The first thing that comes to mind when our processors get a little too hot for our liking is to consider a new AIO. In fact, whenever I saw CPU temperatures exceeding 85°C while gaming, I started scouring Amazon or Newegg for better options. Even if a more powerful cooler can lower temperatures, the return on investment is far from convincing. Take this from someone who has splurged on several high-end AIOs like the Aorus 360 and Liquid Freezer II 360 in the past.
If this wasn’t the one time I barely noticed a CPU thermal improvement after upgrading my cooler, I’d probably still be following the same path. The Aorus 360 upgrade made me take a step back and examine what was actually causing the heat in the first place, which rarely has anything to do with the cooler itself. In the vast majority of cases, it depends on the behavior of your CPU under load, its power limits, your airflow configuration, and sometimes even the quality of your thermal paste.
Cheap or Quality Thermal Paste: Should You Go with a Generic Company or Stick to Popular Brands?
While average temperatures aren’t too bad with cheap thermal paste, maximum temperatures tell a different story.
I started by improving the airflow
After all, my cooler is only as good as the air around it
Airflow was the first thing I looked at once I stopped blaming the cooler. This seems obvious, but I wasn’t really paying attention to how the air was flowing through my case. I was so used to packing my case with as many fans as possible, hoping the forced airflow would improve temperatures. I eventually learned that good airflow is more about direction than just the number of fans. Without a clear intake and exhaust path, adding additional fans only creates turbulence rather than exhausting heat out of the case.
This time, instead of adding additional fans, I focused on creating proper airflow from front to back. On top of that, I configured my fans to maintain a slight positive pressure inside the case. This meant that more fresh air was being sucked in than expelled, which also contributed to dust buildup, since my case wasn’t drawing air in through random gaps. When you have three 140mm fans on the front of the case, it’s more about managing where that air goes. All I did was make sure that cool air was flowing over my GPU and CPU, without being trapped.
Repatching and reinstalling my AIO was very helpful
Better batter helped, but now I know good contact matters more
I’m sure many of us have replaced thermal paste at some point due to high CPU or GPU temperatures. If you used the original thermal paste that came with your cooler, a high-end aftermarket option like Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme or Noctua NT-H2 can typically reduce your CPU temperature by 3 to 4 degrees. While this alone may make it seem like the dough leveler did all the heavy lifting, I learned the hard way that proper cooler contact and mounting pressure are just as important.
When I removed my Aorus 360 AIO to replace the thermal paste, I noticed that the paste was not evenly distributed on the cold plate. That’s when I started to doubt whether my cooler was actually in contact with the CPU. So this time, after gluing, I made sure to tighten the mounting screws gradually in a cross pattern rather than tightening one side all the way. This not only reduced my CPU temperature by about 5°C, but also fixed the random temperature spikes I was seeing while gaming.
Undervolting gave me instant results
Lowering the voltage slightly reduces temperatures without affecting performance
This is by far my favorite setting because I don’t have to get into my case or spend money. After dealing with airflow and mounting, this was the first change that gave me immediate results without touching any hardware. All I had to do was use the PBO2 Tuner to apply a slight negative curve shift, reducing my 5800X3D’s temperatures by about 3-4 degrees. I started in -10mV increments and worked my way down instead of pushing it too far right away to avoid stability issues and crashes.
If you have a newer processor like the 9800X3D or 9950X3D, you may need to rely on the BIOS-specific Curve Optimizer settings instead of the PBO2 tuner. Either way, the end result should be similar. And if you’re worried about sacrificing performance, let me just tell you that undervolting actually helped my 5800X3D maintain its peak clocks longer. This made a noticeable difference during longer gaming sessions, as the processor didn’t hit thermal limits as often and performance was more consistent overall.
You don’t need a new cooler if you already have a good quality one.
A new cooler may seem like the most obvious upgrade, but it’s really the last thing you should be looking at once you already have something decent. What matters most is how much heat your CPU generates and how effectively your cooler and case handle it. That’s why I focused on the basics like airflow, cooler contact, thermal paste, and ultimately a slight undervoltage, and it gave me a bigger temperature drop than any AIO upgrade I’ve rushed into before. Once everything is taken care of and you’re still not satisfied, that’s when a new cooler makes sense.
9/10
- Brand
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Arctic
- Cooling method
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Liquid
- Integrated lighting
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Yes
- Fan speed
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~2,500 rpm
The successor to the Arctic Liquid Freezer II is an excellent AIO liquid cooling kit with larger radiators, improved performance, and a similar affordable price. The excellent 6-year warranty is double that of many other liquid coolers on the market. The Liquid Freezer III is everything you need for a high-performance gaming rig with the latest AMD or Intel processors.