The Intel 285K CPU in my high-end 2025 Linux PC died again! 😡 Notably, this was the replacement CPU for the original 285K that died in March, and after reading through the reviews of Intel CPUs on my electronics store of choice, many of which (!) mention CPU replacements, I am getting the impression that Intel’s current CPUs just are not stable 😞. Therefore, I am giving up on Intel for the coming years and have bought an AMD Ryzen 9950X3D CPU instead.
You got a better suggestion for an air cooler than this one that I have?
https://noctua.at/en/nh-d15-g2-lbc
Much appreciated.
The Noctua NH 15 is a great air cooler one of the best air coolers actually. What are you pairing it to? What CPU?
Almost all things noctua are good. However. They are expensive and if you’re not plotting on future cpu high TDP chips it’s overkill. I don’t honestly see the need to drop that much money on a CPU cooler. There’s near equal more cost effective options. Unless your doing major overclocks, cpu heavy loads at near max clock speed constantly where you think major wear and tear will happen I don’t for see the need to spend that much. I’ve built many many PCs.
You can find comparable air coolers much cheaper. Think 50 to 80 range and technically you can score them on eBay for cheaper than that. Look at the Phantom spirit 120 cheapest 30 to 40 usd, AK620 1 to 3c cooler than phantom 50 to 65usd, frost commander 140 80usd, noctua DH 15 150 to 180usd.
Of course prices fluctuate. Those get you the best ranked air coolers for the most part. Their all within roughly 5C of each other. All good coolers. Take the extra money savings and add to a GPU or whatever part you really need. I just seen you already have the noctua dh15 so in that case you were testing me to see what I knew. LOL. Enjoy you got a great cooler.
I wrote the CPU and GPU in the very first comment…
I already bought these components and built the computer already. 😄 It’s a pretty much maximum spec’d AMD system, and I’m privileged to buy the parts tax free through work, so I just went ham.
The only thing is that my 3900X in my previous build was running about 39–42°C idle, so I was worried I’d made some kind of error with the cooling paste or messed up the mounting of the cooler or something.
Definitely not; was genuinely a bit concerned, that’s all.