Best CPU Coolers 2024: AIO and Air Coolers

Whether you’re aiming for impressive CPU overclocks or just looking to build a PC that’s silent under load, you should choose your CPU cooler carefully. The best CPU cooler for your build will make a major difference in your system’s temperatures and fan noise. In high-end systems, it can even deliver better performance by keeping boost clocks higher for longer. We’ve tested dozens of PC air coolers and all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler models. Below you’ll find our picks for the best models to keep your CPU temperatures under control. But if you’re after a liquid cooler in particular, be sure to check out our Best AIO Coolers page for even more excellent cooler options.

AIO (Liquid) Cooler or Air Cooler?

If you’re not sure if you want to go the air cooling route (a big metal heatsink with fans) or opt for a liquid-cooled AIO (a pump attached to a radiator and fans), there are a few things to consider. Large air coolers tend to take up more internal space in your PC case, or at the very least they need more vertical clearance off your best motherboard, which can limit your case options. Air coolers can also be louder and less efficient than liquid coolers at moving heat away from your CPU and out of the chassis. These days, though, that’s not cut and dry. If you can go the extreme route, there are fanless air cooling options like Noctua’s Colossal NH-P1 as well for the ultimate truly silent cooling option, although you’ll still need case fans to move the warmed air out of your case.

Air coolers usually cost less than AIOs, with surprisingly solid options like the Amazon Basics CPU cooler costing less than $30. But AIO coolers are also getting increasingly affordable (and also more expensive), while high-end air coolers reach toward and sometimes above the $100 range. On the extreme air side of the cooling line, the Ice Giant Prosiphon Elite has an MSRP of $170, which competes with many large AIO coolers. There are, though, also decently performing air coolers that cost less than $30, and some great ones under $40.

Best Air Coolers

Best AIO Coolers

The Best Air Coolers You Can Buy Today

Best Air Cooler for Most People

Thermalright continues to push the bar in both performance and value with the Phantom Spirit 120. At only $45.90 (and often found for less), it delivers performance comparable to high-end air coolers that are twice as expensive, while maintaining low noise levels in all workloads.

So long as your case has room for it, the Phantom Spirit 120 is arguably the best option available. And for folks looking to save every dollar possible, Thermalright also offers this cooler in an SE version with a slightly less refined look, for about $5 less.

Read: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 Review 

Best Big Air CPU Cooler

Thermalright’s Peerless Assassin 120 SE lives up to its name, delivering the best performance from an air cooler that we’ve tested on Intel’s Alder Lake at a price that undercuts the competition. In our tests, it performed so well when cooling our Core i9-12900K that we re-tested it multiple times to be sure the results were correct. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE cooled the CPU when it was drawing over 200 watts better than our tested competition, and at lower thermal/TDP settings, it performed much better than the competition. 

The cooler’s two 120mm fans did their job of dissipating all that heat at low noise levels, making at just 34.5dB at max speed, and 33dB at 50% speed. It’s also available in in silver/gray, white or black, so it should fit in with most build themes if you care about matching aesthetics. Whether you care about value or not, you should consider this cooler for your next system build, so long as your case has room for it.

Read: Thermalright Peerless Assassin SE review 

Best Mid-size Air CPU Cooler

DeepCool’s AK500 performs great in our testing when paired with Alder Lake’s Core i9-12900K at loads over 200W – and it keeps the CPU cool while running nice and quiet. Priced as low as $55 when we wrote this, the AK500 delivers an impressive combination of silence, performance, and value that’s tough to beat.

Read: DeepCool AK500 review 

Best AMD Threadripper Air CPU Cooler

The Noctua NH-U14S TR4-SP3 provides whisper-quiet cooling with big league thermal performance – the kind of overclocked Threadripper performance that sneaks into quality 360 AIO cooling performance. Armed with six nickel-plated copper heatpipes and a NF-A15 140mm PWM fan, the AMD-friendly NH-U14S TR4-SP3 is a silent thermal assassin. For Threadripper air cooling, this cooler checks all the boxes for enthusiasts and overclockers alike.

Read: Noctua NH-U14S review

Best Threadripper Cooler Alternative: Arctic Freezer 50TR

Neither as cool nor as quiet as Noctua’s NH-U14S, the Artice Freezer 50 TR got our attention for its lower price. The value advantage could be important to current builders hoping to save money by using AMD’s previous generation 2000-series parts.

