Best CPU cooler 2026: AIO and air coolers tested for Intel and AMD processors

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In this buying guide, we’ll help you find the best CPU cooler for your needs, based on our extensive reviews, in-house testing, and decades of technical expertise. There’s a huge range of CPU coolers available, from basic heatsink-and-fan assemblies that cost just over £20, to sprawling liquid-cooling systems with huge radiators and a bank of spinning fans. Along the way, you’ll also find RGB lighting arrays and even LCDs built into pump units.

Thankfully, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a decent, quiet cooler that can prevent an 8-core CPU from overheating. What’s more, thanks to the low heat output of some current CPUs, you can even cool a 12-core chip with a passive heatsink. There are definite advantages to getting as much cooling power as possible, though.

A well-built, dual-tower air cooler will last you through many years of PC building, and will still be able to cool a high-end CPU without making too much noise. They require a lot of clearance room in your case, though, and a large AIO cooler can offer even more cooling power, sometimes for less money, while putting a fancy RGB pump block on top of your chip. Whatever your needs, there’s a cooler for you in this guide. Here are the best models we’ve reviewed and tested recently.

Best air cooler shortlist

Best AIO cooler shortlist

In detail

Best air cooler overall

The best CPU air cooler overall is the Noctua NH-D15 G2. This mighty dual-fan contraption might cost a pretty penny, but its cooling performance is simply incredible. In fact, in our tests, this heatsink-and-fan assembly can beat a decent 360mm AIO liquid cooler, and happily keep a hot-running Intel Core i9-13900K at bay.

As you would expect from Noctua, build quality is superb, with all the attention to detail enthusiasts love, including relatively easy installation. This mammoth assembly is 145mm tall and features two stacks of heatsink fins, which make contact with your CPU’s heatspreader via eight heatpipes.

Meanwhile, airflow comes from a pair of 140mm NF-A14x25r G2 fans – one on the front, and one sandwiched between the heatsink towers. Handily, you can adjust the height of these fans, so you can avoid them clashing with your memory or other parts of your rig.

When we first reviewed the NH-D15 G2, we criticised it for the lack of a black version – it might have awesome cooling performance, but we also know that the brown and beige colour scheme is a bit too “Granny’s tights” for some people. Thankfully, there’s now a black version that’s just as good, and you can read all about it on our Noctua NH-D15 G2 chromax.black review.

Best of all is that top-notch cooling performance. Check out the graph above, and you’ll see what we mean. When normalised to a noise level of 39dBA, this air cooler achieves a cooler temperature than an Endorfy Navis F360 ARGB AIO cooler, but without the need to install a colossal radiator on your case.

There’s just one problem with this excellent example of air cooler design, and that’s its price. At £128, you could easily buy a 360mm premium AIO cooler with some fancy RGB lighting, and the US price of $180 is particularly hard to swallow. However, there’s very little that can fail on a well-built heatsink-and-fan assembly such as this one, giving it solid longevity, and you can always replace the fans. That’s different from an AIO cooler that will have a limited lifespan, plus Noctua regularly releases upgrade kits for new CPU sockets when they come out.

More details, including all our cooling benchmarks, can be found in our full Noctua NH-D15 G2 review.

	Specs
Socket support	Intel LGA1954, LGA1851, LGA1700, LGA1200, LGA115x; AMD AM4, AM5
Heatsink dimensions	168 x 150 x 152mm (w/fans)
Heatpipes	8 x 6mm
Weight	1,525g (w/fans)
Fan size and type	2× NF-A14x25r G2 PWM (140 x 150 x 25mm)
Fan speed range	0-1,500rpm
Fan airflow	91.5 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.51mm H2O
Fan noise level	Max 24.8dBA
Warranty	Six years

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Best quiet air cooler

The best quiet air cooler is the be quiet! Pure Rock Pro 3. Despite its surprisingly low price, you get a dual-tower heatsink design with this cooler, as well as a pair of quiet fans. It doesn’t quite have the cooling power to easily cope with a monster Intel Core i9 CPU, but it can handle a mid-range CPU fine.

