The Best PC Cooling Advice, Based on the Best Reviews!

One of the most cost effective and easiest modifications you can make to improve your PC’s performance is to upgrade its cooling. While you can easily find hundreds of opinions on the best products out there, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to actually test well over 50 coolers and fans in real-world setups (not open benches or airflow chambers) to find products that actually work in, you know, a PC!

Our Latest Cooler and Fan Recommendations!

This guide lists our favorite coolers at every pricepoint, including two low-profile coolers, three towers, and two liquid models. But we didn’t stop there! We also list our favorite thermal paste and the seven best fans on the market, with specific recommendations for cases and coolers.

And take note: we update this guide on a regular basis to ensure that you always get the latest and greatest gear, not the same outdated coolers and fans that everyone’s been using for the past decade! For example, with our latest update, all but one of our cooler picks includes an Intel Socket 1700 bracket in the box, which is important since Intel’s CPUs have dominated the performance charts since Socket 1700 debuted.

Our Tips on Choosing a CPU Cooler

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, we’ve seen a huge improvement in 120mm coolers over the past year, and we no longer recommend 140mm coolers for most users due to their case fitment issues. 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.
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 links we provide, which helps support further development of this guide and the extensive testing that backs up our picks!