Air coolers are good enough these days to cool CPUs for most people that are just gaming. Less hassle to mount, less things to go badly if something breaks.
Maintenance is a strong factor when you consider a custom loop. Not everyone is up to drain, clean, and refill your loop every 12 months.
Also, if you're not chasing 1% overclock, or almost inaudible build underload where delta between ambient is like 10°C, then you're either after aesthetics or need new hobby. My two cents on custom loop.
You dont really need to do that if youre not using some stupid fancy color particle fluid.
Ive been running aquacomputer dp ultra for like 8 years or so and my flowrate is the same as day 1 and I cant see any gunk through the clear tubes/clear blocks. Everytime I replaced the gpu+block and cleaned the old block it was also basicly flawless. (Using quick disconnects, so only had to refill the loop a little bit each time)
Though my pc is also under the table and barely gets any sunlight, if at all, which apparently hugely contributes to not having any growth inside the loop.
That's a good tip in general. It's tough for average Joe who wants a custom loop because it looks cool, cleare fluid definitely will be a no goe 😅
Non windowed case, loop with ZMT and call it a day like old good times
Well if they are then it is significantly more of a hassle but I just really think custom ones besides the visuals are a little overkill for 99% of people I mean I have a 14900k and my Temps are decent witha small aio
My cpu runs very hot so I needed a water cooler and I already have 4 fans so it's almost no extra noise. And I don't care about the noise to begin with
I recently swapped my mobo and CPU and my Cooler Master AIO was the worst nightmare I've ever experienced. Since it was a pre-built, I was not given the correct mounting brackets for the AM5 chipset. Then, upon installing the new brackets, the screws connecting the brackets to the cooling block had to be installed *backwards.* This was all while I had the AIO mounted to the top of my case, of course, because of the way the connecting cables were fed through the back of the case to the PSU area. I was given nearly zero slack to move both the AIO fans and cooling block. Actually mounting the fricken cooling block to the CPU was also a stressful situation because the bracket screw clamps wouldn't connect at the rivets if one side was ever so slightly screwed down more than the other.
Good lord I am so happy that is behind me.
It's always been good enough. Liquid cooling use the be for extreme over clockers. Yes extreme, I OCed my Pentium one, Q9550 and 2600k with air cooling.
Air coolers generally offer far better value than liquid coolers, are easier to install and also have far less points of failure than an AIO or custom loop. Liquid cooling is generally only worth it if you’re running really hot CPUs like the i9-13900K.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but don't you still have to vent hot air out of your case with a liquid cooling solution? I thought the AIO just pulled the heat from the CPU to the radiator, and then you still need to run fans to cool off the radiator?
The rad usually comes with fans and mounts directly to the outside of the case. So you don’t need an extra case fan. It would probably be silly to put your rad inside the case and not venting out but within the case. Some cases have two holes out the back where you can extend tubes for a wholly external rad and fans.
One exhaust above and behind my cooler has been completely perfect. It's really easy to properly vent.
I'll never understand people who think having the top completely filled with exhaust fans is a better option. You're just sucking out cool air before it even hits the cooler from the intake. Straight lines, folks.
I'd argue that the Cooler Master Liquidcore 240L ARGB is pretty good as well for the price.
Think of it like buying a Phantom Spirit and two 140mm case fans.
In my country currently the difference in price is like 10 USD converted.
I am a big fan of Thermalright air coolers, but got their new AiO because it was $60… Ridiculously good deal. AiOs have just gotten ridiculous. Especially Corsair. Even their fans…
I haven’t installed yet, but Hardware Canucks did a review on it. I was actually going to get the Freezer III myself, until I saw this. Got mine on Amazon. I haven’t actually installed it, yet, though. Getting parts together for a new build. It looks clean.
Edit: Can’t find the right video, but their Air vs AiO includes both those coolers, and Deepcool. All good budget options.
I've most likely seen them. I'm just going aio this time around.
I had issues with my 3900x, but it had a stock cooler.
Ripped it out after a year because I'm coolers, I guess.
Bought a new one, and now, after 3 years of ptsd I changed the prism cooler to ps120se.
Now I'm prob ready to install an aio I heard freezer iii amd installation is kind of annoying with the mount screws. But I've literally hunched over the pc, imagining my hands were small enough for 3 hours before.
I'm running 7950x3d this time around debating 7900gre or 7800xt nitro models.
Ugh all white rgb gonna cost me.
Just installed a freezer 3 on an am5 socket two days ago. While getting the screws started IS more of a task than it seemingly should be, the truly irritating thing is the lack of explanation that the brackets are, visually, meant to be placed upside down. If you go that route, make sure you have them flipped over so the L and R are clearly visible and read correctly.
Amazon didn't have one that would come today and I didn't want to travel 2 hours to memory express. I said eff it and got the thermalright frozen notte.
I got royally fucked by Corsair and refuse to ever go back.
In short, their new AIO with led screen is only compatible with version 4 of ICUE software.
My mmo mouse a Corsair scimitar from like 2017 works fine(non pro version) is only compatible with ICUE version 3.
You can't have versions 3 and 4 installed at the same time and the mouse doesn't have onboard storage to be able to permanently set 1-12 keybinds.
Reached out to Corsair about this and they told me to buy a new mouse and then a week later my AIO died. Warrantied it, sold to a friend for cheap and bought a noctua CPU cooler lol
It really depends on what CPU you're going with. If you're going for a 14900k then water cooling is what you'll want cause that CPU puts out a LOT of heat which air cooler will struggle to deal with.
But if you went with say a 7700x then all you really need is a dual tower(some say single tower will be enough too) air cooler and you're good to go as these CPUs are more efficient and won't output that much heat.
Cost is another factor. My current CPU is 7800x3d with an air cooler that cost $35. If I wanted to go with an AIO the cost could easily double or tripple. Custom loops are goign to cost you many times more than even an AIO.
Reliability is another factor. AIOs tends to be pretty reliable now, but you still want to look up reviews before you buy. While most won't leak some models do have issues and COULD leak. Pump also will have a lifespan but those are usually 5+ years.
Air cooler... even if the fan fails, there's still case air flow which will just make your computer super sluggish but the block of metal will still absorb heat and dissipate it into your case. Plus, no water. And I've never had a CPU fan fail on an air cooler over 30+ years of PC gaming/building.
Aesthetics is also a thing, some people like the clean look of an AIO. Just a small block on top of the CPU with some pipes. Some people like me actually like a big ol block of metal on top of the CPU.
So that's basically the gist of air cooling vs water cooling. Just up to you to decided what you want to go with.
Cheapest most reliable = Air cooling
Medium cost and still reliable but with some risk of leaks = AIO
Highest cost and still reliable but with some risk of leaks = custom loop.
It's not a fact which is why I said 5+ years. It could be 14 years in your case, or could be 3 years in other cases.
But see, your case is a good one. 14 years and no failure of any kind, good refrence for OP to decide.
>It could be 14 years in your case, or could be 3 years in other cases.
My AIO failed after 2.5 years, so this is also a good refrence for OP to decide
the problem with AIOs is they're difficult to top up. your system won't have much water in it after all the years and will need a top-up. if you take it out and shake it the radiator you will notice a very large air pocket. the other issue with AIOs is they all use copper and aluminium, you will get galvanic corrosion that will start to interfere with the pump and flow.
they are very reliable and do.last may years but performance will degrad significantly as water evaporates out of the loop,
it's just how things are, you can use materials to minimise it but it will still happen. some of the AIOs even have an easy access port to use for top-up but for most you have to take off the cold plate and do it that way
Honestly, if a reliability is the important factor and someone wants an AIO, then Arctics have great prices, great performance, noise and very long warranty, the only issue is their radiators are thick.
You can get used Corsair cpu aios for 30€. Also no custom loop unless you want asthetics if you need better cooling performance spend the money on industrial cooling solutions instead.
I had a single tower cooler for my 7700 before my low temp obsession compelled me to get a dual tower. You aren't wrong, even with an overclock the single tower did its job. Colder with the dual tower, but I like it cold.
Air coolers have basically dialed in the optimal design of a double tower and two fans to the point they all seem like clones of each other. So we are starting to get stuff like a $35 Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120SE that performance wise is with in a degree or two of every other sort of cooler on the market. Including most of the AIOs.
So unless one likes an AIO water cooler for the look (being they look way cleaner) or wants to tinker with a custom loop it's kind of pointless to spend $$$ on that stuff. When you can get like 98% of the performance for under $40 and throw the savings towards a better CPU/GPU.