As you would expect from a company called be quiet!, this cooler is engineered to produce minimal noise while keeping your CPU temps in check. The box includes a pair of 120mm be quiet! Pure Wings 3 PWM fans, which do a great job of keeping the noise down.

Look at the table below, and you can see the Pure Rock Pro makes significantly less noise than the Arctic Freezer 36 at the same fan speeds. The Freezer 36 is a top cooler for its very low price, but paying a bit extra for the Pure Rock Pro will make for a quieter PC when your CPU is loaded.

	be quiet! Pure Rock Pro 3	Arctic Freezer 36
600rpm	<30.2	38.5
1,200rpm	32.5	39.4
Max speed	40.6	41.1

The standard edition of the Pure Rock Pro 3 gives you a classic silver and black colour scheme, with some neat plates on the top that cover the heatsinks. However, if you like a bit more flair, there’s also a Pure Rock Pro 3 LX version with RGB fans, which looks great and doesn’t cost too much more at £46.99.

At this price, you’re not going to get the very best cooling performance possible, and we found the Pure Rock Pro 3 struggled to keep our Core i9-13900K in check at full pelt. However, tuning our test CPU’s TDP down to 153W made for a much easier ride, with the Pure Rock Pro still keeping its temperature down to 82.7°C at a low 600rpm fan speed.

If you’re looking for an affordable, quiet cooler to strap to your Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the be quiet! Pure Rock Pro 3 is a top choice.

For more detail, including noise levels and temperature results, check out our in-depth be quiet! Pure Rock Pro 3 review.

	Specs
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700, LGA1200, LGA115x; AMD AM4, AM5
Heatsink dimensions	139 x 124 x 155mm (w/fans)
Heatpipes	6 x 6mm
Weight	1,070g (w/fans)
Fan size and type	2× Pure Wings 3 PWM (120 x 120 x 25mm)
Fan speed range	0-2,000rpm
Fan airflow	59.6 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.41mm H2O
Fan noise level	Max 25.5dBA
Warranty	Three years

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Best budget air cooler

The best budget air cooler is the Arctic Freezer 36. Despite its modest price of just £26, this cooler is surprisingly potent. With two fans set up in a push-pull configuration on either side of its heatsink, the Freezer 36 easily offers enough airflow to keep a mid-range CPU in check.

While the Freezer 36 sadly isn’t available for its amazing £21.99 launch price any more, its current cost of £26 is still perfectly reasonable for the cooling power on offer. Unlike the be quiet! Pure Rock 3 Pro, there’s only one tower of aluminium heatsink fins here, but you do get plenty of airflow courtesy of two Arctic P12 PWM fans. With its use of standard fan mounts, you could replace these spinners with pretty much any 120mm fan of your choice as well.

It even looks the part, with its solid aluminium logo plate on top of the heatsink adding a touch of class. Plus, if you want a little more pizzazz, there’s an ARGB version available that costs an extra £7, and it comes in both black and white flavours to match the rest of your build.

	253W 600rpm	253W 1,200rpm	253W Max speed	153W 600rpm	153W 1,200rpm	153W Max speed
Arctic Freezer 36	93.1	91	88.6	80.2	76.3	73.1
Corsair A115	98.9	95.1	89.8	82.4	71.5	69.2
be quiet! Dark Rock Elite	94.4	93.0	91.8	77.6	70.8	67.7
be quiet! Pure Loop 2 280	91.8	89.3	85.5	76.7	65.9	61.8
MSI MAG CoreLiquid E360	87.2	86.0	82.0	71.9	62.2	59.7

Importantly, the Arctic Freezer 36 offers solid cooling performance that belies its low cost. As you can see in the table above, it handled our Core i9-13900K test chip admirably once we’d dropped the TDP to 153W, meaning it could easily cope with the heat from an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Impressively, it even managed to cool this CPU with its fans running at 600rpm, resulting in a temperature of 80.2°C, all without making too much of a racket.

