Best Budget Air Cooler 2022

Computers need to be kept cool to run correctly. Most computers have two primary heat sources: the CPU and the GPU. While the GPU generally comes with fans, the CPU needs some help. To keep your CPU cool, you need some form of cooler. There are two primary choices, an air cooler, and an AIO. AIOs are effective but are complex. There’s more to fail; if it fails incorrectly, it can leak on the rest of your computer’s sensitive electronics. Air coolers are simple. Only a fan can break, and those can be easily replaced.

Air coolers tend not to be too expensive, but if you’re trying to keep the budget down, you might be looking to save a bit by getting a cheaper cooler. While this will reduce the cooling effectiveness, there are still some great air coolers for budget-friendly prices. All the coolers on this list are less than $60. One just under $40.

To help you find the budget cooler ideal for your build, we’ve drawn up our list of the best budget coolers in 2022.

The ARCTIC Freezer 34 eSports is a relatively small but capable air cooler. It has four heat pipes going into a heatsink with a single 120mm fan. A version is available with two fans in a push-pull configuration that will run cooler and quieter. However, it costs $15 more. This cooler’s most significant selling point is the price, which is just under $40. It comes in a range of colors, though there are no RGB options.

A tube of thermal paste is included. Its design isn’t very thick, so there are no compatibility issues with RAM. Unfortunately, the actual contact area with the IHS of the CPU is very narrow. It does not provide full coverage. This shouldn’t be an issue as not all of the physical space is used, and heat production tends to be centered. It’s not a good look-through and could cause problems on asymmetrical chiplet designs like AMD’s Ryzen CPUs.

The Scythe Mugen 5 Rev.B is a large but budget air cooler. It’s pretty unremarkable looking without any particular fancy design. The only exciting part of the design is that it’s asymmetrical. This gives plenty of space for the fan to be placed on the cooler’s front without any  RAM interference. The cooler then extends back and features a cutout to not interfere with the RAM on the other side of the CPU socket.

A set of own brand thermal paste is included. While this will be functional, you may get better performance with a well-known brand of thermal paste. A specialty screwdriver is included to aid with installation. Unfortunately, this model doesn’t support the latest Intel LGA1700 socket. It won’t support the AMD AM5 socket. For those, you’ll need a slightly pricier, newer, but otherwise identical model.

The Noctua NH-D9L is a small but powerful air cooler from the leading air cooler brand. Noctua gains respect for its excellent heatsink and fan designs. They only have two issues, the default color scheme and the naming scheme. This model has a dual heatsink stack with a single 92mm fan wedged between them.

The small size has been designed to fit 3U server chassis, and small form factor builds. Care has been taken to ensure maximum compatibility with no interference with RAM. Or the PCIe slot, even on a small microATX motherboard. Noctua thermal paste is included, and the price just sneaks in under $55.

The Scythe Ninja 5 Rev.B is a vast air cooler weighing in at a little under a kilogram for the heatsink alone. It comes paired with two fans in a push-pull configuration. These fans don’t spin particularly fast, maxing out at just 800RPM. Combined, these reveal that this cooler is meant to be an almost passive heatsink, absorbing vast amounts of heat and dissipating it slowly. In the real world, this may lead to thermal issues in long-term heavy workloads. However, this could be easily countered by getting other fans that can spin faster, providing better airflow, and increasing the noise level.

The oversized design means that this cooler overhangs a memory socket on both sides of the CPU socket. It does this so much that if the nearest slot is the only one populated. The fan can sit on the other side of it, though the second stick of RAM on either side will interfere with the fan. If that’s the case for you, then it can be quickly resolved by moving the fan up on the cooler.

That was our roundup of the best budget air cooler in 2022. Have you recently bought a budget air cooler? What sold you on it, and what has your experience been with it so far? Let us know down below.