig has nothing wrong with it, we are sad to see it go. However, looking back to when the AMD 3600X was released, it gave us five long years of service and is long overdue for change.

With that in mind, we took a long, hard look at what we did in past reviews and realized we needed to change how we go about things. We used to lock the CPU into a couple of overclocks, using it more as a stable heat source and less as a processor. We hope to deliver a much more user-expected result as we move forward.

Many things will be different in our new way of looking at things. Hopefully, we will be bringing forth information that not only allows the users to pick an appropriate CPU cooling solution for their specific needs but also to deliver charts, not only covering thermals and noise levels but also adding some others that may help deliver a more complete picture of what goes on when using these newer boost driven CPUs.

In our minds, it is never too late for change, and here we are, looking at all aspects, variables, reader comments, and so on, to try to bring you some of the most informative CPU cooler reviews in the game. Hopefully, after reading how we go about testing and how we derive our results, you can wrap your head around what we are trying to accomplish and why we made the changes we did.

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The Components

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We reached out to ASUS and explained our situation, and for our purposes, they recommended the ROG STRIX X870E-E Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard to house the new AM5 CPU we had planned for this build. Essentially, it is a rock-solid board with profiles, allowing us to set options and lock them down, no matter what may happen.

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Another reason for this choice is that while we always want as much style as possible, with the CPU coolers being the focus in these reviews, we wanted a solution that blended into the background but was easily recognizable to users reading our reviews.

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While you may assume we flipped the motherboard over to show off the names and logo on it, we were more concerned with the updated socket hardware. With the switch to a pinned socket, the hardware is also updated, where the backplate is now part of the socket hardware, eliminating some of the fumbling around we had to go through with AM4 cooler hardware applications.

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The workhorse of our CPU cooler testbed is this AMD Ryzen 9 9900X we obtained off the shelf. We opted for this due to the dual-CCD layout and the small IMC, which will send a ton of heat into the coolers. It will shine a light on any CPU cooler that is lacking in any way.

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As you can see, our Ryzen packs a lot more into this 9900X with a much smaller footprint than our previous 3600X had, and with the notches around the edge, it eliminates even more of the IHS, masking hotspots a real thing to contend with.

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While this is more of a "why not take it" image, as everything is still clean and new, it allows us to dote on the new socket hardware that will eliminate the CPU coming out of the socket with some CPU coolers.

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Our friends over at Patriot were more than willing to help us out with storage, and quickly after the request, this 2 TB Viper VP4300 PCIe GEN4 x4 SSD showed up at our door. While there is enough room for what we need, it will be hidden under a motherboard heatsink.

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While in conversation with Patriot about storage, the RAM choice came up, and we waited for something cool to arrive. We have a 32GB kit of 7000 Mt/s DDR5, which just happens to be Patriot's newest Elite 5 in black and white to hit the market.

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We realize that this Dark Power Pro 12 with its 1500W of power is overkill for the build we have, but it was here from a previous build that be quiet! supplied to us. We did need to order a new GPU power cable to get everything running, but otherwise, we knew this was the best choice for our testing.

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We also reached out to GIGABYTE for a GPU, we simply asked for something last gen, as we deliver very little GPU stress delivering the desktop. GIGABYTE sent us a GeForce RTX 4070ti SUPER with 0-fan mode to fill that request.

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With the new build comes the idea of using a case for testing, well, most of it, anyway. The reason for a chassis is to add airflow other than the CPU cooler. As you can tell, we went to be quiet! for the chassis, and they also supplied us with four boxes of their Light Wings White 140mm PWM high-speed ARGB fans.

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It wouldn't make much sense to have be quiet! fans and not use one of their top-tier cases to house all the CPU coolers to come for at least the next couple of years. We opted for the Light Base 900 DX, as it is adaptable to our needs. We took the front, top, and left side off permanently. Doing so allows for a lot of airflow into the chassis, where we are testing the cooler, not the thermal capacity of the chassis.

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This is certainly a glamour shot for all involved. The chassis and fans in be quiet! orange, the Patriot RAM poking out from under the CPU cooler. In the future, the chassis lighting will be run in rainbow mode, while the CPU cooler ARGB will be handled by Armoury Crate.

While we will show some of the products in the various review images, every review will sport a test system chart (see below) with links to the products on Amazon and identify which software we use to test.

Chad's CPU Cooler Test System Specifications

Testing

We take you through the reviewer's perspective of what happens to deliver the results we do, and we hope it all makes sense as to why we do what we do.

Initially, we tested this AMD Ryzen 9 9900X in various ways, as we had to get our minds around AM5 and determine what we should expect thermally in multiple usage conditions. In previous testing, we locked things down to deliver results that may not have been the most accurate representation of the user experience and have made changes to address it.

We first tested things with PBO on, and all that resulted in was every cooler running at 95°C, constantly pinging that thermal throttle limitation. Running tests like this would all deliver the same thermal results, noise may vary, but average clock speed across all cores would be the only defining factor as to which cooler did the best job with PBO enabled in UEFI.

Disabling PBO was the first thing we changed from the default user experience, but we also addressed the chassis fan speed, setting it to 15%, which moves air yet leaves the Light Wings ARGB 140mm fans silent in their airflow delivery. We made one last change in the UEFI: to enable DOCP to get the most of that 7000 MT/s kit from Patriot.

