The Best PC Cooling Advice, Based on Years of Testing!

One of the most cost effective and easiest modifications you can make to improve your PC’s performance is to upgrade its cooling. This guide lists our favorite coolers at every pricepoint, including two low-profile coolers, three towers, and three liquid models. But we didn’t stop there! We also list our favorite thermal paste and the eight best fans on the market, with specific recommendations for cases and coolers.

And take note: performance of coolers has dramatically improved over the past few years, to the point where even a budget tower cooler will outperform the top-end coolers from a generation ago, making an upgrade a great idea if you’ve been holding onto a cooler for maybe a bit too long!

Our Tips on Choosing a CPU Cooler

Feel free to jump to the recommended coolers in this guide, but if you need a bit more background on where specific types of coolers are warranted, here are a few suggestions we’ve put together based on all of our testing:

1. Air Cooler Styles: Tower-style coolers will always outperform equivalent downdraft coolers of the same price. We only recommend downdraft coolers where neither towers nor liquid coolers will fit.
2. Air Cooler Sizes: Among tower coolers, 140mm-class towers will generally outperform 120mm-class models. With that said, the latest 120mm coolers are better than ever, and have far fewer requirements when it comes to motherboard and case clearance. The industry standard for cooler clearance is right around 160mm, which limits you to 120mm-class coolers, and many 140mm-class coolers also block RAM or expansion slots (although the recommendation in our guide does not!). Plus, when it comes right down to it, a 140mm cooler will almost always be outclassed by liquid coolers at the same pricepoint, so we’ve stopped recommending them.
3. Air vs. Liquid: Liquid coolers have two distinct applications where they excel. First, we recommend using 240mm models to provide excellent cooling where a good tower cooler won’t fit (meaning in mini-ITX or slim mATX and ATX systems). Second, higher-powered models with large 360mm radiators will exceed the performance of any air cooler. They bend the rules by exhausting hot air outside of the case, thereby hitting performance levels that aren’t possible with air coolers.

Our Tips on Choosing Case and Cooler Fans

Surprisingly, choosing a fan can be even trickier than choosing a cooler, in part because there is so much misinformation out there, starting with the specs provided by manufacturers. So here are our tips on how to sort through the chatter:

1. The Bearings: The quality of the fan bearings has a lot to do with the overall user experience; standard sleeve or rifle bearings always sound rougher than fluid dynamic (or “hydraulic”) bearings.
2. The Size: As with coolers, bigger typically is better. 140mm fans are almost guaranteed to provide more cooling at the same noise levels than 120mm fans, but there are exceptions. We’ve performed the most in-depth case cooling optimization analysis on the ‘net to show you why! More importantly, they fit in far fewer applications, so 120mm fans remain our primary recommendation.
3. The Style: A fan is about far more than the airflow and static pressure metrics in marketing materials. People who rely on these specs to choose fans are fooling themselves, as is anyone who believes all a fan needs to do is move air. Fans can move air in very distinct ways: some are highly directional, moving air over long distances when unobstructed, others are short-distance specialists, with the power to push through tightly-packed fins or mesh. Our extensive real-world testing allows us to provide recommendations tailored to your specific needs!

Final Thoughts

Unlike a lot of other categories of PC components, CPU coolers and fans can be used in multiple systems over time, making them a very good place to invest in the best you can afford! If you decide to purchase one of the options listed below, please use the Amazon product links we provide, which helps support further development of this guide!