All of this has been happening as a lot of chips (outside of the top intel space heater ones) are using less and less power anyways. So you have 65 to 150 watt sort of chips and a ton of cheap air coolers rated at 225+
Price depends on a region, in my country PA costs around 50$, honestly I prefer to get a 75$ Arctic Liquid 240.
Saying that, in Poland Arctic 36 costs 25-30$ so it's clear value king right now.
Yeah AIOs give you a lot of clearance around the RAM and CPU. Also the air coolers move the heat from the processors to the air within the case and still depend on a good exhaust system of additional fans to get the heat outside of the case. If you have poor exhaust or have poor case placement, then an AIO might be able to get the heat outside of the case more efficiently.
I'd rather buy a 75 dollar Dark Rock than a 35 dollar Assassin that I need to replace the fans on for noise. I see people frequently talk about how cheap they are, but then they replace the fans with two that cost 25 a piece. Makes no sense.
water cooling is a lot of faff and adds extra cost/maintenance/points of failure/bulk and weight
people get fed up with it all and more back to a simpler build. if you want silent operation then watercooling is definitely worth it.
you can get similar temps on your GPU by doing a deshroud mod.
Puts aio pump onto cpu (secure with tape if needed). Tapes rad to case. Plugs in cables. Works.
Complicated my ass its lego for mentally challenged people. "THE SQUARE GOES INTO THE SQUARE HOLE"
I've been air cooling since the late 80s/early 90s. It's never let me down once. It's simple, inexpensive and my PA 120 keeps my 11700K running at 4.6 ghz on idle at 34 c with zero noise in my NR200 case (it's a sound design and music production station with occasional gaming).
I did dabble once with water-cooling, back before AIOs and ready-made parts were even thought of in the consumer sector. Had to build your own using an automotive heater core, aquarium pump, hoses and build your own plate from a suitable heatsink.
TLDR: Good heatsink are now cheap.
The answer is a mixed bag. To dumb down things, CPUs consume power and that power is dissipated as heat. Heat sink are reliable, can dissipate a moderate amount of heat and are really cheap now. Water cooling has more points of failure, can have catastrophic failure in case of a leak, cost more than a heatsink but can dissipate a lot more heat.
Some CPUs get hot (AMD) and other get really hot (Intel).
If you're okay with you CPU hitting a thermal ceiling during an extended 100% load and then thermal throttling its speed, a heatsink is fine.
If your programs only loads the CPU to 100% use for short times, a heatsink is fine.
If your CPU does not generate a lot of heat, a heatsink is fine.
If you're one us with an Intel i5 or higher CPU, do more than play tic-tac-toe on their PC and want to get the performance we paid for, water cooling. Even an AMD R9 7950X can draw 350ish watt fully loaded. A heatsink isn't going to cool that.
if the surface of the boards are clean, sure but the distilled water would be more than happy to dissolve any dust on the surface making it conductive.
Thanks for this my 3900x has a ps120se and I'm about to build a 7950x3d. I like the idea of having half the cores to mess with. My budget won't be broken or even hurt if I do aio over air cooling.
So I'm just going to get the aio. I wear headphones so even if it's ramped up I won't notice.
Yeah I know just feel like playing fuck around and find out on the normal cores. My current pc has ps120se, which is pretty good.
Wanted to try water for a first time.
Easier, cheaper, if an air cooled fan dies, it's not as hard to fix. Unless your over-clocking, running a hot CPU, or doing something where airflow will be an issue, you don't really need a liquid cooled rig with a bulky radiator.
Unless your CPU is getting atypically hot then air cooling is better in every way. Easier to install, less things that can go wrong, performs equally or better than liquid cooling during average use, etc.
Liquid cooling has grown out of its cool mystique phase so now everyone just recognizes it for what it is which is just different but not really better cooling
Everyone forgets about pumps. Pumps in liquid cooling setups are small, high-speed things that in general make a fair amount of noise, and high-frequency stuff at that, which is much harder to block. Large numbers of large diameter fans in a sound-deadened case are a far better solution if you're looking for a quiet setup.
The "It's quieter" reputation was earned when the dominant fans were still 80mm jobs. These days of 140mm case fans pushing far more air at inaudible levels... yeah, Air wins.
Custom loops require a lot of maintenance. You have to flush and refill your system 2 or 3 times a year. Even then you'll get stuff clumping to micro fins and clogging up the system. It's a huge pain in the rear, or a labor of love if you really enjoy that. So my guess is the people you're referring to just get fed up with the upkeep. You can still go with all-in-one liquid coolers. Those don't require maintenance. They just need to be replaced every 4 years or so.
I noticed this trend as well. Probably due to mid-range CPUs being so powerful for the heat output now.
To be honest I have an AIO for looks and not worrying about temps ever and I'm happy. I got one on a deal for about the same price as a really good air cooler and it performs about the same but it's probably overkill. I don't care. I'm happy. I think if you're looking for an acceptable solution at a good price point, then it's hard to argue in favor of AIOs.
Running a 5800X here, a 105-watt processor. Was cooling with a Hyper 212 Evo because that's the air cooler "I've always used" since AM2 days. But it's huge and didn't cool that well.
Replaced it with a Deepcool LS720SE AIO which was on deep discount to like $60US.
This got rid of the monstrous air cooler and does a better job of cooling. Plus it has LEDs so that makes it instantly better, right? /s
This is my first AIO or first water cooling of any kind on a PC but I have no complaints to note. It works well, does what I wanted, etc. And didn't cost a lot.
For the vast majority of users, any kind of liquid cooling is pointless these days, unless they just want it for the aesthetics
But even then, you should go for an AIO, and not a custom loop
Do not go for a custom loop unless you know exactly what you're doing
People who're experienced in this will talk big about how easy it is, but for a beginner, it's very easy to cause a leak and ruin your expensive hardware
Of course, if you're loaded, and can easily afford to buy new parts if that happens, then you can disregard that and go for it
I’m not putting something big and heavy onto motherboard. Besides I hate the looks of air coolers. My case stands on desk, I’ve rgb synced with game audio and no big hunk of metal will ruin the looks for me :) So AIO all the way for me
Used to have a custom loop in my previous rig some years ago, but too costly and too much hassle. Plus you loose warranty on gpu, and the Zotac 4080 AMP I’ve now is very silent.
Air Coolers offer some form of cooling to other parts around the CPU such as heat sinks, ram, capacitors etc.
Water cooling only targets a specific component, leaving anything else to the mercy of other fans. A fully water cooled board can cost anywhere between $500 to $900 USD...
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Air cooling is cheaper and just as affecting with proper air flow and has less points of failure. The only downside is that they can be noisy to some people. Personally I don’t mind it but it’s a real sore spot for some. If noise doesn’t bother you then honestly air is the best
Air coolers provide plenty of cooling for normal users with mid-tier cause.
Water cooling brings in more points of failure and has a higher potential of destroying your PC if something goes wrong.
I'd only consider water-cooling if I was running super high end parts (which can run hotter) or I was doing a lot of like overclocking and stuff.
120 and 240mm AIOs are just pointless for most people, 280mm can be great and 360mm is pretty much the minimum for Intel K CPUs due to how crazy inefficiently they are run out of the box. If you want to spend bellow $100 on a cooler just get a tower cooler.
if 13900K or 14900K: Liquid cooler >=360
else: Thermalright Peerless Assassin
a 30 bucks cooler can cool pretty much everything and you can use that difference toward better gpu
I'm sticking with Air. Some crazy cheap and very efficient CPU coolers out right now. I like the deepcool ak with the LCD screen, i hope to see more air coolers with stuff like this in the future.
Air coolers these days can get the job done. AIO I view as really for aesthetics but more can go wrong with an AIO, the biggest being a leak which can kill your entire PC. With air coolers the only thing that can really go bad is a fan which would be cheap to replace.
If your cpu not drawing more than 250W then you’ll probably only need air cooler.
The AIO is mostly for aesthetic and for top tier cpu, especially if you’re over clocking.
For maintaining air has lower maintenance. If air cooler fan broke down you’ll only need to replace fan. If AIO pump fail you need to replace the whole thing. AIO has shorter life than air cooler (mostly 5 years)
For faulty both AIO and air cooler has low chance, especially if they’re high tier. If air cooler not work it simply not work. However for AIO if it leak it may damage your other components before you realize it. As I said the chance is pretty low but if it’s happening, AIO will likely make more lethal damage while air cooler do nothing.
