Question about my new system's CPU cooler

Mar 21, 2020
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Hey everyone,
I am planning getting this gaming system soon,
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- MSI B450-A Pro Max
- MSI GTX2060 Super Gaming X
- Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB) 3000Mhz DDR4 CL16

- Corsair VS650 650W PSU
My question is Ryzen 5 3600 comes with its own cooler but I have the option to get one of the two custom CPU coolers:
Corsair Hydro H45 or Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L RGB
Should I change my stock CPU cooler with one of these two? Will it make a significant difference? Is it better for the PC health? And if so, which one of the two should I choose?
I am on a budget so I don't want to spend on something that won't be that necessary or have much of an effect. So I wanted to know if I need one and how important it is.
 
it will depend on local pricing but I'm not convinced a 120mm AIO is really worth it. As 240mm AIOs can be significantly better and cost proportionately little more.

Whereas if not spending too much is the order of business, the stock cooler is actually fine.

What case are you putting this all in? That matters quite a bit to airflow / temps / noise / dust - or as you put it, system health :)

I would suggest getting something better than the VS series. The VS series is ofc a perfectly legit PSU series, but a better quality, more efficient, modular, and quieter PSU would be worth the investment. Options again depend on local pricing, but Corsair TXm is often relatively affordable. Seasonic Focus Gold (Gold Plus is semi passive too).

What monitor will you be gaming on?

And how much does that model of RTX 2060 cost you?
 
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Well, 120mm AIO costs about 95 USD whereas 240mm AIO is 125 USD, directly converting local pricing to USD. I don't know how close they are to actual USD prices. Surely my local currency is weak these days in my country so price of any electronic device is high. So I am running on a budget. I won't be overclocking as I don't know much about it and I don't think I will need it for some time. This being a gaming PC, my main game is Overwatch which is 4 years old and it won't cause any extra temps or smth. I will play other games surely but for the newer ones I can go with high or medium settings if something gets hot in my case. For this usage rhythm, if stock cooler will be fine and won't cause any damage or harm to my lovely new system(<3), let me know.
My case is : Phanteks Eclipse P360X Mid Tower ATX
For the PSU, I am getting the PC from a store where they set a PC and you have the option to change some components on a list. Corsair TXm and Seasonic is not on that list :( It comes with VS650, the only option to change is one with 1000W but it is too expensive and I think would be unnecessary. I hope VS650 will be fine.
And, RTX2060 Super costs 500USD, again converting from my local currency.
For the monitor, I am planning ASUS VG248QE or VG248QG, maybe AOC 24G2U. All being 144Hz. ASUS ones are old but they look decent for a budget gaming monitor.

Looking forward for answers !!
Thanks so much :)
 
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If you're on a budget, drop the CPU cooler altogether and use the stock AMD cooler.

What store are you getting the PC from? Do you mind linking it?

It will help make suggestions
Sure.
This is the link. It is not in English but those purple boxes under the price tag are for the CPU, GPU, Motherboard, Case, PSU etc. Clicking on it shows you the options you can choose to put into your system. They are all shown in their product names so it won't be an issue understanding. You surely can translate the page into English as well. :)
 
Thanks :)

So for the graphics card, they are selling
MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Super GAMING X 8GB 256 Bit Ekran Kartı + 3.852,00 TL (Liste Fiyatı: 4.099,00 TL. )
But also: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 Pulse 8GB 256Bit Ekran Kartı + 3.279,00 TL
This is similar in performance to the RTX 2060 Super, and is a lot cheaper. So go with that Sapphire RX 5700

Given there are only 3 choices for the PSU, stick to the VS series, it's fine.

Motherboard looks fine, so does the RAM (they only do 3000MHz, but that's fine)

The Phantex P360X does not look very good for airflow, and this review seems to agree, especially with the stock fans:

The P400A is only a little more expensive, but has quite good airflow. So go with the P400A for the case.

For the CPU cooler, google translate tells me "Seçili Soğutma Yok" means "no cooling selected". As long as they include the stock AMD cooler, that's fine. I see that in the CPU menu they have 2 entries for the R5 3600. One "multipack" and one 'retail'. It is possible they only do the stock cooler with the retail one, not the 'multipack' one. Make sure to check what the situation is with them before ordering.
 
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Thanks

So for the graphics card, they are selling
MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Super GAMING X 8GB 256 Bit Ekran Kartı + 3.852,00 TL (Liste Fiyatı: 4.099,00 TL. )
But also: Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 Pulse 8GB 256Bit Ekran Kartı + 3.279,00 TL
This is similar in performance to the RTX 2060 Super, and is a lot cheaper. So go with that Sapphire RX 5700

Given there are only 3 choices for the PSU, stick to the VS series, it's fine.