After saving this to one of the motherboard profiles, we are left with a profile comparable to what the average user will experience with a dual-CCD AM5 CPU.

We then attack the office so it is ready and keeps all coolers on an even playing field by eliminating the variables that are easiest to control. After closing the door to the office, a window AC unit backs the home HVAC so that we can keep ambient temperatures at 21.5°C. We allow a little wiggle room as the second AC unit fluctuates between cycles. We have experienced that difference from 21.3°C to 21.7°C, a tight range for ambient temperature control. This range also applies to our cooler season testing, as our home office is set to the same thermal levels.

Using AC in the summer allows us to control the humidity as well, where we have the office in the range of 30% to 35%, We also control it in the winter via humidification of the office within the same range.

Once the office is ready to go, we can then begin testing. Typically, the CPU cooler is mounted during the imaging process, and we apply the same paste at the photo booth as we would in the office. We decided to change pastes from a recent thermal paste shoot-out we did internally. We had been sent various samples as well as buying a few others for a good comparison and learned we wanted to use paste from ID-Cooling.

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We opted for the FROST X45 for multiple reasons. We have a bunch of it, which is a huge factor, but thermal performance is at the top of the range for pastes that do not require you to break the bank to obtain. It is a thicker paste, which makes application and cleanup easier on us, with less chance of getting it on the socket or motherboard. Lastly, when applying the paste, we always get an even and thin spread of the Frost X45, which is the biggest part of keeping things on a level playing field.

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We are not going to make any claims about the cleanest supplication method, but it works and has worked for us for many years. We use a slightly larger dob in the center of the spreader, with four smaller dobs at the corners. If you alternated the mounting hardware to apply the cooler evenly to the CPU, your thermal paste spread pattern will never be an issue.

We apply the cooler as directed in the instructions and fire up the test system. Once Windows 11 gets to the desktop, we open AIDA64 and two instances of CPU-z to see what the CPU is doing and verify RAM speed and timings. In AIDA64, we enable the sensors tab to see everything the motherboard and components are willing to show us. We then open the AIDA64 System Stability Test and click on the statistics tab to watch everything happen. We click clear at the bottom once opened, which rests all the values, and then allow the system to sit idle for ten minutes. At this time, we grabbed a screenshot of what was happening, which you see below from our early testing with the CPS / PCCooler RZ620 CPU cooler.

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From this image, we record the average CPU package temperature, which would be 43.6°C, and while there, we also collect the average VRM temperature. We also note the average fan speed at idle, but we do not record noise levels, as so far, they all are well below the threshold of hearing inside a chassis.

We tried CPU and FPU together for testing but found AVX to be too much. The average user will be gaming or cruising the internet, and this is who we are interested in catering to with this testing. From default settings in AIDA64 stress testing, we have unchecked the Stress FPU, Stress Cache, and Stress System Memory, which delivers thermals for us that are close to what we see others reporting for their usage of similar cooling on a dual-CCD AM5 CPU.

All set and ready to see how the CPU cooler does, we click on the clear option, immediately follow it with the start button, and let things stew for twenty minutes, allowing for heat soak and a much better idea of what you would see during a match of your favorite game. Once we pass the twenty-minute marker, we grab another screenshot, which you can see below.

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From this screen capture, we take the average CPU package temperature, which is 68.1°C for the RZ620, and keep track of the maximum package temperature. We record the average VRM temps and the average fan speed, and we also open the calculator and average the CPU speed across all twelve cores using the average column numbers. Before the closure of the test suite, we also use a pair of sound meters to cross-check results to ensure they are not out of spec, increasing our accuracy. For now, all these things will get a chart in our results section of the reviews unless we find them to be irrelevant, at which time we will pull whichever charts do not have merit.

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To further what we were speaking of earlier, with the proper application of the CPU cooler, this is the spread of the thermal paste we get on the Ryzen 9 9900X. The paste is crackled in appearance from the suction of removing the cooler, but only the thinnest layer of paste is seen on the heat spreader of the CPU, which is what you want to see from a good thermal paste application.

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In our experience, when too much paste is applied, it squeezes out to the edge of the CPU heat spreaders and is left on the base of the cooler. Even with the extra paste seen around the edges of the contact area, again, the paste there is thin with a mirrored pattern to the CPU from where the two separated.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, with what we have shown, it is easy to wrap your mind around what we do to bring you the most accurate CPU cooler reviews without variables and other components imposing limits on the product. The changes we have made have simplified our testing and shortened the process a bit, but with the new look at how to attack these reviews, we will bring forth as much pertinent information about the situation as possible.

Our goal is to always look for a better way, and we feel that our new take on CPU cooler testing will deliver not only which cooler might be thermally better but also what it is doing to the VRM or the CPU speed to do so. You get the drift. With so many options of ways to do things, we are trying to do things in a manner that represents the real world and what you can expect to see with your purchase.

If you see any gaping holes in our methodology or feel you would want more information delivered in another chart, feel free to reach out; our information is easy to find. While we may not act on all ideas and recommendations, we are open to looking at them and pondering their importance to our reviews.

We do want to deliver you the best CPU cooler reviews in the game, and we strongly hope that our changes to what we do and how we do it, along with the representation of much more information, we are able to get there. We have a stack of coolers ready to take on this new test system, giving users an updated perspective on what to look out for in your next CPU cooler purchase.