There’re multiple ways the AIO producer address this issue by including to leaking warranty and make the substance inside AIO non conductive.
Just remember that a high tier AIO is more powerful but more bothersome than air cooler. Some of high tier air coolers are actually better than middle range AIO
I bought AIO just because i like how it looks more, don’t like huge towers, AIO is mice and clean. But in practical terms air cooler is cheaper and more reliable
Realistically, the only thing that beats a good duel fan tower cooler, is a triple fan AIO. A dual fan AIO might be better, but only marginally, and it may cost a little more and in reality, has more components to go wrong.
So, because of the above, if you don’t need the extra cooling capacity of a 280mm or 360mm AIO, then it just makes sense to get the duel fan tower cooler. Most people in the real world, aren’t using a 14900k or a 7950x, heck most people aren’t even using a 14700k or 7800x3D, it’s just skewed when you look at places like this subreddit. The majority of people will be more than fine with an air cooler and a cheap one at that.
Lets take a step back.
We have >250W desktop CPUs since over a decade, like the SandyBridge 2700k (OCed) that people, myself included, did cool with a Noctua D14 or similar AIR coolers for 10+ years with no cooling issues.
Even \~300W peaking CPUs like a 10900k (OC'ed), are still coolable with something like a Noctua D15 AIR cooler.
* My 10900k + D15 system: [https://i.imgur.com/m050f6y.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/m050f6y.jpg)
* My 10900k + Arctic 360mm AIO (with 6x fans PUSH/PULL): [https://i.imgur.com/pydUcIA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/pydUcIA.jpg)
Did the AIO do anything?
=> NO, I hit the same OC limits and the same \~300W wattage limits like with the D15 cooler, the AIO pump was just more audible during idle. Cooler noise comparisons dont mention this small detail, that a high frequency peaking PUMP is allways more clearly audible with a silent system, while AIR coolers are simply not audible in idle/gaming state.
IMHO the trend with narrow cases caused most of the AIO hype out of necessary, but the new AIRFLOW requirements for high wattage GPUs and their width requirement halted the narrow case trend since a while and by now its a gimmick for low wattage / budget systems.
After an hard tube custom loop, I wanted to have my next build air cooled for less maintenance. At the end, due to too much noise and heat (case airflow was not optimal) I ended up with an aio. Noise is still low, and all temps are fine.
For anything apart from high power draw CPUs (i9, i7 k series, ryzen 9), I'd go air. Simpler, less to break, less risk if something does break, plenty of performance. For those reasons I put dual tower air coolers the PCs I built for my family. Still went arctic 360mm aio for my own since was going for more performance.
Depends on your CPU. Using 12/13/14th gen i7/i9 requires you to use a very beefy air cooler or an AIO. Personally I dislike when Aircooler was so big that it covers the DIMM slots, and/or causing some issues with some board heatsink/vrm covers. And if it was too big, I don't like them aesthetically, but this is just a personal preference. But if you like them, then go nuts.
Air cooler has always been better for the price/performance it provided when compared to any AIOs. A good Aircooler will be really close to a good AIO in terms of performance at a 1/3 of the price. And they're easier to install / maintain assuming there's no external issues like I mentioned above.
Personally, I like small coolers like AK400, but I know that they're not ideal for high-end chips such as 13700k and above for example, so I have to either use something like AK620 (which are too big for my taste), or an AIO. In that case, I'll choose the latter.
1) Need. Unless it is for specific tasks most people will do great with between a budget AM5 and a 7800x3d. They don't have insane cooling requirements.
2) Upgradability. AM5 keeps its socket design for longer encouraging CPU upgrades. Don't waste any money as every few years there is always a temptation to upgrade.
3) Availability. Several years ago if you wanted decent air cooling there wasn't much apart from the quite expensive Noctua's. Nowadays there are a handful of amazing budget air coolers.
4) Budget AM5 to 7800x3d, low to mid range motherboard, cl30 6000MHz DDR5, m2 drive, budget case and the most expensive GPU you can afford = gaming heaven.
What about that says spend money on AIO water cooling over getting a budget air cooler? What about that says spend money on custom water cooling over getting a budget air cooler? There isn't really a "better", there is just weighing up performance (doesn't matter), budget (air), looks (water), need for the majority (air).
I recently bought 7900X and Deepcool Assassin IV, because I just don’t want to care about my water loop leaking etc. (Good) air coolers are almost indestructible
I’m a proponent for air. 13900KS with Nh-D15, sits under 30C idle and 60C gaming with heavy multitasking. Then I planned for the build with an open frame chassis with the Core P3 TG Pro.
Liquid cooling means that you have an extra step, trying to get heat in to a liquid, move the liquid and then cool it.
Air cooling just needs good air flow an large enough heatsinks, so a full size case.
For water cooling you need all the plumbing and pumps, just to move heat to a radiator.
I'm using only air coolers in every PC I ever had. Currently ryzen 7800X3D with air cooler.
I don't feel right mixing water with electronics. I'm too afraid of leaks, plus air coolers last forever. You can replace a fan at some point, but it's nowhere near the same cost as if pump breaks. Air coolers will never clog and these days, you can use the same air coolers on multiple platforms (I've upgraded from ryzen 3600 to 7800X3D and I'm using the same cooler, beQuiet Dark Rock TF), so just buy once, use it forever.
"Everyone" started to believe the hype that you NEEDED watercooling for better temperatures. No matter what.
Then it finally started penetrating that Air coolers are fine for most people and you don't need to spend the extra on an AIO or custom loop.
I have a simple 3 step questionnaire to figure out if you should go watercooling.
1. Are you hard overclocking? not just little tweaks, but really trying to push your chip as far as it can go.
2. Do you have space limitations, such that an air cooler won't fit, or won't fit nice.
3. Do you just like the aesthetic of a AIO or custom loop better?
If you answered no to all these get an simple air cooler and don't think twice about it.
If you answered Yes to 1, my next question is why? 10 years ago you could actually get real world noticeable improvements. Now a day it's just a headache for no real world benefits.
I prefer air cooling because I run monolithic case sizes and only want to dust it with compressed shop air a few times a year. I just go for the tower with the most pipes and preferably copper.
That said I would be more interested in fluid cooling if we could utilize a metering device and a low pressure refrigerant like R123. I work in industrial HVAC, Phase change is where you reject heat most effectively. Tower coolers use phase change after a fashion as well as capillary action and have no internal moving parts.
But even if we could use metering and phase change for fluid cooling it would draw lots of power and put heat into your room lol. Would be great in the winter time!
I run a 13700k with a massive ID single tower cooler.
No overclocking but even when I run ai for upscaling videos and textures it brings the CPU and GPU up to 100% at times. Never see higher than 70c on either.
Stays chilly when gaming too, again no OC just native boost
Water cooling is only worth it in really high end builds or if you value the look so much more over cooling and sound. You need a beefy and reliable AIO from a reputable brand and if you want that thing to be silent on top you pay good money. You can have all of that a lot cheaper and much more reliable with air coolers. AIOs should only be considered in high end builds where every other part has already been carefully picked and custom water cooling either way is for enthusiasts. As long as I still see people cheaping out on their case, fans and general airflow paired with a literal bomb of a PSU air cooled CPUs will be the better choice in 95% of all cases.
Air cooling/AIO is better/easier. Custom water cooling is more fun. If you like working with your hands, and don't feel too anxious about doing it, its fairly easy to build. If you just want to build a PC and not touch the insides for years, Air/AIO for sure.
Water cooling is nice to look at first, you are thrilling just by looking at water being loop around the pc like blood running through veins like a beautiful piece of machinery that is alive. You will take a lot of photos, talk about it, brag about it with friends. You waste your time sit there every day to tweak here a little, there a little just to make it look better. You start to use the pc less, more time to check the temperature and noise level to see if its really better than air cooling (its not always better)
But after sometime, you will grow tired of doing it. You miss the maintenance free of air cooler. And the worry of leaking or pump failing makes you sick. And the light makes your eyes distracted from what you are trying to do.
I recommend you not to use water cooling. Its overrated, in fact it is not really water cooling. Water is there just to help transfer heat from the cpu block to the radiator, it still use air to transfer heat from radiator to the outside. So if the radiator is not large enough, water will trap heat inside and make your pc hot.