Motherboard looks fine, so does the RAM (they only do 3000MHz, but that's fine)

The Phantex P360X does not look very good for airflow, and this review seems to agree, especially with the stock fans:

The P400A is only a little more expensive, but has quite good airflow. So go with the P400A for the case.

For the CPU cooler, google translate tells me "Seçili Soğutma Yok" means "no cooling selected". As long as they include the stock AMD cooler, that's fine. I see that in the CPU menu they have 2 entries for the R5 3600. One "multipack" and one 'retail'. It is possible they only do the stock cooler with the retail one, not the 'multipack' one. Make sure to check what the situation is with them before ordering.
Oh, thanks a lot for your suggestions.
I will surely go with P400A case, better airflow and worth the extra price.
For the CPU, yeah I guess multipack is tray CPU without the cooler so I need to get the boxed one for the cooler. Thanks for reminding :)
For the GPU, I didn't see that there was a RX 5700XT there. I probably will go with the 5700XT as it is cheaper and even slightly better performing than 2060S as I read. I also read 5700 XT can get hotter than 2060S but store offers me MSI RX 5700XT Gaming X which has low temperatures with a good cooling system on it, as I read on a couple of reviews.
So case and GPU changed, CPU with its stock cooler.
Thank you sooo much for your suggestions. They helped me getting a better system!!
 
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Hey @goko14 I don't have anything to add to the already good suggestions in this thread, but congratulations on the new gaming PC and be sure to show off your new rig over in Working from home? Show us your setup!
Sure, I will post when I get it all together :) I guess it will take a while though, as the world is going through these tough times, many stores are closed. I wish the best for all. Looking forward to it :)
 
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Hey, I am back for another question!!
I am getting very close to buying my PC this week, I will buy it online. I just wanted to clear one more thing before buying.
For motherboard I realized there are two options available.
- MSI B450-A Pro Max
- MSI X570-A Pro
I chose B450 but is it worth upgrading to X570? What are the differences? Like when I try to upgrade something 3-4 years later, will they fit and work with my motherboard? If one is more futureproof I'd want to get that. Like when Nvidia got their new gen GPUs, can I fit on my motherboard? Or when I want to upgrade CPU, RAM etc.
Thankss
 
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Hey, I am back for another question!!
I am getting very close to buying my PC this week, I will buy it online. I just wanted to clear one more thing before buying.
For motherboard I realized there are two options available.
- MSI B450-A Pro Max
- MSI X570-A Pro
I chose B450 but is it worth upgrading to X570? What are the differences? Like when I try to upgrade something 3-4 years later, will they fit and work with my motherboard? If one is more futureproof I'd want to get that. Like when Nvidia got their new gen GPUs, can I fit on my motherboard? Or when I want to upgrade CPU, RAM etc.
Thankss

X570 supports PCIe 4.0 and faster RAM speeds. I recently built my PC using Ryzen 7 and I went with X570 to take advantage of future technologies that will use the improved PCIe 4.0 bandwidth. NVMe SSD, in particular, will benefit from this and you may regret not being able to use the faster SSD speeds down the road. But X570 costs more so keep that in mind.

This is the motherboard I bought and I have no complaints:
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-TUF-X570-Plus-Motherboard-Lighting/dp/B07SXF8GY3
 
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Oh, I see. And briefly, what is PCIe? Would you say it is worth the extra price?

PCIe is the bus that peripherals such as graphics cards, storage such as SSD, and other devices use to send data to the CPU. So when you plug your GPU into your motherboard, you are plugging into a slot that uses the PCIe bus. The same is true when you plug an NVMe SSD drive into an M.2 slot. The difference between each version of PCIe is typically the amount of bandwidth is provides. PCIe 4.0 is twice as fast as 3.0.

So what does this mean for you right now? Not a lot unless you are planning on buying a PCIe 4.0 compatible SSD which is a bit pricey. But you mentioned wanting to be "future proof" and X570 will definitely help in that regard. For example, most GPUs on the market right now are PCIe 3.0 so the B450 is a fine option for the moment. However, eventually GPUs will move to 4.0 and at that point you will want a MB that supports that higher bandwidth if/when you upgrade your GPU to fully utilize its capabilities.

Having said all that, if your budget is constrained then you could get by with the B450 for now and upgrade to X570 later when its prices are a little lower. It would save you about $80 or so up front. Every motherboard needs to be upgraded eventually to stay current with tech. Just need to be aware and plan out at what stage you want to do it and at what cost.
 
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Thanks for the explanation, I got it. If the next gen GPUs like RTX3000s won't require PCIe 4.0 and I can upgrade my GPU without changing my motherboard in the next like 3 years, I will buy B450. Will the RTX3000s require PCIe 4.0 or will the 4.0 requirement be further away in time?
 
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Thanks for the explanation, I got it. If the next gen GPUs like RTX3000s won't require PCIe 4.0 and I can upgrade my GPU without changing my motherboard in the next like 3 years, I will buy B450. Will the RTX3000s require PCIe 4.0 or will the 4.0 requirement be further away in time?

