It’s been around two months since the release of AMD’s flagship Ryzen Threadripper 3990X 64-core CPU and the processor has been met with strong praise. Compute performance is at an entirely new level, power efficiency is superb, and operating frequencies are pretty reasonable for such a multi-threaded part.

However, there’s evident overclocking room beyond the 280W TDP and circa-3GHz all-core operating frequency for users who demand every last drop of performance from their $4000 chip. Finding a CPU cooler capable of taming the beast, whilst also maintaining the cost-effectiveness and ease-of-use of air or AIO liquid options, is not easy.

We examine options from be quiet!, Cooler Master, Corsair, IceGiant, and Noctua to see which option is a solid choice for the 64-core beast.