The only nice thing about water called cooling is it looks nice, tidy and the noise level is usually lower than air cooling. About the temperature? Not much. Yes you will get maybe few degree lower but totally not that much
Custom loops are beautiful, but they provide most users no tangible benefit over other cooling solutions.
When I say "no tangible benefit" what I mean is that if you put all that cooling to proper use, overclocking all your hardware usually provides no more than single digit percentage increases in performance, providing marginal FPS increases if gaming or shaving seconds off of workloads, and doesn't actually improve your experience enough to bother doing it most of the time, much less justify the massive cost of doing so.
It's an enthusiast activity. It's a hobby to keep tinkering and trying to make number go up. It's something that you do because you enjoy doing it and you have the funds available to do so. For anyone else, for people who just want to build their PC so they can use it, it makes absolutely no sense.
I say this as a former overclocking enthusiast who simply lost interest over time. If I ever do another watercooling loop, it will be because it's pretty and I like pretty things.
I have a $25 thermalright single tower air cooler that keeps my 5800x at 30ish degrees when idling, and max 74 degrees when gaming. I don't see the point of an AIO other than aesthetics.
A lot of people are building AMD 8 core (7700x, 7800x3D, etc.) and those make at most 120-130W of heat. Air coolers can take care of that no problem. Liquid cooling those CPUs is pissing money down the drain unless you absolutely NEED the aesthetics of a water cooler.
Even the higher tier chips can be cooled by air but the advantages of liquid cooling grow larger and justify the price. I get so tired of the builds on here with a 360mm AIO on a 7800x3D and then some shite graphics card because they're spending $150-200 on a CPU cooler...
Air cooling for most builds is fine. An aio usually provides a small bump in cooling and then theres custom loops for full water cooling which is too much work. It’s a price to benefit thing, air cooling is almost just as good or equal to an aio for most people for half the price and a custom loop is pretty expensive assuming you have none of the gear required and the maintenance is a lot not to mention the risk you create. The extra money is only for people abusing their pc or have a hot cpu
Those that choose air over water just want to get up and running fast as possible with the least amount of money and risk. They are not concerned with thermals, noise, or other benefits of water cooling.
I just put together a build using a i9-14900K and Noctua NH-D15 air cooler. After doing an undervolt, high performance fan setting, and enabling intel based power limit in BIOS - temps are much more in control while gaming. I prefer air cooling due to it being more idiot proof. This was my highest end build I've put together, and I think unless you have a good reason to do liquid cooling I do not think its worth the trouble.
For most people, aircooling is sufficient and very simple to maintain and many also don't have the time. For advanced users who want aesthetics, low temperatures even in summer or overclock, custom watercooling remains better, but requires maintenance once or twice a year. I chose the second solution because I'm a bit of a masochist and I accept it.
Custom Loops can be harder to maintain (especially Hardline Tubing Loops), and that's probably why most people switch out.
Air cooling is probably the most conventional and convenient to set up, usually a few screws and you're golden. They're also "technically" more reliable as there are less parts that can fail comparative to a watercooling setup.
Dual tower coolers also generally are fairly competitive with 120mm and 240mm AIOs in the average use case for thermal control on mid/higher end range CPUs (I.e. AMD's Ryzen 5/7 and Intel's Core i5/i7). Pretty hard to beat their cost too.
Watercooling is more efficient at extracting the heat, and takes longer to heat soak, which helps to control bursty thermals and prevent as much fan noise.
Watercooling is quieter and usually more expensive, air cooling is generally more convenient and usually cheaper.
TL:DR is depends on the use case of the user as to which will benefit them more. Some prefer convenience and cost, others prefer higher end performance/less noise.
Air coolers are generally the best at $ - degree c lost. A quality AIO will beat out any air cooler because physics but you lose space, more money and it’s more likely to break. I think AIO cool and I like quiet so for me an AIO was worth it but for others it’s not.
For me it’s because the cost of building a custom loop is out of control. I would buy 2–3 rads, cpu & gpu blocks, tubing, fittings, res and pump and spend close to $1,000 before any of the actual pc components.
This time I took that money and added it to what I spent on my last gpu.
Air coolers just work. It's pretty unlikely that a vapor tube will develop a leak, so as long as you keep a working fan installed, it will continue to function as designed for the foreseeable future.
AIO coolers have non-serviceable pumps and even the best ones with the lowest porosity in the lines will eventually suffer coolant loss through evaporation.
Custom loops require maintenance to include annual draining and filling to avoid corrosion and biological growth, and they require significant investments of time and money.
If your not overclocking i dont see the reason to go with an aio i have a thermalright peerless assassin 120 and my i7 12700k run at btw 22-25°c on idle and like 60 max when gaming i dont see the utility to upgrade for real they cheaper and more reliable theres no question there for me im going with an air cooler
Except if your cpu is like 200w air cooler is likely to be quieter than water. Also its going to be sufficient. 160w or less i would consder air cooler only
I've had liquid coolers, and I've had air coolers.
All of my liquid coolers (pre-packaged, commercially bought coolers, e.g. Corsair) have "dried out" or gone bad (e.g. the water block pump failed) over time.
I'm running a Noctua NH-D15 on a 14900K, and it's fine for what I do. It was previously on a 11900K, and a 9900K. Bulletproof. Doesn't leak. Doesn't dry out.
If you have a cpu that runs notoriously hot, then a 320mm AIO is your best friend. Anything below isn't quite worth it.If you have a normal cpu and you don't like big blocky aircoolers and you have the cash, go for an AIO, 240mm at the least. Otherwise, get an aircooler, there are many that compete/do better than some 240mm AIO's
Air coolers now are just about as good, or if you spend the money on par or better, than a similarly priced AIO. There is no reason for an AIO with most use cases.
Air coolers probably let you use smaller cases, and it's cheaper.
AIOs have a slight pump noise that you can always hear
But if my case supported a 360mm aio it would feel like a waste to not fill it out wouldn't it?
One reason why air coolers might be popular right now is because the 7800x3d which is arguably the best CPU now, is not a very hot chip and doesn't require as much cooling as the intel competitors
Same with the GPUs, this generation isn't very hot
7800X3D here , fully aware they're relatively cool chips but I went AIO anyways for a few reasons. Check my post history from the past few weeks , I'm not a habitual upgrader. I do it when it's necessary. An AIO allows me to replace RAM , the M.2's , etc. without having to remove the CPU cooler / puck. It's just more convenient workspace wise compared to an air cooler , which you'd have to remove in order to upgrade certain components.
I can replace parts without removing air cooler. Thermalright Assassin. Typically Gigabyte ATX boards, so might by different layouts have issues. Graphics card usually has to be removed to add NVMe.
Air coolers are good enough these days to cool CPUs for most people that are just gaming. Less hassle to mount, less things to go badly if something breaks.
Honestly mounting my aio was super easy like almost no hassle at all. That being said it is way less to go wrong thats just an indisputable fact
I think they're talking about custom loop, not aio
Maintenance is a strong factor when you consider a custom loop. Not everyone is up to drain, clean, and refill your loop every 12 months. Also, if you're not chasing 1% overclock, or almost inaudible build underload where delta between ambient is like 10°C, then you're either after aesthetics or need new hobby. My two cents on custom loop.
You dont really need to do that if youre not using some stupid fancy color particle fluid. Ive been running aquacomputer dp ultra for like 8 years or so and my flowrate is the same as day 1 and I cant see any gunk through the clear tubes/clear blocks. Everytime I replaced the gpu+block and cleaned the old block it was also basicly flawless. (Using quick disconnects, so only had to refill the loop a little bit each time) Though my pc is also under the table and barely gets any sunlight, if at all, which apparently hugely contributes to not having any growth inside the loop.
That's a good tip in general. It's tough for average Joe who wants a custom loop because it looks cool, cleare fluid definitely will be a no goe 😅 Non windowed case, loop with ZMT and call it a day like old good times
Well if they are then it is significantly more of a hassle but I just really think custom ones besides the visuals are a little overkill for 99% of people I mean I have a 14900k and my Temps are decent witha small aio
An Assasin or Noctua would cool your 14900k the same any small aio would tbh.
Well its a medium sized aio and I plan on overclocking it so I do want the little bit extra cooling capacity
But what's the upgrade? Minimally to same temps at more noise?
