5 Best Liquid CPU Cooler For i5-8600k in 2024

Liquid cooling is an amazing innovation, allowing you to use water to cool your components instead of the traditional plastic fan method. Not only can this be more energy efficient, but it allows for better control over fan performance, potentially giving you an almost noiseless system. That said, liquid cooling systems are definitely more expensive, costing you hundreds of dollars for all of the components. Still, this new and advanced system is the most high performance way that you can dynamically keep your PC cool. So if you’re ready to get started in liquid cooling for your processor — specifically the i5-8600k — be sure to follow along with us. We’re diving into the five best liquid CPU cooler for i5-8600k.

 

Best Liquid CPU Cooler For i5-8600k

 

 

1. Corsair H100I V2

Coming in as number four, we have a familiar one. Corsair is known for its gaming peripherals, but makes some awesome liquid coolers as well, including the H100I V2. What we really like about this one is just how versatile it is — the H100I V2 is capable of keeping both AM4 and LGA 1151 sockets cool, as well as plenty of others. As you might imagine, there is some excellent cooling performance inside, but unlike the Eisbaer, you cannot adjust performance from the BIOS. You’ll have to download Corsair’s own software on your PC — the iCUE software. This allows you to make a number of adjustments, including control over the RGB colors, fan speed, and more.

Buy it now: here

 

2. Corsair H100I PRO RGB

The third contender on our list is yet another choice from Corsair. That’s the H100I PRO RGB, and it’s a lot like the H100I V2. It’s similar in performance, but this one is more geared towards dedicated gamers who love customizing lights inside of their case. Your primary lighting ability here is on the pump itself — there’s a number of colors that you can customize it with in the iCUE software. Not only that, but you can control individual fan speeds and pump speed from this software as well.

Now, what we really like is the Zero RPM Mode: cooling fans stop entirely when your processor is at a low temperature, eliminating noise from your PC entirely. You can even monitor coolant temperatures from the iCUE software.

Buy it now: here

 

 

3. Corsair H115I Pro

And as for our first and favorite choice, we have a high-end option from Corsair — the H115I Pro liquid cooler. Corsair, as you might imagine, offers this one a variety of radiator sizes, which does adjust the price higher or lower, depending on your size. However, even at just 280mm, the dual-fan liquid cooler is able to stay quiet, provide excellent fan performance and airflow, and that’s even under heavy loads when you’re doing some gaming or professional work. This setup does have some RGB lighting customizations available to you.

Buy it now: here

 

 

4. Thermaltake 240 Water 3.0

Coming in as our number two favorite contender, we have the Thermaltake 240 Water 3.0 liquid CPU cooler for the i5-8600k. If you’ve looked into liquid cooling at all, this one might look similar to the higher-end Floe Riing Cooler from Thermaltake, and that’s because it is similar. This one is actually a budget-friendly version of its Floe Riing cooler — the big difference here is dropped app support and no pump RGB lighting to make it more affordable for the average user. Even though those aesthetics have been removed in the Thermaltake 240 Water 3.0, it’s still a high-performance liquid cooler with little to no noise. The built-in limiter does an excellent job limiting fan RPMs, even under load, though you can tune it yourself a little bit.

Buy it now: here

 

5. Alphacool Eisbaer 280

Alphacool’s Eisbaer 280 comes up as number five on our list. This is an excellent choice because the company has managed to nail the formula between performance and price. This is one of the most high-end performing coolers that you can buy right now, but at a low and affordable price. The CPU cooler will only cost you around $130 or so, which is cheap for something this high-end.

The company makes it easy to control your Eisbaer 280 without any additional software — all of the functions can be customized straight from the BIOS so that you can adjust cooling performance to your liking. This one is available in a variety of different sizes — 120mm, 140mm, 240mm, 280mm, 360mm, 420mm. Price does jump the larger you go in radiator size, but the 280mm is probably the most affordable as far as performance and value for money go. This one is a little more difficult to setup, but with a little know-how and ability to follow directions, the Eisbaer 280 will be up and running quickly.

Buy it now: here

Best Liquid CPU Cooler For i5-8600k Verdict

As you can see, there are a lot of excellent options for liquid CPU coolers for i5-8600k. Any one of these will have no problem keeping your processor at normal operating temperatures, but if you plan on putting it under heavy load, you’ll definitely want to snag yourself a Corsair H115I Pro or Thermaltake 24 Water 3.0 for maximum efficiency.

Do you have a favorite liquid CPU cooler for the i5-8600k? What is it? Let us know in the comments section below.