Nvidia hasn't announced the new GPU lineup yet so we don't know. Oh.....and let me also say that 4.0 isn't a "requirement" at all. PCIe is backward compatible. So a PCIe 4.0 capable device will work on PCIe 3.0 motherboard. It will just operate at 3.0 speeds. Hope that made sense.
 
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Hey guys, got my new system today, activated Windows and checked it out a bit. My journey of questions continue but it's been ages since I got a new desktop PC so my rusty knowledge needs some freshness. I installed my antivirus, I will update my Windows to the latest, I will update my motherboard and GPU drivers. Other than those, I never heard of CPU drivers or smth but just because it is the major hardware on PC, let me know if I need to do anything about it as well. Are there anything else I should do before getting to use my PC?
Thankss
 

Inspireless Llama

Community Contributor
I'm not sure if you really need them, but you could update your Chipset Drivers. Or did you mean that with mobo drivers?

Personally I like a program to check temps when I start using my PC so I know if everything is working as I intended it to do. For a Ryzen CPU you can use Ryzen Master. For your GPU I guess the best option would be MSI afterburner.

I'm not sure if you should download the motherboard software, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. The software for my motherboard appears to be crashing PC's so there's not much use into that.

Considering your RAM, and maybe your cooler, not sure what you went for, I'd advice getting iCue too. But that's not necessary before you start using your PC.
 
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Can you recommend me a software for checking all temps on PC?
Should I use GeForce Experience installed on PC or MSI's software (I have MSI RTX2060S Gaming Extra on PC) ?
This is the page on MSI's website for my motherboard. There are categories of drivers under the drivers tab but I don't really know what any of those means. I will check my device manager, if there are no yellow exclamation mark symbols on anything, I guess everything is fine.
 

Inspireless Llama

Community Contributor
For checking all temps I think HWinfo64 is the best one, but I've noticed the temps from the CPU differ sometimes with Ryzen Master, and then I trust Ryzen more because that's official software.

I don't think you can use Geforce Experience for monitoring anything but I would recommend downloading it anyway. The MSI software probably will be mainly for eventual overclocking and / or checking speeds / temps.

According to MSI's site the only drivers are Geforce drivers anyway, nothing else. For utility MSI Afterburner can be used for temps or for overclocking the videocard. If you know how to change settings it can show more temps, which can come handy if you only have 1 monitor and still want to know live temps when playing a game.

As far as I remember MSI Afterburner looks simular to my Asus monitoring program:

vHgxpIm.png


Besides that, when I had an MSI card, I wasn't really a fan of the other programs because they seemed very buggy, but that's several years ago and I haven't tried it since. Very basic as well and I didn't feel like I really needed them.

As far as I remember it might look simular to my Asus monitoring program:

About the drivers, I'm not sure. Apparently AMD drivers are needed for the powerplans to reduce CPU heat. I downloaded them from my motherboards utility site, but after quickly checking, AMD's download site itself has the same version (for me). Realtek Audio could be useful but as far as I remember it works without the program. I occasionally use it to set up equalizers.
 
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Just to add to the above, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about drivers.

Any 'driver booster' software should be avoided like the plague. And even software from the manufacturer that offers to handle driver updates (e.g. Geforce Experience) ought sometimes to be avoided for driver updates.

Geforce Experience has botched driver updates for me more often than not, forcing me to run DDU and then clean install manually downloaded drivers anyway.

Also, most drivers don't need regular updating unless there are specific features or security fixes that you would benefit from.

For most users, a clean install of Windows and letting Windows handle driver installation - plus optionally downloading GPU drivers yourself to get the latest 'game ready' ones - is all you need.
 
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Hey guys, I got my system together. I wanted to show it to you but forum doesn't accept the photo links for some reason. AND is there any chance to control the RGB lighting on my case fans??
 

Inspireless Llama

Community Contributor
What site do you use for the photo? If it's imgur just rightclick, "copy image url", and put it here between [ img ] and [ /img], or click on the 3 dots --> Share --> Use the BBcode one. If you didn't use that, I'd reupload it to Imgur.com. There's also a topic to show your setup

You have a phanteks case right? If it has rgb lightening, there should be a button at your front panel that let's you cycle through the lightening and set some effects. That's from my experience with the P400S case at least. I'd check your case manual for that.
 
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View: https://imgur.com/RSB2G19

View: https://imgur.com/7NqUZoQ

View: https://imgur.com/2KXhkJp


That is how it looks!! I just checked my CPU temps, on about 4-5% load it reached 60-62C, when completely idle 50-60C and when in a game (OW) it looked 60-75C max. It seemed a bit high when under light load but I hope it is not worrying. At what temps should I start worrying about my CPU health? Any ideal CPU temps you say?
 
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