PC Cooling and Modding (108 products)

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Why upgrade from stock cooler?

Accompanying many processors from both Intel and AMD are CPU coolers bundled in the box, often referenced as stock coolers. While they're an appreciated inclusion for getting your desktop PC up-and-running fast with convenient, tool-less mounts which click and clip into place, their effectiveness in keeping your CPU cool leaves a lot to be desired.

Stock coolers may be suitable enough for cooling a power-sipping chip such as a Core i3 or Ryzen 3 installed in a home office PC, but for gaming-grade rigs with Core i5, Ryzen 5 and above CPUs, you'll soon encounter their limitations. Here's why you should seriously consider upgrading from a stock cooler to an aftermarket CPU cooler.

Thermal Throttling

The greatest concern is thermal throttling - when a CPU severely reduces its performance as a safeguard against rising temperatures. Otherwise, your system would employ drastic measures like a full-on system shutdown to avoid permanent damage from too hot temperatures. Thermal throttling is an unfortunate occurrence with stock coolers as they're lacking the sheer size to withstand the heat exhausting from high-performance processors.

In the midst of an intense gaming session, with chaotic on-screen action demanding the utmost performance from your components, the last situation you want is dropped frames and inconsistent gameplay because you're being limited by your CPU cooler of all things. With a larger, beefier CPU cooler, your CPU's less likely to thermal throttle.

Boosting and overclocking

One of the quintessential features of the latest generation of CPUs are boost clocks and overclocking. These automatically fine-tune a CPUs clock speed in direct relation to many parameters, including temperature.

With a more sufficient cooling solution, you're providing your processor with extra headroom to boost to higher and higher levels of performance. Whereas on a stocker cooler, your processor might initialise a boost, but immediately hit scorching temperatures and trigger thermal throttling.

At a fundamental level, the CPUs are design to boost, so you're leaving a considerable amount of performance on the table. If you've got an overclockable CPU (indicated by 'K' suffix on Intel) an upgraded CPU cooler is a must-have, otherwise, what's the point?

Size and noise

Even ignoring the cost associated with including a weighty CPU cooler in every CPU purchase, stock coolers are designed to be accessible as possible. When purchasing a CPU with an included cooler, you'd hope it would fit your computer case - whether a modestly sized mid tower case or smaller form factor Micro ATX and Mini ITX case. Stock coolers must account for the broad diversity of PC building, restricting their size.

Due to their limited mass and surface area for dissipation, they're immediately overwhelmed with heat. Consequently, their small fans have to spool up and work overtime in a desperate struggle to shake off excess heat. Spinning at their maximum revolutions-per-minute (RPM), smalls fans generate an irritating, whiny tone.

On the other hand, substantial aftermarket CPU coolers deploy heavy-duty heat pipes and densely packed cooling fins which take longer to saturate. With room for larger case fans and less reliance on them, they can spin at slower RPMs for lower levels of noise.

Appearance

Unrelated to raw performance but arguably as important to some, your system's appearance alone may be enough of an excuse to upgrade your CPU cooler. A quick glance at a stock cooler, and appearance is evidently their lowest priority. With unpainted finishes, crudely coloured wires and a criminal absence of RGB lighting. Lined up against other components such as a powerful graphics card, specced-out motherboard or RGB RAM, it'll stick out like a sore thumb.

Our CPU coolers are available in a broad range of designs to suit any set-up. There are completely blacked-out air coolers to seamlessly blend with your rig, coolers adored with arrays of eye-catching RGB fans and even all-in-one water coolers with integrated displays to monitor temperature and fans RPM in real-time.

Occupying a large amount of space, CPU coolers are a formidable presence in any PC. Make it a main attraction, rather than a distracting eyesore.

All the best PC cooling and modding solutions

Whether you're building a brand-new system from scratch or optimising your current rig, we've got everything you need for cooling your computer and modding your case. Ebuyer stocks a broad range of parts to ensure your PC stays cool, even when you're busy pushing it to its limits. You'll find case fans, CPU coolers - both air and all-in-one water coolers - as well as case modding parts and thermal pastes to safely tinker with your PC.

Here at Ebuyer, we've got components from all the biggest brands in PC cooling, including NZXT, Be Quiet, Aerocool and StarTech, among many others. So, whatever PC cooling component you are looking for, you're bound to find it here and at a cool price too.

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