Top-down coolers seem to be pretty effective

I’m following a vlog of a Youtuber since years – he calls his channel “Machines & More”, and I know no one else who tested that many different coolers in just one little case, the Cooler Master NR200(P).

Seems that even after two years, and with nice and affordable tower coolers like the Scythe Mugen 5 Rev. C or the Scythe Fuma 2 available, another category of CPU cooler still seemingly has an advantage – a so-called top-down cooler.

Why is that so? Simple: if the cooler doesn’t simply blow across but rather on to the board, it doesn’t only cool the CPU but also the chipset, now the M.2 SSD hard drives you might have installed directly on your boards, all that stuff. His first video from two years ago had one clear winner, and that was a Noctua C14S top-down cooler, and now he’s revisited it. Have a look in case you’re searching for a good cooler for your system.

In my own computer (which is an older but also self-built 4th generation Intel Core i5 system) I’m also using a top blower called the Scythe Big Shuriken (version 2 I believe, can’t remember) And while I’m writing this, my fans are at about 680 and 740 RPM, and the system temperature is at 30°C (while writing, your CPU is most of the time waiting for you rather than vice versa, that explains it).

The machine I’ve built for Mitchie this spring has a Scythe Mugen 5 Rev. B – but then this is a full-sized ATX system blowing out to the back of the case, so one can’t directly compare these.

With a bit of luck and careful planning, computers can last a long time… 🙂 Anyways, like always, thanks for reading.