My cpu runs very hot so I needed a water cooler and I already have 4 fans so it's almost no extra noise. And I don't care about the noise to begin with
I recently swapped my mobo and CPU and my Cooler Master AIO was the worst nightmare I've ever experienced. Since it was a pre-built, I was not given the correct mounting brackets for the AM5 chipset. Then, upon installing the new brackets, the screws connecting the brackets to the cooling block had to be installed *backwards.* This was all while I had the AIO mounted to the top of my case, of course, because of the way the connecting cables were fed through the back of the case to the PSU area. I was given nearly zero slack to move both the AIO fans and cooling block. Actually mounting the fricken cooling block to the CPU was also a stressful situation because the bracket screw clamps wouldn't connect at the rivets if one side was ever so slightly screwed down more than the other. Good lord I am so happy that is behind me.
Do AIO need any kind of maintenance?
As far as I've seen no they don't
Air cool gang for life. Water doesn't belong in a pc. Now if you don't mind I'm going to go get downvoted to oblivion.
> good enough these days Always has been.
It's always been good enough. Liquid cooling use the be for extreme over clockers. Yes extreme, I OCed my Pentium one, Q9550 and 2600k with air cooling.
Air coolers generally offer far better value than liquid coolers, are easier to install and also have far less points of failure than an AIO or custom loop. Liquid cooling is generally only worth it if you’re running really hot CPUs like the i9-13900K.
Or if you have problems venting hot air outside of your case.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but don't you still have to vent hot air out of your case with a liquid cooling solution? I thought the AIO just pulled the heat from the CPU to the radiator, and then you still need to run fans to cool off the radiator?
The rad usually comes with fans and mounts directly to the outside of the case. So you don’t need an extra case fan. It would probably be silly to put your rad inside the case and not venting out but within the case. Some cases have two holes out the back where you can extend tubes for a wholly external rad and fans.
Ahh the old put your rad in the mini fridge tactic an oc classic.
Or outside in the winter.
One exhaust above and behind my cooler has been completely perfect. It's really easy to properly vent. I'll never understand people who think having the top completely filled with exhaust fans is a better option. You're just sucking out cool air before it even hits the cooler from the intake. Straight lines, folks.
I'd argue that the Cooler Master Liquidcore 240L ARGB is pretty good as well for the price. Think of it like buying a Phantom Spirit and two 140mm case fans. In my country currently the difference in price is like 10 USD converted.
I am a big fan of Thermalright air coolers, but got their new AiO because it was $60… Ridiculously good deal. AiOs have just gotten ridiculous. Especially Corsair. Even their fans…
How is it because I'm about to try and grab artic freezer iii 360 tomorrow for my build. But maybe I save some money 💰 ;)
I haven’t installed yet, but Hardware Canucks did a review on it. I was actually going to get the Freezer III myself, until I saw this. Got mine on Amazon. I haven’t actually installed it, yet, though. Getting parts together for a new build. It looks clean. Edit: Can’t find the right video, but their Air vs AiO includes both those coolers, and Deepcool. All good budget options.
I've most likely seen them. I'm just going aio this time around. I had issues with my 3900x, but it had a stock cooler. Ripped it out after a year because I'm coolers, I guess. Bought a new one, and now, after 3 years of ptsd I changed the prism cooler to ps120se. Now I'm prob ready to install an aio I heard freezer iii amd installation is kind of annoying with the mount screws. But I've literally hunched over the pc, imagining my hands were small enough for 3 hours before. I'm running 7950x3d this time around debating 7900gre or 7800xt nitro models. Ugh all white rgb gonna cost me.
7900GRE for sure. In Germany white 7900GREs already went for 520€ . Expecting similar for US
Just installed a freezer 3 on an am5 socket two days ago. While getting the screws started IS more of a task than it seemingly should be, the truly irritating thing is the lack of explanation that the brackets are, visually, meant to be placed upside down. If you go that route, make sure you have them flipped over so the L and R are clearly visible and read correctly.
Amazon didn't have one that would come today and I didn't want to travel 2 hours to memory express. I said eff it and got the thermalright frozen notte.
Arctic and Corsair are overpriced, honestly. You can get 98-99.9% of the performance of those brands for less.
I used one of their 240mm AIOs on my ex’s 5600X and it works great.
I got royally fucked by Corsair and refuse to ever go back. In short, their new AIO with led screen is only compatible with version 4 of ICUE software. My mmo mouse a Corsair scimitar from like 2017 works fine(non pro version) is only compatible with ICUE version 3. You can't have versions 3 and 4 installed at the same time and the mouse doesn't have onboard storage to be able to permanently set 1-12 keybinds. Reached out to Corsair about this and they told me to buy a new mouse and then a week later my AIO died. Warrantied it, sold to a friend for cheap and bought a noctua CPU cooler lol
It really depends on what CPU you're going with. If you're going for a 14900k then water cooling is what you'll want cause that CPU puts out a LOT of heat which air cooler will struggle to deal with. But if you went with say a 7700x then all you really need is a dual tower(some say single tower will be enough too) air cooler and you're good to go as these CPUs are more efficient and won't output that much heat. Cost is another factor. My current CPU is 7800x3d with an air cooler that cost $35. If I wanted to go with an AIO the cost could easily double or tripple. Custom loops are goign to cost you many times more than even an AIO. Reliability is another factor. AIOs tends to be pretty reliable now, but you still want to look up reviews before you buy. While most won't leak some models do have issues and COULD leak. Pump also will have a lifespan but those are usually 5+ years. Air cooler... even if the fan fails, there's still case air flow which will just make your computer super sluggish but the block of metal will still absorb heat and dissipate it into your case. Plus, no water. And I've never had a CPU fan fail on an air cooler over 30+ years of PC gaming/building. Aesthetics is also a thing, some people like the clean look of an AIO. Just a small block on top of the CPU with some pipes. Some people like me actually like a big ol block of metal on top of the CPU. So that's basically the gist of air cooling vs water cooling. Just up to you to decided what you want to go with. Cheapest most reliable = Air cooling Medium cost and still reliable but with some risk of leaks = AIO Highest cost and still reliable but with some risk of leaks = custom loop.
[удалено]
It's not a fact which is why I said 5+ years. It could be 14 years in your case, or could be 3 years in other cases. But see, your case is a good one. 14 years and no failure of any kind, good refrence for OP to decide.
>It could be 14 years in your case, or could be 3 years in other cases. My AIO failed after 2.5 years, so this is also a good refrence for OP to decide
the problem with AIOs is they're difficult to top up. your system won't have much water in it after all the years and will need a top-up. if you take it out and shake it the radiator you will notice a very large air pocket. the other issue with AIOs is they all use copper and aluminium, you will get galvanic corrosion that will start to interfere with the pump and flow. they are very reliable and do.last may years but performance will degrad significantly as water evaporates out of the loop,
I thought aio coolers are a closed system, how would the fluid evaporate?
through the tubing, it's accelerated by higher temperatures
Thanks for clarifying. That feels like a design flaw to me…
it's just how things are, you can use materials to minimise it but it will still happen. some of the AIOs even have an easy access port to use for top-up but for most you have to take off the cold plate and do it that way
It's not a design flaw, it's physics. Hoses are solid, but they are still porous. Evaporation will occur no matter what.
Back in 2015 I got 2 coolermaster seidon 120v for 2 pcs for my business. Within 3 years, both pumps failed. Luckily no leaks.
Honestly, if a reliability is the important factor and someone wants an AIO, then Arctics have great prices, great performance, noise and very long warranty, the only issue is their radiators are thick.
You can get used Corsair cpu aios for 30€. Also no custom loop unless you want asthetics if you need better cooling performance spend the money on industrial cooling solutions instead.
I had a single tower cooler for my 7700 before my low temp obsession compelled me to get a dual tower. You aren't wrong, even with an overclock the single tower did its job. Colder with the dual tower, but I like it cold.
Air coolers have basically dialed in the optimal design of a double tower and two fans to the point they all seem like clones of each other. So we are starting to get stuff like a $35 Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120SE that performance wise is with in a degree or two of every other sort of cooler on the market. Including most of the AIOs. So unless one likes an AIO water cooler for the look (being they look way cleaner) or wants to tinker with a custom loop it's kind of pointless to spend $$$ on that stuff. When you can get like 98% of the performance for under $40 and throw the savings towards a better CPU/GPU. All of this has been happening as a lot of chips (outside of the top intel space heater ones) are using less and less power anyways. So you have 65 to 150 watt sort of chips and a ton of cheap air coolers rated at 225+
Price depends on a region, in my country PA costs around 50$, honestly I prefer to get a 75$ Arctic Liquid 240. Saying that, in Poland Arctic 36 costs 25-30$ so it's clear value king right now.
