Piece of paper quiets Intel Alder Lake stock coolers | Hacker News Reader

Piece of paper quiets Intel Alder Lake stock coolers

pubby.games

98 pointspubby51 comments

Probably blocks air that would've otherwise passed over the motherboard VRMs. With good case cooling, it probably doesn't matter, but the design is made to accommodate the lowest common denominator.

Yep this mod is inadequate for this reason

VRM = Voltage Regulator Module in case others also aren't familiar with the acronym (I had to Google it)

Yeah probably, but that doesn't explain why Intel's higher-end coolers do have a cowl. Surely the higher-end chips need VRM cooling way more than budget-mode i5s, especially when run at stock power limits.

FWIW, when I tested (I'm the author), I didn't see any VRM throttling, even on my dinky budget motherboard. But then again, my power limits are set to Intel's recommended values and I'm not overclocking or anything.

Intel doesn’t even sell their higher end chips with their stock cooler iirc, and people put heatsink coolers where the active cooling is parallel to the chip as opposed to directly on top of (if not liquid coolers) on the higher end/overclockable chips. Also it seems that generally the z class boards have higher quality vrms and significant passive cooling on top of their vrms, i could definitely be wrong though.

Common belief in the computer cooling world is higher end VRMs need _less_ cooling because they're more efficient (which generates less heat) and have higher temperature tolerances.

Higher end VRMs should be used in overclocking, otherwise what's the point?

The fact that a stock 12700k pulls 250W suggests that it can use higher end vrms even at stock.

Did your paper cowl make a difference to the fan speed?

Listening to the two recordings, the one with the cowl has a very slightly higher fan speed (by less than 6%). I don't know if it cools the CPU better or worse at a given speed though.

The BIOS screen says the CPU fan runs at the same speed regardless of the cowl, but I'm not sure if this is accurately measuring RPM, or just estimating it from some other variable (e.g. the outgoing pulse-width modulation signal).

If it’s a 3/4 pin fan and the motherboard is configured to treat it as such, then you’re looking at the real RPM. It’s easy to test by placing your finger on the center of the fan and watching the RPM go down.

I never understood why stock coolers have to be so bad. It's not like intel or amd don't have the engineering ability to do the same kind of work noctua does, so why don't they?

A company focusing on one thing will always beat a company "focusing" on a hundred things. Noctua basically focuses on various cooling components, and only that sector, meaning they have deep expertise in that. Intel I can't even begin to list how many different things they are doing, while their main focus is processors. They have deep expertise in processors, but you can't expect them to be able to beat a single-purpose company like Noctua at their own game.

Granted, single-focus vs multi-focus is not the only factor, as sometimes multi-focus companies prove to us, but it is a great factor.

They are made to be good enough without costing a lot (some Noctua coolers are more expensive than a whole CPU) and usually address only the lower-level enduser market, where a difference of $5 can be an important percentage of the price. But they did evolve. At least for low-power CPUs the Intel stock coolers are not noisy and work well. The AMD Wraith coolers are on par with some of the good 3rd party coolers.

This is the correct answer. Often, Intel and AMD actually partners the design to someone else (probably Delta (Electronics, not the airline!), Foxconn, or Nidec) then the partner knocks down the design for three things a) cheap, b) reliable and c) meets the minimum power dissipation requirements. Acoustic performance is an afterthought if it's even considered (most of the time it isn't).

They don't have to. I have been running ryzen 5 1600 on a stock cooler and have no complaints. The cooler is bulky and completely quiet on idle/desktop work. It can be heard when playing games, but it's noise is drowned by the GPU fan anyway.

As skocznymroczny has noted, the AMD stock cooler is perfectly Ok - I have it in my desktop PC too and you can barely hear it unless you're playing games. But these coolers are the baseline - if Noctua and others want to stay in business, their coolers have to be better (quieter, better performance, cooler-looking) than the stock coolers. Which sometimes comes with limitations - e.g. coolers that are too big for certain cases, while the stock coolers have to work for the widest possible range of cases, boards etc.

AMD stock cooler is perfectly Ok

Mine wasn't (3400 series Ryzen CPU). Well its performance was perfectly fine, the fan noise was far louder than what I found acceptable. However instead of replacing the whole cooler I just replaced the fan and have had zero problems with either noise or cooling since.

