Cooling: the part of the build that people get wrong most often

[Bussin99]

Not the headline components, the cooling. In my experience it is where builds fail most commonly and where people spend the least time planning relative to GPU and CPU selection. The thermal ceiling determines whether your investment in headline components actually performs to spec.

Water versus air, case airflow, thermal paste application, ambient temperature management. What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started building?

[HiddenSeb75]

CPU cooler budget should be proportional to the CPU budget. If you spend 500 pounds on a processor and 30 pounds on a cooler you are making a mistake. The cooler determines whether the expensive part performs or throttles.