Best CPU Coolers

Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 sits at #1 in the S tier of our consolidated board, ranked across independent research runs over current expert reviews. The best AIO to actually own: top thermals, 6-year warranty, and Arctic's support reputation. Ranked below the air coolers only because every AIO carries pump and permeation wear.

Noctua NH-D15 G2 ranks #2 (A tier). Best air cooler ever tested, no pump to fail, 6-year warranty, free socket upgrades for future platforms. The most ownership-proof product in the category.

Our research places MSI MAG CoreLiquid A13 360, be quiet! Pure Rock Pro 3, DeepCool Assassin IV, Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition, NZXT Kraken Elite 360 in the bottom tiers (D/F). The weakest case for ownership: adequate-at-best performance, unremarkable pump and fans, and the thinnest cooler-specific support story here; buy an ID-COOLING FX360 PRO or a Thermalright air tower instead.

Not for most people. On our board the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 ranks first on thermals and warranty, but the research notes every all-in-one liquid cooler carries pump wear and gradual coolant permeation that cap its lifespan. The Noctua NH-D15 G2 and Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE in A tier are air coolers with no pump to fail and nothing mechanical to wear out but a fan. Buy liquid if you want the best raw cooling or a cleaner look around the socket. Buy air if you want the longest service life with the least to go wrong.

A tower air cooler can outlast the PC it is in, because its only moving part is a fan and fans are cheap to replace. The research calls the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 a set-and-forget decade-long component, and the Noctua NH-D15 (original, chromax.black) has a decade of field-proven reliability behind it. All-in-one liquid coolers are shorter lived. Pump bearings wear and coolant slowly permeates out of the tubing, so plan on replacing an AIO rather than keeping it for life. Warranty length is the best guide to what the maker expects. Arctic and Noctua give 6 years, Lian Li gives 5, and be quiet! gives 3.

Almost all retail CPU coolers include thermal paste, either pre-applied to the cold plate or as a small tube or syringe in the box. Check the contents list before you buy a separate tube. If the paste is pre-applied, do not add more on top, and do not touch the pad before mounting. If you remove and refit the cooler later, clean both surfaces and apply fresh paste.

No cooler fits everything, but the mainstream ones come with brackets for the current Intel and AMD sockets. Check the socket list on the box against your motherboard, and check the cooler height against your case. Mounting support for future sockets is a real differentiator. On our board both the Noctua NH-D15 G2 and the Noctua NH-D15 (original, chromax.black) are backed by Noctua's proven policy of free mounting kits for new sockets, which is one reason they rank so well for long-term ownership.

Compare the cooler's stated RAM clearance, usually given in millimetres, against the height of your memory modules including any heat spreader. On a dual-tower cooler the front fan often sits over the memory slots, and many makers let you slide that fan up to clear taller sticks at the cost of a few millimetres of total height. If your memory has tall decorative heat spreaders, a wide dual-tower cooler can block a slot entirely. An all-in-one liquid cooler avoids the problem because only a low pump block sits over the socket.

A sealed all-in-one needs no refilling, but it is not maintenance free. Dust the radiator fins every few months so airflow stays clear, and keep the radiator mounted with its top edge higher than the pump so any air pocket collects in the radiator rather than the pump. Listen for a gurgle or a rattle from the pump, which is the usual sign coolant has permeated out over the years. The research on our board singles out software as a hidden upkeep cost. The Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD and the NZXT Kraken Elite 360 both depend on utilities with long records of bloat and bugs, while the Corsair Nautilus 360 RS and the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 largely avoid that dependency.

Noctua and Arctic have the strongest support reputations on our board. Both give a 6-year warranty, the Noctua NH-D15 G2 has the best long-term support reputation in the industry per the research, and the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 is rare among liquid coolers in having a warranty record that matches its review scores. Thermalright coolers rank well for value rather than support, and the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE is cheap enough that even an out-of-warranty failure costs almost nothing to fix. The opposite case is the DeepCool Assassin IV, excellent hardware whose US warranty and spare parts became effectively void after 2024 sanctions.

Avoid paying a premium for features that add failure points without adding cooling. The research docks the Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD for its proprietary connector chain and LCD pump-top, and the NZXT Kraken Elite 360 for a large price premium over rivals that cool just as well. Avoid a brand you cannot get serviced in your country, which is why the DeepCool Assassin IV finishes in D tier. Avoid coasting names too. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition still works, but the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE beats it on cooling and noise for roughly the same money.

Only if you get it cheaply. The research treats a pump-top screen as added cost and added failure surface, which counts against the Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 RX LCD, the NZXT Kraken Elite 360 and, to a lesser degree, the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360. The exception on our board is the Thermalright Grand Vision 360, which pairs strong thermals with an LCD display at a price where the premium brands charge double for the same feature set. If the screen matters to you, that is the one to look at.

One. A CPU has a single socket and a single cooler mounts on it. The question usually comes from confusion with case fans, which move air through the case and are separate from the cooler. A tower cooler brings its own one or two fans, and a 360mm all-in-one brings three fans for its radiator. You still want at least one intake and one exhaust case fan so the cooler has fresh air to work with.

Anyone who wants to fit a cooler once and forget it for ten years. On our board the Noctua NH-D15 G2 is called the most ownership-proof product in the category, and the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 is described as having essentially no wear-out mechanism beyond its fans. Owners of mid-range CPUs also gain little from liquid. The research says the Arctic Freezer 36 removes every argument for a more complicated cooler on mid-range chips. Liquid makes sense for flagship CPUs, for cases with poor clearance over the socket, or for builders who want the radiator look.