Many PC builders are in a continuous debate regarding what they should do with the Ryzen stock cooler. Unlike Intel stock coolers, AMD Wraith coolers do worth your attention and can be beneficial in some cases. It’s actually a fantastic option for users that would like to save some cash while enjoying a great performance. But as we have mentioned above, it’s good in some cases, and not very good in some others. That’s why we have decided to answer some of the most frequent questions among PC builders about the AMD stock cooler.
Table of Contents
1-Are AMD Ryzen stock coolers good?
AMD (the second-largest maker of personal computer microprocessors after Intel with earnings are forecast to grow at an exceptional rate of 24.34% per year) Ryzen stock coolers are by far an amazing option to save money. They work well, perform quietly, and on top of that, they do not throttle Ryzen CPU’s performance regardless of how many cores it has. However, this latter is good for users that would like to keep the Ryzen processor at its stock speed only.
2-When should you replace Ryzen stock cooler?
There are several cases that force the user to get a good quality aftermarket cooler. And here, we are going to mention most of these cases.
1-Hot environment:
If you live in a hot environment, you might need to replace the stock cooler even if you don’t intend to overlock your Ryzen CPU. We actually have tested the Ryzen 5 2600X with its stock cooler in a hot environment, and we got these results.
In Overwatch, during a competitive game that lasted for around 20 mins, the CPU has peaked up at 83 C.
However, with Detroit Become Human, things were even worse as we got frequent peaks of up to 87 in like 15 min of gaming only.
2-Overclocking:
If you are an overclocking enthusiast and you like getting every juice of performance out of your processor, then you will definitely need an aftermarket cooler. AMD stock cooler won’t be able to handle an overclocked Ryzen 7 3700X or 3900X.
Besides, you might be able to overclock a Ryzen 5 while using the stock cooler. However, we don’t recommend it since, in most cases, the CPU will constantly be running at high temperatures (80+)
3-Aesthetics:
Not all AMD Ryzen stock coolers are the same. For example, we find that the Wraith Prism with RGB LED has a better look than the Wraith Spire. However, you might not like both of them since the aesthetics are a personal taste. Therefore, if you would like to have a stylish gaming rig, then you might need a beautiful RGB CPU cooler in case this is what you like.
3-Is AMD Ryzen stock cooler loud?
Based on what we have seen, the Ryzen stock cooler did provide us with a quiet operation. However, this also remains subjective since, during the test, I was wearing a gaming headset.
Please bear in mind that you might not accept the noise level of the stock cooler if you are not used to that level of noise, you don’t wear a headset, or if you let your PC on while sleeping close to it.
4-Do Ryzen stock coolers come with thermal paste?
Yes, all Ryzen stock coolers come with pre-applied thermal paste. And it’s surprisingly good. Therefore, unless you got a high-quality one, you can use the pre-applied one without worrying about sacrificing the performance.
5-Ryzen stock cooler on intel
Unfortunately, you cannot use Ryzen stock coolers on Intel CPUs.
6-Ryzen Stock cooler with PBO enabled
In most cases, you would be fine when enabling PBO while using a Ryzen stock cooler. Also, we have noticed that PBO won’t provide a huge performance gain, the same as manual overclocking. Therefore, we don’t think that it can cause you any big issues.
However, for peace of mind, we recommend checking your processor’s temperatures with either HWinfo or MSI Afterburner. These two pieces of software allow you to have a real-time temperature so you can have an idea about how things are going on your PC.
7-Conclusion
We hope that these quick answers were helpful for you. If you are looking for a specific answer regarding AMD Ryzen stock coolers, feel free to leave us a comment below, and we will try to reach out to you as quickly as possible.
If, after reading these answers, you find out that the Ryzen stock cooler won’t be adequate for your utilization, we recommend visiting our recent guide about either CPU coolers under $50 or affordable AIO coolers.