Our only criticisms are firstly that it doesn’t support any Intel CPUs before LGA1700, so you’re not going to be able to mount it on an LGA1200 or LGA115x board. Secondly, we found the fan-mounting clips on the heatsink a bit fragile, and one of them broke during testing, so you’ll need to take care when mounting and removing the fans.

Read our full Arctic Freezer 36 review for an in-depth look at this CPU cooler, including all our temperature and noise test results. 

	Specs
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700; AMD AM4, AM5
Heatsink dimensions	104 x 126 x 159mm (w/fans)
Heatpipes	4 x 6mm
Weight	890g (w/fans)
Fan size and type	2× Arctic P12 PWM (120 x 120 x 25mm)
Fan speed range	200-1,800rpm
Fan airflow	56.3 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.2mm H2O
Fan noise level	Max 0.3 Sone
Warranty	Six years

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Best passive air cooler

The best passive air cooler is the Noctua NH-P1. Proving that you really can tame a powerful CPU without a single fan, this heatsink is an incredible piece of engineering, with our tests even showing it can cool a 12-core AMD Ryzen CPU.

It almost seems counterintuitive to build a PC without a single fan inside it, especially when there are so many cores in the latest chips, but the Noctua NH-P1 shows it can be done. This mammoth stack of nickel-plated aluminium fins wowed us when we tested it for ourselves, where it managed to keep a 12-core Ryzen 9 7900 running smoothly.

We’re not talking about just running light loads on it here either. We ran a 30-minute Cinebench stress test on this 65W CPU, in a completely passively-cooled rig, and the Ryzen 9 7900’s biggest temperature spike was an occasional 90°C – well within its thermal limits.

It’s built like a tank, with excellent quality and a six-year warranty to back it up. However, you do need to make sure your case and chosen components will play nicely with it. Handily, Noctua provides a list of compatible cases that will work with the cooler, ensuring that enough air can get through to its fins, so there’s enough room to breathe.

There’s one word of warning, which is that we found putting this cooler in a rig with a high-end graphics card resulted in the CPU temperature climbing further. As such, we recommend caution if you’re planning to build a gaming rig. If in doubt, there’s also an optional mount that enables you to fit a 120mm fan if you need it.

It does enable you to build a completely silent build, though. Our founder and editor-in-chief, Parm Mann, liked the Noctua NH-P1 so much that he’s currently using it in his own personal rig.

Read our Noctua NH-P1 build guide for more details about this cooler’s installation process, and how it copes in an entirely passively-cooled Ryzen 9 7900 rig.

	Specification
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700; LGA1954, LGA115x, LGA1200, LGA2066, LGA2011x; AMD AM5, AM4, AM3/+, AM2/+, FM2/+, FM1
Heatsink dimensions	152 x 154 x 158mm
Heatpipes	6 x 6mm
Weight	1,180g
Fan support	Mounting clips for optional 120mm fan
Warranty	Six years

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Best AIO cooler overall

The best AIO cooler overall is the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 ARGB. We were blown away by this fantastic piece of liquid-cooling engineering when we reviewed it, giving it five stars and our coveted Editors’ Choice award. Unbelievably, it’s also now even cheaper than it was back then, meaning you can get an incredible amount of cooling power, all in a great-looking package, for just £78.

Arctic has consistently offered fantastic cooling performance for a low price – the classic Freezer 7 Pro was released nearly 20 years ago, but the company really pulled out all the stops here. Its 360mm radiator and triple 120mm fan array do a sterling job of cooling even the most powerful CPUs, and it looks absolutely gorgeous too. Each fan has 12 RGB LEDs illuminating its blades, and the jet-engine-style faceplate on top of the waterblock looks lovely when it’s lit up.