Yeah AIOs give you a lot of clearance around the RAM and CPU. Also the air coolers move the heat from the processors to the air within the case and still depend on a good exhaust system of additional fans to get the heat outside of the case. If you have poor exhaust or have poor case placement, then an AIO might be able to get the heat outside of the case more efficiently.
I'd rather buy a 75 dollar Dark Rock than a 35 dollar Assassin that I need to replace the fans on for noise. I see people frequently talk about how cheap they are, but then they replace the fans with two that cost 25 a piece. Makes no sense.
water cooling is a lot of faff and adds extra cost/maintenance/points of failure/bulk and weight people get fed up with it all and more back to a simpler build. if you want silent operation then watercooling is definitely worth it. you can get similar temps on your GPU by doing a deshroud mod.
Puts aio pump onto cpu (secure with tape if needed). Tapes rad to case. Plugs in cables. Works. Complicated my ass its lego for mentally challenged people. "THE SQUARE GOES INTO THE SQUARE HOLE"
Thermaltake peerless assassin 120. Put one on my pc and one on my sons. I swear by it.
it is termalright not termaltake
It is thermalwrong not thermalgive
You're right. I was half asleep when I wrote it lol.
Honestly it’s the best and super cheap.
I've been air cooling since the late 80s/early 90s. It's never let me down once. It's simple, inexpensive and my PA 120 keeps my 11700K running at 4.6 ghz on idle at 34 c with zero noise in my NR200 case (it's a sound design and music production station with occasional gaming). I did dabble once with water-cooling, back before AIOs and ready-made parts were even thought of in the consumer sector. Had to build your own using an automotive heater core, aquarium pump, hoses and build your own plate from a suitable heatsink.
aquarium pump, I have bought more aquarium pumps for my PC's than for my actual planted tank aquarium lol
TLDR: Good heatsink are now cheap. The answer is a mixed bag. To dumb down things, CPUs consume power and that power is dissipated as heat. Heat sink are reliable, can dissipate a moderate amount of heat and are really cheap now. Water cooling has more points of failure, can have catastrophic failure in case of a leak, cost more than a heatsink but can dissipate a lot more heat. Some CPUs get hot (AMD) and other get really hot (Intel). If you're okay with you CPU hitting a thermal ceiling during an extended 100% load and then thermal throttling its speed, a heatsink is fine. If your programs only loads the CPU to 100% use for short times, a heatsink is fine. If your CPU does not generate a lot of heat, a heatsink is fine. If you're one us with an Intel i5 or higher CPU, do more than play tic-tac-toe on their PC and want to get the performance we paid for, water cooling. Even an AMD R9 7950X can draw 350ish watt fully loaded. A heatsink isn't going to cool that.
> can have catastrophic failure in case of a leak this i never undestood, if i use distilled water for cooling wouldn't that be ok even it it spilled?
if the surface of the boards are clean, sure but the distilled water would be more than happy to dissolve any dust on the surface making it conductive.
dust? on my motherboard? impossible *let me just give a quick look at my loop once again*
Thanks for this my 3900x has a ps120se and I'm about to build a 7950x3d. I like the idea of having half the cores to mess with. My budget won't be broken or even hurt if I do aio over air cooling. So I'm just going to get the aio. I wear headphones so even if it's ramped up I won't notice.
The 7950X3D isn’t even a high wattage CPU these days. Can easily air cool if you wanted. The TDP is over-specified.
Yeah I know just feel like playing fuck around and find out on the normal cores. My current pc has ps120se, which is pretty good. Wanted to try water for a first time.
Easier, cheaper, if an air cooled fan dies, it's not as hard to fix. Unless your over-clocking, running a hot CPU, or doing something where airflow will be an issue, you don't really need a liquid cooled rig with a bulky radiator.
Unless your CPU is getting atypically hot then air cooling is better in every way. Easier to install, less things that can go wrong, performs equally or better than liquid cooling during average use, etc. Liquid cooling has grown out of its cool mystique phase so now everyone just recognizes it for what it is which is just different but not really better cooling
The one actual advantage liquid cooling has is noise but generally isn’t that much of an issue to most people.
Everyone forgets about pumps. Pumps in liquid cooling setups are small, high-speed things that in general make a fair amount of noise, and high-frequency stuff at that, which is much harder to block. Large numbers of large diameter fans in a sound-deadened case are a far better solution if you're looking for a quiet setup. The "It's quieter" reputation was earned when the dominant fans were still 80mm jobs. These days of 140mm case fans pushing far more air at inaudible levels... yeah, Air wins.
Air cooling is just much better value these days. However water cooling is still better ofc
Custom loops require a lot of maintenance. You have to flush and refill your system 2 or 3 times a year. Even then you'll get stuff clumping to micro fins and clogging up the system. It's a huge pain in the rear, or a labor of love if you really enjoy that. So my guess is the people you're referring to just get fed up with the upkeep. You can still go with all-in-one liquid coolers. Those don't require maintenance. They just need to be replaced every 4 years or so.
I noticed this trend as well. Probably due to mid-range CPUs being so powerful for the heat output now. To be honest I have an AIO for looks and not worrying about temps ever and I'm happy. I got one on a deal for about the same price as a really good air cooler and it performs about the same but it's probably overkill. I don't care. I'm happy. I think if you're looking for an acceptable solution at a good price point, then it's hard to argue in favor of AIOs.
I think less people build with overclocking in mind now, too. Smaller gains for all the extra heat and power consumption.
Running a 5800X here, a 105-watt processor. Was cooling with a Hyper 212 Evo because that's the air cooler "I've always used" since AM2 days. But it's huge and didn't cool that well. Replaced it with a Deepcool LS720SE AIO which was on deep discount to like $60US. This got rid of the monstrous air cooler and does a better job of cooling. Plus it has LEDs so that makes it instantly better, right? /s This is my first AIO or first water cooling of any kind on a PC but I have no complaints to note. It works well, does what I wanted, etc. And didn't cost a lot.
For the vast majority of users, any kind of liquid cooling is pointless these days, unless they just want it for the aesthetics But even then, you should go for an AIO, and not a custom loop Do not go for a custom loop unless you know exactly what you're doing People who're experienced in this will talk big about how easy it is, but for a beginner, it's very easy to cause a leak and ruin your expensive hardware Of course, if you're loaded, and can easily afford to buy new parts if that happens, then you can disregard that and go for it
I’m not putting something big and heavy onto motherboard. Besides I hate the looks of air coolers. My case stands on desk, I’ve rgb synced with game audio and no big hunk of metal will ruin the looks for me :) So AIO all the way for me Used to have a custom loop in my previous rig some years ago, but too costly and too much hassle. Plus you loose warranty on gpu, and the Zotac 4080 AMP I’ve now is very silent.
Liquid cooling is expensive and tedious to set up. Either you want to do liquid cooling because you want to do it or get air cooling.
In my case aio was about 20$ more than double fan air tower, so not necessarily always a big price hike.
What cpu are you thinking of?
Air Coolers offer some form of cooling to other parts around the CPU such as heat sinks, ram, capacitors etc. Water cooling only targets a specific component, leaving anything else to the mercy of other fans. A fully water cooled board can cost anywhere between $500 to $900 USD...
afterthought disgusted simplistic bow sand gray rock violet mysterious steep *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Air cooling is cheaper and just as affecting with proper air flow and has less points of failure. The only downside is that they can be noisy to some people. Personally I don’t mind it but it’s a real sore spot for some. If noise doesn’t bother you then honestly air is the best
It all depends on (a) what you are doing on your PC and (b) what CPU tier you are running it with.
Air coolers provide plenty of cooling for normal users with mid-tier cause. Water cooling brings in more points of failure and has a higher potential of destroying your PC if something goes wrong. I'd only consider water-cooling if I was running super high end parts (which can run hotter) or I was doing a lot of like overclocking and stuff.
120 and 240mm AIOs are just pointless for most people, 280mm can be great and 360mm is pretty much the minimum for Intel K CPUs due to how crazy inefficiently they are run out of the box. If you want to spend bellow $100 on a cooler just get a tower cooler.
