The temperature is completely irrelevant.
No, you don't. If you set the 7950X to 142W PPT, a large air cooler like Noctua NH-D15 should bring the temp down to way below 95°C because it can dissipate the thermal load that effectively, as demonstrated in all the tests with 3950X and 5950X.will mean you have to have fans that sound like a mini vacuum cleaner.
No, you cannot, at least not with your intended usage of very long analysis where all the thermal mass of the water will heat up. The water doesn't cool, it only transfers the heat to the radiator where it is cooled into air, and using fans. Noise normalised on e.g. a 3950X, at 360mm AIO isn't far ahead of a Noctua NH-D15, and both keep it under 60°C easily.With water you can really bring down the sound level.
Here is one such roundup test for the 3950X (with and without overclocking):
The main question here is whether the CPU integrated heat spreader (IHS, the metal cover) hinders heat dissipation disproportionately on the 7950X, compared to Ryzen 3000/5000. One hint at that are the delidding experiments on Ryzen 7000 by der8auer where he got a crazy 20K temp reduction from delidding, and that although the IHS was soldered as it should be. Maybe the IHS is actually too thick so that AMD has vertical spare room for the future 3D cache. That could become a cooling problem indeed.
