7 Best CPU Coolers for Ryzen 9 5900x and 5950x

The new Ryzen Zen 3 CPUs offer groundbreaking gaming performance and a great headroom for overclocking. Ever since their launch, enthusiasts are all geared up to upgrade their builds.  

While Ryzen 9 5900X is all about gaming performance with 12 cores and 24 threads, Ryzen 5950X bruises in multi-core workloads, featuring 3.4 GHz base clock speed and 4.9 GHz turbo clock speed, making it an ideal choice for content curators. And on top of that, both these CPUs now support PCIe 4.0, which surely translates into lag-free gaming and smooth functionality due to the higher bandwidth of the new PCI Express mode.

Even though these CPUs bring a lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) of just 105W but since they are so powerful and are able to run at high frequencies, it’s excessively hard to keep them cool. And the punch line here is that this time AMD has excluded a stock cooler or thermal solution for both Ryzen 9 5900x and 5950x. 

If you’re among those enthusiasts who are either looking to upgrade or make a new build with Ryzen Zen 3 CPU, you’ll need an aftermarket cooler to ensure you can make the most out of the builds’ productivity and performance.

When it comes to aftermarket coolers, there are a lot of options in the market which makes it difficult to choose the best one for you. If you want to read more about the best CPU Coolers for a variety of builds, be fore to check out OvrClock’s CPU Coolers category.

We’ve done our homework to offer you our recommendations for the best CPU coolers for Ryzen 9 5900x and 5950x. The list includes some of the most powerful air coolers, mid-range budget CPU coolers as well as an AIO water cooler if you mean serious business.

If you’re looking to round out your builds, you should also read up on the best motherboard for Ryzen 9 5900x, and the best motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950x for more information about a well-rounded build.

Without further ado, let’s get going.

1. Best High-end Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – Noctua NH-D15
2. Best Budget Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B 
3. Best Low Profile Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – Noctua NH-L12S
4. Best Silent Air CPU Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4  
5. Best RGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler For Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X – Corsair H115i RGB Platinum
6. Best Silent AIO Liquid CPU Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – Fractal Design Celsius+ S36 Prisma 
7. Best 280mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X – ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280mm

Quick Summary:

Image	CPU Cooler	Rating	Price
High Performance	Noctua NH-D15 Two 140mm PWM Fans  Automatic Speed Control  TDP Rating of 220W 6 Years Warranty  Pre-applied Thermal Paste	9.8	Check Price
Best Budget	Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B 120mm PWM Fan  6 x 6mm Heat Pipes Asymmetric design Quiet Operation  Compatible with both Intel and AMD	9.3	Check Price
Best Low Profile SFF	Noctua NH-L12S 1x NF-A12x15 PWM premium fan High-grade thermal compound Low-Noise Adaptor 6 Years Warranty  Aluminium Cooling Fins	9.5	Check Price
Best Silent CPU Cooler	Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 4 Two virtually inaudible PWM fans Achieves 24.3dB(A) at Maximum Fan Speed 7 high-performance copper heat pipes  Enhance RAM compatibility with Fin Cutouts  3-Year Warranty	9.6	Check Price
Best RGB AIO CPU Cooler	Corsair H115i RGB Platinum Two RGB 140mm PWM Fans  280mm Dual Radiator  Customize RGB with iCUE Software Easy Installation  Extreme CPU Cooling	9.7	Check Price
Silent All-in-One Liquid CPU Cooler	Fractal Design Celsius S36 Temperature Controlled Mode Dual-mode Fan Control   3 Dynamic PWM Fans  Maximum Fan Speed of 2000 RPM 240mm radiator	9.6	Check Price
Best 280mm AIO Cooler	ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280mm 40mm dedicated fan for VRM chip cooling Premium Build Quality with sealed water loop 38mm thick radiator with high fin density  Smooth VRM Fans  Dual PWM Fans	9.7	Check Price

If you’re a performance enthusiast, we’re sure you’ve heard of Noctua before. But if you haven’t, Noctua air coolers are admired by enthusiasts all around the world for their best quiet cooling performance and top-notch build quality. Noctua NH-D15 is no exception. 

With a nickel-plated contact plate and 6 heatpipes and two 140mm high air-flow fans nestled into separate aluminum fin stacks, Noctua NH-D15 means business when it comes to cooling performance. 

The push-pull setup of these fans is further optimized with PWM for automatic speed control and low-noise adapters to ensure that the operation is quiet on the Potomac.

To offer the best overclocking performance, the incredibly powerful Noctua NH-D15 brings a TDP rating of 220W, way above the requirements of these Zen 3 Ryzen 9 5900 or 5900X CPUs. 

With a 6-year warranty, the package also comes included with a high-quality thermal paste. If you’re a big fan of water cooling, NH-D15 certainly is a prime option for you. The NH-D15 also comes in the Chromax Black if you’re not fond of the beige-brown tone.

If you’re confined by a tight budget, Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B is a perfect option for it brings terrific cooling performance, silent operation, and an aesthetic design. No matter if you’ll be gaming or using it for productivity workloads, Scythe Mugen 5 Rev B will serve the purpose well.  

Succeeding from the well-acclaimed  Mugen 5, the Mugen 5 Rev B brings minor changes to the mounting system to offer full compatibility for AM4 CPUs and the asymmetric design to offer more headroom for memory modules. 

The 120mm PWM fan on Mugen 5 Rev B offers a great airflow with speeds of up to 1200 RPM. For superior heat dissipation, Scythe has integrated six 6mm heatpipes along with a copper base plate.