---

Best AIO Coolers You Can Buy Today

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler

Lian Li’s latest 360mm AIO raises the bar for closed-loop liquid cooling. Every component has been upgraded from the previous-gen model, resulting in absolute cooling domination in our testing. The cooler installation is simple and easy, and it’s reasonably priced for a performance-focused 360mm cooler.  This is the best 360mm liquid cooler on the market right now, without question.

While the GA II Perfmance’s cooling abilities are impressive, thermals are only one part of the picture. Noise levels are important as well. In its out-of-the-box configuration, Lian Li’s cooler runs loudly at 55.2 dBA. 

But Lian Li included a built-in low-noise/high-performance toggle switch, allowing you to reduce maximum fan speeds and noise levels with the flip of a switch. Most coolers that support low-noise modes have reduced thermal performance when engaged. But we didn’t observe any difference in thermals between the two modes when tested with our i7-13700K. When set to the low noise mode, total noise output is reduced to 49.2 dBA, which is on par with MSI’s and DeepCool’s competing 360mm AIOs. So there’s no reason for this cooler to be loud, and you can make it much quieter with the flip of a switch.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II Performance Review

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

Arctic’s Liquid Freezer II 360 ARGB is an excellent AIO option if you prize silence over absolute cooling ability. In our testis, it cooled our Core i9-13900K nearly as well as DeepCool LT720, while staying quieter under our testing scenarios. Arctic’s 360 mm cooler dissipated over 290W in our long-term testing with the 13900K, making it a great choice for those who run demanding workloads. 

Just make sure your case has extra room wherever you plan on mounting the Liquid Freezer II, because it achieves its quiet cooling skills by incorporating a thicker radiator than most of the competition. So it won’t fit as well in smaller cases, or those that just aren’t designed with lots of room up top.

Read: Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 ARGB review

Best Multipurpose AIO Liquid Cooler

There is still room for innovation in the CPU cooling market, as evidenced by Silverstone’s IceMyst AIO line. The 360mm model we tested performed generally quite well in our testing, but apart from that, this cooler lets you add multiple additional fans (which cost $16 each) on top of the CPU block that can easily be positioned to help cool VRMs, RAM, SSDs, or other nearby components. While not everyone needs this additional cooling, it’s a unique option not available from any other AIO or air cooler. And the IceMyst is also priced less than most high-end AIO coolers.

We tested both the 360 and 240mm IceMyst AIOs and they performed well overall, generally landing close tot he best-performing alternatives in terms of thermal dissipation. But if you set the IceMyst cooler’s fans to a quiet 38.2 dBA, as well as its competitors, Silverstone’s 360mm cooler performed better than any cooler we’ve tested, dissipating 237 watts. The 240mm model also did well, removing 228W of heat.

The only real downside is that you’ll have to do some fan speed tweaking to get the best results. By default, Silverstone sets the IceMyst’s fan speeds higher than they need to be, making them louder than necessary. But take a few minutes to set a custom fan curve in your BIOS or motherboard software, and these coolers offer the best noise-normalized performance we’ve tested so far. Plus, if you want to add some additional cooling to components around your CPU, you can do so for as little as $16 extra.   

Read: Silverstone IceMyst 360 and 240mm AIO Review 

Best 420mm AIO Liquid Cooler

Corsair’s iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT AIO delivers the the most impressive cooling performance we’ve tested yet with Intel’s i9-13900K, handling over 325W in our most intensive thermal tests. Unlike other coolers though, the noise level of the H170i Elite is tied to the CPU coolant temp, resulting in quieter operation during most common tasks, as well as the elimination of bursty fan behavior. The tradeoff is that we saw noisier operation under the kinds of sustained loads that we use for testing.

The Corsair iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT is one of the best coolers currently available in terms of performance and features. It’s also quite expensive at $310, but if you don’t mind going without its pretty 2.1-inch display, the company also sells an iCUE H170i Elite Capellix XT with the same radiator and pump for around $240.

That’s still no small amount of money for a cooler. But if your needs are extreme enough to warrant a 420 mm radiator, you can probably afford to spend a bit extra on keeping your powerful CPU as cool as it can be under load.