Installation is simple, with Arctic even pre-installing the fans so you don’t need to screw them to the radiator yourself. It’s great to see the RGB cable running through the tubing as well, keeping it out of the way. You get a tube of top-quality Arctic MX-6 included, and while pre-applied paste makes installation easier, MX-6 is a premium paste.

	Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360	Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420	Enermax Liqmaxflo 360
253W 600rpm	90	90.1	90.8
253W 1,200rpm	80.9	81.5	87.3
253W Max speed	76.4	79.2	80.2
153W 600rpm	66.5	68.5	76.5
153W 1,200rpm	61.9	63.4	63.1
153W Max speed	54.1	61.2	58.5

Cooling performance is top-notch, especially for the price. In fact, as you can see from the above table, you could even cool a Core i9-13900K at full power with a fan speed of just 600rpm. If you’re prepared to run your fans faster, then the temperatures sink even lower, especially compared to the competition.

We don’t recommend running this cooler’s fans at full speed, as you can probably gather from the noise result in the table below, but it’s remarkable that this low-cost cooler can keep a 13900K running at just 76.4°C at full load. Importantly, noise levels at 600rpm and 1,200rpm are very quiet, and performance is potent to boot.

	Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360	Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420	Enermax Liqmaxflo 360
600rpm	<30.2	30.2	31.5
1,200rpm	31.0	38.3	35.0
Max speed	58.6	46.9	44.6

Best of all, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 ARGB costs just £78, making it a bargain as well as an awesome cooler.

Read our in-depth Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 ARGB review for more information, including its installation process and all our test results.

	Specification
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700; AMD AM5, AM4
Radiator dimensions	398 x 120 x 38mm
Fans	3x 120 Arctic P12 Pro ARGB
Fan speed range	600-3,000rpm
Fan airflow	77 CFM
Fan static pressure	6.9mm H2O
Pump speed range	400-2,500rpm
Tubing length	450mm

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Best quiet AIO cooler

The best quiet AIO cooler is the be quiet! Pure Loop 3 LX 360. If you’ve got a bit more money to spend, and you’re looking for a great-looking cooler that keeps noise to a minimum, this is the one to buy.

Low-noise operation is the main selling point here, and be quiet! delivers the goods. Importantly, it also does this while maintaining great cooling performance. Check out the graph below, and you’ll see what we mean.

Even when its noise is normalised to a quiet 36dBA, the Pure Loop 3 LX 360 still manages to keep our Core i9-13900K test CPU in check at full load, peaking at 90.5°C. That’s a great result.

We also love the design of this cooler. Its daisy-chained fans keep cable clutter to a minimum, and the supplied Light Wings LX PWM spinners are great quality as well. Plus, you can even replace the faceplates on the waterblock. A number of options for this feature come in the box, including a ninja face, Space Invaders-style game, and a PCB. It’s not quite like having an LCD, but it does look really good.

Unlike the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 ARGB, this cooler is also compatible with a wider range of older Intel CPU sockets, including LGA1200 and LGA115x motherboards. Another neat feature is its coolant refill port, which means you can top up the coolant in your loop, expanding its lifespan.

With powerful cooling, low noise output, and classy looks, this is a great cooler, especially if you’re looking to build a rig with a powerful CPU.

Read our full be quiet! Pure Loop 3 LX 360 review for more detail about this liquid cooling system, including its installation process, noise levels, and temperatures.

	Specification
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700, LGA1200, LGA115x; AMD AM5, AM4
Radiator dimensions	397 x 120 x 27mm
Waterblock dimensions	60 x 60 x 30mm
Fans	3x 120mm be quiet! Light Wings LX PWM
Fan speed range	Up to 2,100rpm
Fan airflow	61.8 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.51mm H2O
Fan noise level	Max 36.9dBA
Pump speed range	3,000-5,500rpm
Tubing length	400mm
Extras	Coolant refill port

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Best budget AIO cooler

The best budget AIO cooler is the MSI MAG CoreLiquid A13 360. The affordable AIO market is getting mightily crowded, but this great MSI cooler carves a niche for itself with its low price, decent cooling, and customisable faceplates for the waterblock. The CoreLiquid A13 360 already had a temptingly affordable price of £75 when we first reviewed it, but you can now pick one up for £65, which is superb value.