However, if you’re looking to push the overclocking limits on Ryzen 9 5900 or 5950X, we’d recommend you to use a more powerful air cooler or for the sake of it, an AIO cooling system.

Noctua NHL-12S is the ultimate choice for low-profile SFF builds. It offers a quiet cooling performance topped off with great efficiency. It’s just 70mm tall and features a slim 15mm thick 120mm fan with outstanding effectiveness in heat dissipation. 

It offers the same performance as the Big Shuriken 3 but with a better cooling performance at a marginal price difference. But with the sort of price you’re paying up for your processor, this price difference is quite reasonable. If you want it to operate in the stealth mode, make sure to add the low noise adopter.  

The CPU cooler provides extended clearance underneath the fin stack for memory modules. With that said, we would not recommend overclocking your CPUs on this SFF cooler; however, if you do plan on it and don’t have space constraints in your mITX build, the cooler supports integrating 25mm thick fans. 

Noctua NH-L12S also tags in a premium-quality thermal compound and a 6-year manufacturers’ warranty, making it an easy winner for the best low-profile CPU cooler for Ryzen 9 5900x and 5950X.

Bringing an immense cooling performance of 250W, enough for even AMD Threadripper CPUs, Be Quiet Dard Rock Pro 4 offers nothing but pure cooling performance and silence! Even putting extreme loads on the CPU, you’ll hardly hear anything. 

With two virtually silent-wing inaudible PWM fans, the CPU cooler integrates seven high-performance copper heatpipes blended around air-flow optimized cooling fins. The cutouts on the fins ensure even better RAM compatibility and the two aluminum heatsinks offer excellent heat dissipation. 

From an aesthetic point of view, since most of the motherboards these days come with a black-themed PCB, the cooler will surely add a nice vibe with the dark treatment. 

One thing to note here is it’s a tower CPU cooler, and the size is pretty much the same as NH-D15, so the installation can be troublesome for some noobs builders.

Corsair H115i RGB Platinum is not just about the acoustics, the performance of this cooler in thermal dissipation is on the same par with many top-of-the-line AIO coolers, coming narrowly close to NZXT’s Kraken X62. 

H115i RGB Platinum comes filled with coolant in a closed loop and the AIO cooler renders immense cooling performance with its two 140mm RGB-illuminated fans in correspondence with a 280mm radiator.

The PWM regulator on these fans automatically adjusts the speed of both fans. And even more, you can adjust the speeds of the fans and pump RPM and even customize the RGBs using the Corsair iCUE software. 

The installation of the cooler seems a breeze with snap-fit mounting brackets that slide around the water block instead of using screws seen on traditional coolers. 

But if you’re a performance enthusiast looking to maximize overclocking potential, you’re better off spending a little more and get the Corsair iCUE H150i Elite Capellix. The cooler has immense cooling potential with three PWM fans and using the zero PWM fan profiles, the cooler automatically turns off the fans at lower temperatures.

This was a tough decision to make because when it comes to silent cooling performance there’s no match for Corsair Hydro Series H150i PRO RGB 360mm. But paying such an extortionate price for a CPU cooler when Fractal Design Celsius S36 Prisma does the same job with half a price tag certainly makes this cooler the best silent AIO cooler for Ryzen Zen 3 builds. 

The three dynamic x2 PWM fans feature automatic speed control and one of the best silent operations while the 360mm radiator covers an extended surface area for thermal dissipation during those rugged and extensive overclocking sessions. The radiator comes with a pre-applied thermal paste and fitting is pretty straightforward with traditional threads.  

Being a no-frills silent cooler, Fractal has excluded an RGB light show. However, the cooler is certainly a sweet spot if you are just after a silent top-notch cooling performance with no strings attached to the aesthetics.

Arctic Liquid Freezer II may seem way down there with the price tag and spartan appearance but you should have no doubts about the cooling capacity of this cooler. This AIO cooler is quiet, really quiet. 

Integrated with specially-designed diagonal fans offering maximum airflow, 38mm thick radiators with a high-fin density covering an increased amount of surface area, you should consider yourself lucky if you find’em in stock. 

Both the fans and the pump on this cooler are PWM-controlled with automatic voltage transformation. So no matter if you’re planning to go hours on CS Go or go nuts on rugged overclocking sessions, the cooler can effectively adjust the fan speeds based on the workload. 

However, if you plan on testing the limits on your Ryzen 9 5900X or 5950X, take a look at the 360mm version.

Here at OvrClock, we are committed to keeping our editorial and product recommendation processes completely independent from our monetization — so, you can always be sure we are recommending the best PC Parts for you without any partiality.

The OvrClock team has been reviewing all parts of a PC build for years now, and we use our expert opinion and experiences when making recommendations. We try to get our hands on and actually test all of the products we recommend, in addition to the dozens of alternatives that are not on the final list. This allows us to provide insights beyond what you can find from reading other online reviews, and get a true and more clear understanding of the best options. Our diverse team and vast experience also allow us to highlight each product’s ideal use cases, as well as the perfect customer profile for any given product.

For CPU coolers, we test things including but not limited to: build quality, fan speed, CPU temperature, noise level, and form factor, among many other factors. Our experience allows us to translate these insights into actionable conclusions and purchase recommendations for you, without you having to test all the products, or having to sift through piles and piles of data from our testing. All of the recommended CPU Coolers and dozens of others not in this roundup have been tested with Ryzen 9 5900x & 5950x processors, and the aforementioned CPU Coolers have been shortlisted based on their stellar performance with the Ryzen 9 5900x & 5950x processors.

For any questions about our product selection and recommendation process, feel free to contact us.