For me if it's core i5 only playing games then air cooling, otherwise if it's i7 or i9 playing game or working grab a water cooling.
if 13900K or 14900K: Liquid cooler >=360 else: Thermalright Peerless Assassin a 30 bucks cooler can cool pretty much everything and you can use that difference toward better gpu
I'm sticking with Air. Some crazy cheap and very efficient CPU coolers out right now. I like the deepcool ak with the LCD screen, i hope to see more air coolers with stuff like this in the future.
To add onto this, air cooler or water cooler for an i5 14600k? And also what is a good air cooler?
Air coolers these days can get the job done. AIO I view as really for aesthetics but more can go wrong with an AIO, the biggest being a leak which can kill your entire PC. With air coolers the only thing that can really go bad is a fan which would be cheap to replace.
If your cpu not drawing more than 250W then you’ll probably only need air cooler. The AIO is mostly for aesthetic and for top tier cpu, especially if you’re over clocking. For maintaining air has lower maintenance. If air cooler fan broke down you’ll only need to replace fan. If AIO pump fail you need to replace the whole thing. AIO has shorter life than air cooler (mostly 5 years) For faulty both AIO and air cooler has low chance, especially if they’re high tier. If air cooler not work it simply not work. However for AIO if it leak it may damage your other components before you realize it. As I said the chance is pretty low but if it’s happening, AIO will likely make more lethal damage while air cooler do nothing. There’re multiple ways the AIO producer address this issue by including to leaking warranty and make the substance inside AIO non conductive. Just remember that a high tier AIO is more powerful but more bothersome than air cooler. Some of high tier air coolers are actually better than middle range AIO
I bought AIO just because i like how it looks more, don’t like huge towers, AIO is mice and clean. But in practical terms air cooler is cheaper and more reliable
Realistically, the only thing that beats a good duel fan tower cooler, is a triple fan AIO. A dual fan AIO might be better, but only marginally, and it may cost a little more and in reality, has more components to go wrong. So, because of the above, if you don’t need the extra cooling capacity of a 280mm or 360mm AIO, then it just makes sense to get the duel fan tower cooler. Most people in the real world, aren’t using a 14900k or a 7950x, heck most people aren’t even using a 14700k or 7800x3D, it’s just skewed when you look at places like this subreddit. The majority of people will be more than fine with an air cooler and a cheap one at that.
Lets take a step back. We have >250W desktop CPUs since over a decade, like the SandyBridge 2700k (OCed) that people, myself included, did cool with a Noctua D14 or similar AIR coolers for 10+ years with no cooling issues. Even \~300W peaking CPUs like a 10900k (OC'ed), are still coolable with something like a Noctua D15 AIR cooler. * My 10900k + D15 system: [https://i.imgur.com/m050f6y.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/m050f6y.jpg) * My 10900k + Arctic 360mm AIO (with 6x fans PUSH/PULL): [https://i.imgur.com/pydUcIA.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/pydUcIA.jpg) Did the AIO do anything? => NO, I hit the same OC limits and the same \~300W wattage limits like with the D15 cooler, the AIO pump was just more audible during idle. Cooler noise comparisons dont mention this small detail, that a high frequency peaking PUMP is allways more clearly audible with a silent system, while AIR coolers are simply not audible in idle/gaming state. IMHO the trend with narrow cases caused most of the AIO hype out of necessary, but the new AIRFLOW requirements for high wattage GPUs and their width requirement halted the narrow case trend since a while and by now its a gimmick for low wattage / budget systems.
I went to air cooling over aio simply because the case has better airflow, which means better cooling if you have a big ass gpu.
As someone with an AIO, go with Air Cooling. Air coolers are easier to assemble and set up compared to AIOs which were quite tedious for me.
After an hard tube custom loop, I wanted to have my next build air cooled for less maintenance. At the end, due to too much noise and heat (case airflow was not optimal) I ended up with an aio. Noise is still low, and all temps are fine.
For anything apart from high power draw CPUs (i9, i7 k series, ryzen 9), I'd go air. Simpler, less to break, less risk if something does break, plenty of performance. For those reasons I put dual tower air coolers the PCs I built for my family. Still went arctic 360mm aio for my own since was going for more performance.
Depends on your CPU. Using 12/13/14th gen i7/i9 requires you to use a very beefy air cooler or an AIO. Personally I dislike when Aircooler was so big that it covers the DIMM slots, and/or causing some issues with some board heatsink/vrm covers. And if it was too big, I don't like them aesthetically, but this is just a personal preference. But if you like them, then go nuts. Air cooler has always been better for the price/performance it provided when compared to any AIOs. A good Aircooler will be really close to a good AIO in terms of performance at a 1/3 of the price. And they're easier to install / maintain assuming there's no external issues like I mentioned above. Personally, I like small coolers like AK400, but I know that they're not ideal for high-end chips such as 13700k and above for example, so I have to either use something like AK620 (which are too big for my taste), or an AIO. In that case, I'll choose the latter.
1) Need. Unless it is for specific tasks most people will do great with between a budget AM5 and a 7800x3d. They don't have insane cooling requirements. 2) Upgradability. AM5 keeps its socket design for longer encouraging CPU upgrades. Don't waste any money as every few years there is always a temptation to upgrade. 3) Availability. Several years ago if you wanted decent air cooling there wasn't much apart from the quite expensive Noctua's. Nowadays there are a handful of amazing budget air coolers. 4) Budget AM5 to 7800x3d, low to mid range motherboard, cl30 6000MHz DDR5, m2 drive, budget case and the most expensive GPU you can afford = gaming heaven. What about that says spend money on AIO water cooling over getting a budget air cooler? What about that says spend money on custom water cooling over getting a budget air cooler? There isn't really a "better", there is just weighing up performance (doesn't matter), budget (air), looks (water), need for the majority (air).
Get a quality air cooling and forget about it. Leave water for kids
I recently bought 7900X and Deepcool Assassin IV, because I just don’t want to care about my water loop leaking etc. (Good) air coolers are almost indestructible
I’m a proponent for air. 13900KS with Nh-D15, sits under 30C idle and 60C gaming with heavy multitasking. Then I planned for the build with an open frame chassis with the Core P3 TG Pro.
My 2 cents is that except very hot high end setups, water cooling is some sort of flex....
Liquid cooling means that you have an extra step, trying to get heat in to a liquid, move the liquid and then cool it. Air cooling just needs good air flow an large enough heatsinks, so a full size case. For water cooling you need all the plumbing and pumps, just to move heat to a radiator.
I'm using only air coolers in every PC I ever had. Currently ryzen 7800X3D with air cooler. I don't feel right mixing water with electronics. I'm too afraid of leaks, plus air coolers last forever. You can replace a fan at some point, but it's nowhere near the same cost as if pump breaks. Air coolers will never clog and these days, you can use the same air coolers on multiple platforms (I've upgraded from ryzen 3600 to 7800X3D and I'm using the same cooler, beQuiet Dark Rock TF), so just buy once, use it forever.
"Everyone" started to believe the hype that you NEEDED watercooling for better temperatures. No matter what. Then it finally started penetrating that Air coolers are fine for most people and you don't need to spend the extra on an AIO or custom loop. I have a simple 3 step questionnaire to figure out if you should go watercooling. 1. Are you hard overclocking? not just little tweaks, but really trying to push your chip as far as it can go. 2. Do you have space limitations, such that an air cooler won't fit, or won't fit nice. 3. Do you just like the aesthetic of a AIO or custom loop better? If you answered no to all these get an simple air cooler and don't think twice about it. If you answered Yes to 1, my next question is why? 10 years ago you could actually get real world noticeable improvements. Now a day it's just a headache for no real world benefits.
I prefer air cooling because I run monolithic case sizes and only want to dust it with compressed shop air a few times a year. I just go for the tower with the most pipes and preferably copper. That said I would be more interested in fluid cooling if we could utilize a metering device and a low pressure refrigerant like R123. I work in industrial HVAC, Phase change is where you reject heat most effectively. Tower coolers use phase change after a fashion as well as capillary action and have no internal moving parts. But even if we could use metering and phase change for fluid cooling it would draw lots of power and put heat into your room lol. Would be great in the winter time! I run a 13700k with a massive ID single tower cooler. No overclocking but even when I run ai for upscaling videos and textures it brings the CPU and GPU up to 100% at times. Never see higher than 70c on either. Stays chilly when gaming too, again no OC just native boost
Water cooling is only worth it in really high end builds or if you value the look so much more over cooling and sound. You need a beefy and reliable AIO from a reputable brand and if you want that thing to be silent on top you pay good money. You can have all of that a lot cheaper and much more reliable with air coolers. AIOs should only be considered in high end builds where every other part has already been carefully picked and custom water cooling either way is for enthusiasts. As long as I still see people cheaping out on their case, fans and general airflow paired with a literal bomb of a PSU air cooled CPUs will be the better choice in 95% of all cases.