Read: Corsair iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT review 

Best 280mm AIO Cooler

With the right design, you don’t need a 360mm AIO or a loud cooler to keep modern high-end CPUs from throttling — and Lian Li’s Galahad II LCD 280 proves it. Its performance is amongst the best we’ve seen from any AIO, and its limited 280mm radiator size means that it will fit in many cases where a 360mm model won’t. The LCD screen atop the cooling plate is vibrant and adds eye-catching functionality, too.

At $229, the Galahad II LCD 280 is on the fairly expensive, but if the LCD display isn’t important to you, the non-LCD versions of the Galahad II are available for $159.99 for the 360mm version and $119.99 for the 240mm model. That’s a lot more affordable for what should be performance that’s just as impressive as this model.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II LCD 280 Review

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler

I never imagined that a 240mm AIO would have this level of thermal domination. Lian Li’s Galahad Trinity II Performance 240mm managed to sidle up to or outperform 360mm AIOs that were previously considered among the best available.

You can’t go wrong with Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity 240mm if you’re after a cooler that performs well. Our testing shows it’s the best-cooling AIO of its size on the market. It’s also quiet under most conditions, and is reasonably priced at only $119.99.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 Review 

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

After testing, I found Cooler Master’s new MasterLiquid 240 Atmos especially impressive. The company improved its flagship AIO in several key areas: Noise levels are low in most common workloads, and despite its smaller 240mm profile, this is one of only a handful of AIOs I’ve tested that can keep Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature, even in the most thermally demanding scenarios. 

Cooler Master also abacks the quality of this product with rated lifespans of over 160,000 hours for the fans and 210,000 hours for the pump, combined with a 5-year warranty.

Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 cools just slightly better and sells for a little less. But Cooler Master’s Atmos includes an ARGB controller box for syncing your lighting with other components. If you can make use of this controller, which would cost about $20 on its own, the two coolers are effectively evenly priced.

Read: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 Atmos Review

Best 120mm Closed-Loop Liquid Cooler

The NZXT Kraken M22 is an impressive small high-performance liquid cooler that delivers sleek styling and vibrant RGB lighting options. If you don’t have room for a larger 240 or 360mm AIO cooler, a good air cooler like Thermalright’s Peerless Assassin is often a better choice both for performance and price. But if you’re building a small home-theater PC or a compact gaming build, the Kraken M22 offers surprising cooling potential in a condensed package.

Just don’t try to strap one of these coolers to a modern Core i9 or other flagship CPUs. A 120mm AIO won’t give you the full performance from a processor like that. The thermal demands are just too… demanding.

Read: NZXT Kraken M22 Review

Quick Shopping Tips

When choosing the best CPU cooler for your needs, consider the following:

• Own a recent Ryzen CPU? You may not need to buy a cooler, but it depends on the model. Most Ryzen 2000 and 3000-series processors and some older Ryzen models ship with coolers, and many of them can handle moderate overclocks. But Ryzen 5000 CPUs don’t ship with coolers in the Ryzen 7/9 range. AMD’s first Ryzen 7000 don’t ship with coolers, although previous-gen AMD coolers will work. If you want the best CPU clock speed possible, you’ll usually want to buy an aftermarket cooler anyway. But for many Ryzen owners who don’t plan to push their silicon to the limit, the best CPU cooler might just be the free one in the box or one you already have from a previous build.
• If opting for a large air cooler, be sure to check clearances before buying. Big coolers and low-profile models can bump up against tall RAM and even VRM heatsinks sometimes. And tall coolers can cause clearance issues with your case door or window. Be sure to check the dimensions and advertised clearances of any cooler you’re considering and your case before buying.
• Remember that, all else being equal, more fans equals better cooling, but more noise. The coolers that do the best job of moving warm air away from your CPU and out of your case are also often the loudest. If fan noise is an issue for you, you’ll want a cooler that does a good job of balancing noise and cooling. If you can set your cooler’s fan speeds based on temperatures in your motherboard’s BIOS, that should also help.

Savings on the Best CPU Coolers

Whether you’re shopping for one of the products that made our best CPU coolers list or one that didn’t, you may find some savings by checking out our list of Newegg promo codes or Corsair coupon codes.

This post was originally published on this site