Y'all've seen our Ryzen v 3600 vs. Core i5-9400F battle in over xxx games, you've besides seen the R9 3900X and Cadre i9 9900K duking information technology out in a few dozen titles, simply today we take the most epic boxing of them all... Intel vs. AMD'south box cooler battle. Ok, so we may be overselling this 1, but information technology is something nosotros've wanted to practise for a long time but hadn't got around to practice it using a satisfactory test method.

In a failed attempt last twelvemonth we cut the mounting hardware off the Wraith Stealth and the Intel box libation and jerry-rigged them onto an AM4 motherboard with similar levels of force per unit area, the results were interesting but since the correct amount of pressure wasn't existence practical to either libation, we decided not to publish these findings.

Merely recently shortly after testing the Wraith Spire, we received a tip to compare Intel and AMD'southward box coolers using the new Asrock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 motherboard. This particular board uses LGA1156 mounting holes, meaning it has native support for Intel coolers. Asrock did this to save space on the lath and nosotros weren't going to miss the opportunity to stick the crappy Intel box cooler on the Ryzen v 3600. And so we bought a Phantom Gaming-ITX and got to testing.

Now, this motherboard only supports Intel coolers, so to exam the Wraith range on the aforementioned Ryzen v 3600 CPU we used the Asrock Steel Fable. Since we're using the verbal same CPU with the aforementioned settings, this should still provide accurate results with the only potential outcome being the board layout. The Mini-ITX board is cramped and in that location'southward no open up space around the cooler, this volition negatively impact CPU cooling functioning. Therefore to replicate this on the Steel Legend which is a more open motherboard, we encompassed the Wraith coolers with a strip of paper-thin, modified to replicate the air-menses obstacles of the ITX board.

The next result we ran into was fan speed. Typically, Intel box coolers are noisy buggers that spin very fast. Last time nosotros tested one with the Core i7-8700 on a Z390 board it spun at between 3000 - 3500 RPM. On the Phantom Gaming-ITX the fan never spun faster than 2100 RPM which is an outcome for the Intel cooler equally it relies on fan speed to continue temperatures under control, or at least stops the CPU from melting through the PCB. We messed effectually for quite some time but couldn't go the fan to spin at full speed for more than than a few seconds.

With the limited fan speed nosotros decided to target 2000 RPM with all the coolers tested, so with fan speeds somewhat normalized and the aforementioned air-menses restrictions in identify, nosotros in one case once more went for the examination. For truly accurate information we should have locked the voltage and multiplier but since this isn't meant to be a scientific test only something to satisfy our curiosity we left the R5 3600 on auto to do its affair.

At that place have been many different Intel libation models over the years, we're using the Intel E97378-001 and E97379-001 coolers -- pretty catchy names, we know. The E97378 features a copper core with aluminum fins and was outset bundled with Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors. The E97379 is an all-aluminum cooler and it was first arranged with the Core i3 Sandy Bridge processors.

Intel used the copper insert version for not just the Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 processors, but also for the Ivy Bridge and Haswell generations. By the fourth dimension Skylake was released Intel dumped the copper model entirely, in favor of the cheaper aluminum model. In other words, CPUs such as the 6-core/12-thread Core i7-8700 came with the lousy aluminum libation which I recall testing well-nigh how it throttled and ran at 100 C out of the box.

Merely Intel doesn't care and they're shipping the newer Core i7-9700, a $330 8-core processor, with the exact same cooler, which is tragic to say the to the lowest degree.

The Results

The Wraith Prism is the libation AMD supplies with the Ryzen 7 3700X and 3800X along with the Ryzen nine 3900X. We saw the R5 3600 peak at simply 71 degrees when spinning its fan at 2100 RPM, and remember it was choked with paper-thin. And then the Prism set the criterion at 71 degrees.

Coming in just a few degrees warmer is the copper version of the Wraith Spire. It allowed the Ryzen processor to hit 74 degrees, though the CPU dropped downwards 50 MHz at the slightly higher temperature, so the thermal load was ever then slightly reduced. So nosotros have the all-aluminum version of the Spire which comes with the 3600X, information technology allowed the 3600 to top at 77 degrees which is getting up there.

The Wraith Stealth saw the Ryzen processor striking xc degrees and that'due south far from ideal, at this temperature the R5 3600 withal maintained 4050 MHz but it had to be close to dropping down to 4000 MHz, as this is the very frequency we saw with the copper version of Intel's box cooler and it only ran a degree hotter.

The aluminum box cooler that Intel's been bundling with all their non-Yard SKUs for years allowed the R5 3600 to hit 95 degrees which forced information technology down to 3975 MHz.

Was this a pointless examination? We had some fun putting it together to exist honest. Many of you will exist shocked to learn that the Intel'southward box cooler shouldn't be put on a 65w CPU, allow alone ane that can chew down 140 watts. Granted, the Wraith Stealth wasn't much better.

Our favorite budget CPU, the Ryzen 5 3600 comes bundled with the Stealth just it's such a proficient value CPU at $200 that throwing some other $20 or then at it isn't a big deal. The $220-$300 CPUs accept ever been upgraded to the Wraith Spire and that allowed the Ryzen v 3600 to operate nearly 20 degrees cooler. Then if you spend $330 or more, you get the Wraith Prism and that ran 24 degrees cooler.

It'south less forgivable that Intel ships their current generation Core i7-9700 with that aluminum cooler. The thing weighs just 168 grams and we know information technology causes the 8700 to throttle quite heavily, so it will practice the same for the 9700. no doubt. Meanwhile, for the same price the Ryzen vii 3700X comes with the 552 gram Wraith Prism, that's over 3 times the metal.

A little over a year ago we wrote a "Needs to Fix" editorial series defended to things nosotros believed Intel, AMD and Nvidia should accost. There were plenty of Intel issues to gear up and one of the first things we mentioned then was the box cooler, but nothing has changed. Information technology'll be interesting to see if they make any improvements in this surface area for the upcoming 10th generation Core series.

Although AMD's Wraith coolers don't go a ton of beloved from anybody -- and evidently you tin can do improve past spending as piddling as $xx - $xxx on an aftermarket tower style libation -- the convenience of a decent box cooler means upgrading is not a must and ultimately many people don't. We've institute the 3700X perfectly usable with the Wraith Prism that comes in the box. It's not particularly loud and it runs at 78 degrees stock in a well-ventilated instance.

We don't expect these results to exist a consummate surprise for many of you lot, and if anything the Intel box cooler might have washed better than expected, though annotation this was helped by the Ryzen 5 3600 dropping down in frequency a little.

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  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X on Amazon, Google Express
  • Intel Core i5-9600K on Amazon, Google Limited
  • Intel Core i9-9900K on Amazon, Google Express
  • AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT on Amazon, Google Limited
  • AMD Radeon RX 5700 on Amazon, Google Express
  • GeForce RTX 2070 Super on Amazon, Google Express
  • GeForce RTX 2060 Super on Amazon, Google Express