ASUS recently launched a new case in its ProArt series: the PA401. This new model is a more compact and slightly less well-equipped reference than the PA601. However, it should be offered at more affordable prices. In short, ASUS’s Tony Yu wanted to demonstrate the case’s cooling capabilities by staging it with a Ryzen 9 9950X and a Noctua NH-P1 passive heatsink.
Ryzen 9 9950X in a PA401 NH-P1: 95.2°C!
The Ryzen 9 9950X is a large CPU recently launched by AMD. As a reminder, this is a CPU with a total of 16 cores/32 threads that can reach turbo frequencies of 5.7 GHz with a base frequency of 4.3 GHz.
The NH-P1 is a passive cooling unit launched by Noctua. It’s not only imposing, but also very heavy. In fact, it weighs 1.18 kg on the scales, but features few aluminum fins. The reason is simple: to let the air circulate as much as possible. As for the heat pipes, there are six of them. But what sets them apart is that they passively cool the processor on which they’re mounted. However, this capability has its limits, and Noctua clearly states that without a fan, the NH-P1 will not maintain the 9950X at its base frequencies…
But if you mount the configuration in a suitable case, what do you get? A processor that reaches a maximum temperature of 95.2°C in an ASUS PA401 case. It should be noted that the only airflow supplied to the configuration was by the case’s original fans and those of the graphics card. To measure this temperature, the CPU was run on Cinebench R23. During the test, power consumption was around 226W.
Clearly, it’s not advisable to run your PC in these conditions. What’s more, 95°C is the TjMax of the Ryzen 9 9950X, i.e. the maximum temperature the processor can withstand. On our test protocol, we would have considered this a failure. However, in play on Wukong, the processor operated at around 70°C with a power consumption of around 110W, which is much more reasonable for everyday use.