Same experience, recently got my first AMD CPU (5700G) and found the fan pretty bad noise-wise. Replacing it with fairly cheap retail made it completely silent, to the point I actually have problems noticing whether the PC is on (before POST).

This actually surprised me, because I never had such problems with stock Intel coolers. The CPU itself is amazing, though.

Is it? My 3600x cooler sounds like a bad power steering pump. It whines as if it was belt driven for some reason.

The really funny thing about those new Intel coolers is that the impressive looking fins are made of plastic.

Intel coolers are so ridiculously bad compared to stock AMD ones. Just another small example of how far Intel has fallen behind AMD.

Stock AMD coolers are also terrible. The one I got with my 3700X was terribly loud. Replaced it by a Noctua and it is barely audible at all (in comparison).

It is still night and day better. The Intel stock cooler is a crappy extruded aluminum part. The Wraith Prism that comes with the 3700X is actually a proper heatsink with heatpipes and high density fin stacks that allow for reasonably efficient cooling (if loud). The performance will be similar to a cheap tower heatsink (e.g. Coolermaster Hyper 212) though a 120mm fan like those used on those heatsinks will be much quieter.

Who actually uses stock coolers?

Presumably most people don't build their own desktop computers (think offices and alike) and those usually use the stock coolers that come with the CPU. At least in my experience.

Most people.

I do. I don't overclock my rigs, and the stock fan suits me just fine. I rarely have temperatures above 70C.

People who don’t buy $300+ CPUs ( which is most people ).

Not because they are normies who don’t know better but because they are smart enough to not double their CPU cost with a fancy fan when the stock one works fine. ( at least with AMD )

In which case does it matter that the intel coolers aren't as nice?

I guess the risks here are that the paper cooks off or crisps up over time, the tape plastic or glue melts into the cooler, or the loop becomes dislodged and jams into a fan somewhere, causing an overheat. 3d printed rings might be a good, cheap option if the gap is not too small. Bit silly that the fan didn't ship with something like this stock.

Nomex paper and Kapton tape (as long as it's rated for the right temps) might be better, but normal paper is not really that flammable at CPU temps as long as there are no sparks, arcs, or flames.

If there are sparks, arcs, or flames happening around your CPU, something is seriously wrong.

And the paper cowl catching fire is probably the least of your problems.

I once had a claw hammer socket decoupe from the motherboard. Good times.

I’m sorry, your motherboard had a socket for a claw hammer?

Also known as Socket 939, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64#Clawhammer_(130_nm_S...

"It does now!"

And that resulted in fire/sparks?

Many. And hot melted plastic.

It probably passed an overall dB check but it has some very annoying frequencies in it.

Modern CPUs won't overheat unless thermal limits are specifically disabled in BIOS.

Most decent motherboards even offer the ability to set a custom, lower limit, and/or to set an action temperature where the system sleeps or shuts down.

I have my thermal throttle set at 90c, because I know my cooler won't exceed about 80c even under the heaviest load. 90c means something's wrong.

Maybe it needs some flextape

>Bit silly that the fan didn't ship with something like this stock.

Cost cutting for something that isn't really that integral part of the Intel CPU experience, as OEMs often have their own cooling solutions (Dell has load-bearing coolers!), and hardware enthusiasts just buy better cooling if they demand lower noise.

> cooks off or crisps up

Off-topic but as a non-native speaker, English language phrasal verbs are one of the most bewildering things in the language.

Honestly I don't even know how you'd go about learning that stuff. English is such a mishmash of words, phrases and rules that I consider myself lucky I grew up with it and don't have to try and make sense of this nonsense.

Other languages have "borrow words".

English mugs other languages for loose grammar.

UL94-V0 polycarbonate sheet or fish paper. Heatsink could easily get over the glass temp of common 3D printing materials like PLA or PETG.

ABS would be fine, maybe printed in vase mode to be extra thin

Not flame proof though. You don’t want to put flammable things in something like a computer case that will be running unattended. I get that people do this stuff all the time with no issue. Just know the risks before taking them.

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