One of the cool features is the customisable plate on the pump unit, which already looks great with the vibrant RGB lighting spilling over the sides of an MSI logo. However, MSI gives you the option to remove this face cover, and provides a 3D printer file to enable you to make your own ones, as demonstrated by our own Club386 plate in the image above.

There’s potent cooling on tap, despite the low price. Check out the table below, and you’ll see what we mean. The MSI offers superior cooling at 1,200rpm, and also has no trouble cooling a 153W CPU at 600rpm either. It’s not a whisper-quiet cooler, but it does enable you to cool an extremely powerful CPU without sounding like a jet engine, and for a very low cost.

	MSI MAG CoreLiquid A13 360	Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360
253W @ 600rpm	93.6	90
253W @ 1,200rpm	80.2	80.9
253W @ Max speed	76.8	76.4
153W @ 600rpm	70.5	66.5
153W @ 1,200rpm	59	61.9
153W @ Max speed	55.8	54.1

That said, the slightly pricier Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 has the edge at low fan speeds – the MSI struggles with our Core i9-13900K at full speed when its fans are running at 600rpm, for example, making it a better buy if low-noise operation is your top priority.

With great lighting, a customisable faceplate, decent cooling, and a very reasonable price, this is a solid cooler for the money.

Read our full MSI MAG CoreLiquid A13 360 review for more detail about this CPU cooler.

	Specification
Socket support	Intel: LGA1851, LGA1700; AMD: AM5, AM4
Radiator dimensions	394 x 119.6 x 27mm
Waterblock dimensions	70.9 x 69.3 x 56.98mm
Fan speed	500-2,000rpm ± 10%
Fan airflow	62.6 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.36mm H2O
Fan noise level	31.1dBA
Pump speed	300-3,800rpm
Pump noise level	20dBA

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Best 420mm AIO cooler

The best 420mm AIO cooler is the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420mm. With a massive radiator, a really well-designed pump unit, and three 140mm fans, this liquid cooling system can tame even the most powerful CPUs, and without making a huge amount of noise.

Increasing the size of your radiator and fans doesn’t just enable you to cool extremely powerful CPUs, but also to reduce your fan speeds and hence noise. Bigger blades can push the same amount of air as smaller ones at slower speeds, and a large radiator gives you loads of cooling capacity as well. If you have a big case that can hold a 420mm cooler, then we absolutely recommend fitting a 420mm cooler if you can – we use three of them ourselves in our Club386 test rigs.

This unit from be quiet! is a particularly good example, receiving our prestigious Editors’ Choice award when we reviewed it, describing it as “the best CPU cooler to pass through Club386 halls.” At £119, it’s not cheap for a cooler with no RGB fans, or an LCD unit, but it absolutely delivers on its promise of low-noise high-end cooling. Besides, the light-up fins on the pump block add a classy touch of flair, looking a bit like a steampunk element heater.

We were particularly impressed by the pump unit, which we found to be practically inaudible during testing, even at high speed. The Silent Wings 4 fans are great too, with their six-pole motors and fluid dynamic bearings pushing up to 78.4 CFM of airflow at maximum speed. There’s also a handy refill port, plus a bottle of coolant in the box, so you can top up the liquid in your loop and extend its lifespan.

	be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420	Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 ARGB
253W @ 600rpm	89.4	90.1
253W @ 1200rpm	83.5	81.5
253W @ Max speed	81.7	79.2
153W @ 600rpm	63.4	68.5
153W @ 1,200rpm	61.0	63.4
153W @ Max speed	60.4	61.2

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, and the cooling power on offer is tremendous, as you can see in the table above. With its fans running at just 600rpm, this cooler is amazingly quiet, and it can still keep a 24-core Intel Core i9-13900K running below 90°C. Plus, while its 1,200rpm results are slightly warmer than those of the Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420 ARGB, its noise level was considerably quieter, at 34.3dBA on the be quiet! unit, compared to 38.3dBA on the Arctic.

