Is the PCCooler RT500 TC ARGB causing lag in Cities Skylines II?
Every time my city population hit 100k, the game would just start chugging. I was getting really anxious because the stutters were unbearable. It turned out the RT500 base had a tiny 2-3mm gap when handling the hotspots of my 14th gen CPU, sending temps screaming past 95℃ and dropping my clocks from 5.0 GHz to a pathetic 3.2 GHz. I tried forcing the max frequency in software, but that just led to a sudden overheat and a full system shutdown—a pretty frustrating lesson in over-tuning. I ended up ripping the cooler off, cleaning the paste, and carefully tightening the screws in a cross pattern to ensure the pressure was perfectly symmetrical. I also set the fan to hit 100% at 80℃. In Cinebench R23 loops, temps dropped from 96℃ to a manageable 84-88℃, and frame time jitter went from 15-40ms down to 10-14ms. I actually realized I'd installed one of the fans backward at first, which killed the airflow, but flipping it fixed everything. CPU power is now steady at 180-200 Watts. The game feels snappy again, and the input lag is gone.
