Well, they're on sale on Steam at the moment. Titanfall 2 has a really good campaign, if that matters to you. Battlefront 2 has a visually impressive campaign which is otherwise pretty unremarkable. It's short though, so it's not much of an investment. Both have really active communities because of the sale, so if you ever want to play them now is the time.

 

If you don't mind AiO, the Arctic Liquid Freezer 2 is also worth a look. Tech Jesus has some videos about it, and it's pretty good in terms of price/performance, especially if you go for like the 280mm version (keeping in mind you'd have to mount the radiator at the front). Otherwise, go for an NH-U14s is what I'd say, although Noctua hasn't released a chromax version of that yet, so you'd have to live with the brown or seperately order a black NF-A14. Of course you could go completely overkill with an NH-D15, which is available in black.

 

Lord, the NH-D15 is such a huge chunk of metal, I love it lol. I don't know what I'll go with if the time comes, but I've already watched the GN piece on the Arctic Liquid Freezer 2 a few days ago and that looks interesting as well. I guess I'll decide when the time comes.

 

@Eilyfe :

You should run some benchmarks on your build while you are using it (open hardware monitor, hwinfo, or preferred program). That way you can get a sense of whether you should upgrade to an entirely new cooler. If you think the cooler is keeping the cpu in the temperature range that you want, then you should keep it as is and save the money. Another way you can save extra dollars is to just clip another fan on the other side of the heatsink. It won't exactly double the performance of the heatsink, but it is a cheap and inexpensive way to upgrade. A liquid cooler on the other hand would be a great way to cool the cpu and promote better airflow around the vrms from the intake fans.

On another note, Steve from Gamers Nexus endorses air coolers over liquid coolers because if the pump ever fails you need an entirely new cooler whereas if you lose a fan you just replace it with a cheap fan and be done with it (less moving parts on a heatsink). Seeing as how you stated you were running on a budget, the air cooler option should be more beneficial to you in the long term, but if you like the look of the liquid cooler you should go for it (just make sure to measure the inside of the case to see if the radiator fits).

 

I am. Right now I primarily use afterburner and hwmonitor to check temps, clock speeds, fan speed, etc. Apart from some 3D Mark benchmarks, the best representation of the system under some load would be playing BF V with friends for a few hours on ultra with raytracing and everything. There, the GPU stays at a solid 60-65 degrees, which is quite different from my old r290x which got up to 85 degrees at times. The CPU is where I'm not too happy. At constant 4,1 Ghz I'm around 72 degrees, sometimes with spikes up to 80/85. I'm not sure what good standard temps are for the 3600 under load, but I'd like for it to be a bit cooler regardless. For now this works well enough, but I'm not averse to an upgrade later down the line.

 

Standard idle seems to be around 40C with about a 5 degree of variance in either direction. As long as you aren't pushing 90+ degrees for extended periods of time, the cpu should work just fine. Also your cpu should thermal throttle automatically if you manage to push past 95C. If at any point the OS detects that thermal throttling isn't working, it will shutdown.

If you haven't already, I would recommend using an aftermarket thermal cooling paste/solution in lieu of the original paste that may have come with the heatsink.

 

Yeah I never push more than 85, so I'm not worried about the cpu being damaged. It works, it doesn't burn the house down exactly, but I can't say I'm content with these temps. I used Arctic MX-2 cooling paste, so I doubt that's it. I also peeled off the layer of foil on the cooler (lol) and I didn't overdo it with the paste, i.e. just used a pea-sized dot. With a different setup I'd probably open the case, take out the mb, reapply paste and remount the cooler. But that Hyper 212 was such a pain in the ass to even screw down that I won't do that. So if there was any part of the plate not covered by thermal paste, I'll notice if I install a new cooler eventually, which hopefully will be easier.