If you have a case that can accommodate it, and you can afford the price, the be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420mm is a fantastic high-end, well-built cooler, and it’s very quiet to boot.

For more detail about this 420mm AIO cooler, read our in-depth be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420mm review.

	Specification
Socket support	Intel LGA1851, LGA1700, LGA1200, LGA115x; AMD AM5, AM4, TR5, TR4
Radiator dimensions	457 x 140 x 27mm
Waterblock dimensions	93.5 x 80 x 56mm
Fans	3x 140mm be quiet! Silent Wings 4 PWM
Fan speed range	Up to 2,100rpm
Fan airflow	78.4 CFM
Fan static pressure	2.36mm H2O
Fan noise level	Max 29.3dBA
Pump speed range	1,700-3,500rpm
Tubing length	400mm
Extras	Coolant refill port

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FAQ

Can I use my old cooler on a new CPU?

Very possibly, but you’ll need to do some research. Some coolers can happily move to a new socket, depending on the mounts they use – we’ve seen this with some AM4 coolers being usable on AM5 motherboards when they use AMD’s standard plastic cooler mounts, for example. Many cooler manufacturers (Noctua is a prime example) also release after-market upgrade kits to ensure that your old cooler can work with a new motherboard platform.

These kits sometimes contain a new backplate, or screws and standoffs of different lengths than the original mounts, and usually don’t cost muchh money. If in doubt, check the website of your cooler’s manufacturer. If there’s no aftermarket kit, and it’s not specifically stated that your cooler will work on a new motherboard socket, it’s probably time for a new cooler.

What does AIO mean?

AIO simply stands for “all in one” – referring to the fact that these coolers offer a complete water-cooling system in a single, closed system. Unlike a DIY water-cooling loop, where you choose the pump, radiator, fans, tubing and so on yourself, an AIO cooler has everything you need in one easy-to-install package. AIO coolers are substantially cheaper than DIY water-cooling systems, but they also usually have weaker pumps, no reservoirs, and limited choices when it comes to areas such as radiator thicknesses, plus their closed nature means you often can’t top up the coolant if it evaporates either.

There are exceptions, though. As an example, be quiet! has started putting coolant refill ports on its AIO coolers, as well as supplying a bottle of coolant in the box. These days, a decent AIO cooler is perfectly capable of cooling even the most powerful CPUs available, and often do it quietly as well.

Why would I buy an air cooler?

There’s still plenty of love for old-school air coolers in the world of PC hobbyism, despite the increasing popularity of AIO liquid coolers. Air coolers have a very low cost of entry, meaning you only need to spend £26 to get a model that cools an 8-core CPU really well. There are benefits of spending more money on a premium air cooler, though. One is that the only moving parts are the fans, and all the bits are accessible. Fans can easily be replaced if a motor fails, but the same doesn’t go for an internal pump motor on an AIO cooler.

With an air cooler, you don’t need to worry about coolant evaporating or pump noise for that matter. A decent air cooler will last you a long, long time, spanning several builds. You also don’t need to factor the size of a massive radiator into your build, although you will have to make sure there’s enough clearance between your motherboard and your case’s side panel to install your air cooler.

Do I need thermal paste?

Yes, every CPU cooler needs a layer of thermal paste between its contact plate and your processor’s heatspreader. This goo fills in the tiny microscopic pores in these metal surfaces, ensuring there are no insulation pockets that can prevent heat from being transferred from your CPU to the cooler. Pretty much every CPU cooler comes with thermal paste, either pre-applied to the contact plate, or in a separate tube. If you need more of it, or you want better material, check out our guide to the best thermal paste, where we put loads of goo tubes to the test.