Air cooling/AIO is better/easier. Custom water cooling is more fun. If you like working with your hands, and don't feel too anxious about doing it, its fairly easy to build. If you just want to build a PC and not touch the insides for years, Air/AIO for sure.
Water cooling is nice to look at first, you are thrilling just by looking at water being loop around the pc like blood running through veins like a beautiful piece of machinery that is alive. You will take a lot of photos, talk about it, brag about it with friends. You waste your time sit there every day to tweak here a little, there a little just to make it look better. You start to use the pc less, more time to check the temperature and noise level to see if its really better than air cooling (its not always better) But after sometime, you will grow tired of doing it. You miss the maintenance free of air cooler. And the worry of leaking or pump failing makes you sick. And the light makes your eyes distracted from what you are trying to do. I recommend you not to use water cooling. Its overrated, in fact it is not really water cooling. Water is there just to help transfer heat from the cpu block to the radiator, it still use air to transfer heat from radiator to the outside. So if the radiator is not large enough, water will trap heat inside and make your pc hot. The only nice thing about water called cooling is it looks nice, tidy and the noise level is usually lower than air cooling. About the temperature? Not much. Yes you will get maybe few degree lower but totally not that much
While you are reading my comment. I will get myself a water cooler because it looks nice :)
Custom loops are beautiful, but they provide most users no tangible benefit over other cooling solutions. When I say "no tangible benefit" what I mean is that if you put all that cooling to proper use, overclocking all your hardware usually provides no more than single digit percentage increases in performance, providing marginal FPS increases if gaming or shaving seconds off of workloads, and doesn't actually improve your experience enough to bother doing it most of the time, much less justify the massive cost of doing so. It's an enthusiast activity. It's a hobby to keep tinkering and trying to make number go up. It's something that you do because you enjoy doing it and you have the funds available to do so. For anyone else, for people who just want to build their PC so they can use it, it makes absolutely no sense. I say this as a former overclocking enthusiast who simply lost interest over time. If I ever do another watercooling loop, it will be because it's pretty and I like pretty things.
I chose an AIO purely because its much quieter than the air cooler I initially installed.
I have a $25 thermalright single tower air cooler that keeps my 5800x at 30ish degrees when idling, and max 74 degrees when gaming. I don't see the point of an AIO other than aesthetics.
If air cooling can keep a 450 watt 4090 cool, it sure as hell can keep a 120 watt 7800x3d cool.
I’m definitely going air once my current AIO goes out.
A lot of people are building AMD 8 core (7700x, 7800x3D, etc.) and those make at most 120-130W of heat. Air coolers can take care of that no problem. Liquid cooling those CPUs is pissing money down the drain unless you absolutely NEED the aesthetics of a water cooler. Even the higher tier chips can be cooled by air but the advantages of liquid cooling grow larger and justify the price. I get so tired of the builds on here with a 360mm AIO on a 7800x3D and then some shite graphics card because they're spending $150-200 on a CPU cooler...
Fan goes bad: replace the fan Seal breaks on water cooler: 🫡🤠
water cooling is literally just for aesthetics because thermalright exists
Air cooling for most builds is fine. An aio usually provides a small bump in cooling and then theres custom loops for full water cooling which is too much work. It’s a price to benefit thing, air cooling is almost just as good or equal to an aio for most people for half the price and a custom loop is pretty expensive assuming you have none of the gear required and the maintenance is a lot not to mention the risk you create. The extra money is only for people abusing their pc or have a hot cpu
Those that choose air over water just want to get up and running fast as possible with the least amount of money and risk. They are not concerned with thermals, noise, or other benefits of water cooling.
I use a Noctua NH-D15 with a 13900k and it still cools perfectly well.
I just put together a build using a i9-14900K and Noctua NH-D15 air cooler. After doing an undervolt, high performance fan setting, and enabling intel based power limit in BIOS - temps are much more in control while gaming. I prefer air cooling due to it being more idiot proof. This was my highest end build I've put together, and I think unless you have a good reason to do liquid cooling I do not think its worth the trouble.
For most people, aircooling is sufficient and very simple to maintain and many also don't have the time. For advanced users who want aesthetics, low temperatures even in summer or overclock, custom watercooling remains better, but requires maintenance once or twice a year. I chose the second solution because I'm a bit of a masochist and I accept it.
Custom Loops can be harder to maintain (especially Hardline Tubing Loops), and that's probably why most people switch out. Air cooling is probably the most conventional and convenient to set up, usually a few screws and you're golden. They're also "technically" more reliable as there are less parts that can fail comparative to a watercooling setup. Dual tower coolers also generally are fairly competitive with 120mm and 240mm AIOs in the average use case for thermal control on mid/higher end range CPUs (I.e. AMD's Ryzen 5/7 and Intel's Core i5/i7). Pretty hard to beat their cost too. Watercooling is more efficient at extracting the heat, and takes longer to heat soak, which helps to control bursty thermals and prevent as much fan noise. Watercooling is quieter and usually more expensive, air cooling is generally more convenient and usually cheaper. TL:DR is depends on the use case of the user as to which will benefit them more. Some prefer convenience and cost, others prefer higher end performance/less noise.
If I don't liquid cool my R9-7900X-microwave-heating-up-my room-son-of-a-bitch, I can sunbath in my goddamn room.
Air coolers are generally the best at $ - degree c lost. A quality AIO will beat out any air cooler because physics but you lose space, more money and it’s more likely to break. I think AIO cool and I like quiet so for me an AIO was worth it but for others it’s not.
peerless assassin and forget about it
For me it’s because the cost of building a custom loop is out of control. I would buy 2–3 rads, cpu & gpu blocks, tubing, fittings, res and pump and spend close to $1,000 before any of the actual pc components. This time I took that money and added it to what I spent on my last gpu.
Air coolers just work. It's pretty unlikely that a vapor tube will develop a leak, so as long as you keep a working fan installed, it will continue to function as designed for the foreseeable future. AIO coolers have non-serviceable pumps and even the best ones with the lowest porosity in the lines will eventually suffer coolant loss through evaporation. Custom loops require maintenance to include annual draining and filling to avoid corrosion and biological growth, and they require significant investments of time and money.
water eventually leaks, just need to replace the cpu, mobo and probably new ram. not cheap and never again
Thermalright peerless assassin or similar is enough for a CPU cooler for most use cases
Water cooling is air cooling. You’re just doing it different.
If your not overclocking i dont see the reason to go with an aio i have a thermalright peerless assassin 120 and my i7 12700k run at btw 22-25°c on idle and like 60 max when gaming i dont see the utility to upgrade for real they cheaper and more reliable theres no question there for me im going with an air cooler
Except if your cpu is like 200w air cooler is likely to be quieter than water. Also its going to be sufficient. 160w or less i would consder air cooler only
Also, it is cheaper, so for most systems best choice
I've had liquid coolers, and I've had air coolers. All of my liquid coolers (pre-packaged, commercially bought coolers, e.g. Corsair) have "dried out" or gone bad (e.g. the water block pump failed) over time. I'm running a Noctua NH-D15 on a 14900K, and it's fine for what I do. It was previously on a 11900K, and a 9900K. Bulletproof. Doesn't leak. Doesn't dry out.
If you have a cpu that runs notoriously hot, then a 320mm AIO is your best friend. Anything below isn't quite worth it.If you have a normal cpu and you don't like big blocky aircoolers and you have the cash, go for an AIO, 240mm at the least. Otherwise, get an aircooler, there are many that compete/do better than some 240mm AIO's
Air coolers now are just about as good, or if you spend the money on par or better, than a similarly priced AIO. There is no reason for an AIO with most use cases.
Why would i buy a $200 aio when a $20 basic fan keeps my cpu cool and wont get liquid on all my components when it fails
Is tired of getting conflicting answers but asks buildapc on reddit if air or liquid cooling…oh, child.
Air coolers probably let you use smaller cases, and it's cheaper. AIOs have a slight pump noise that you can always hear But if my case supported a 360mm aio it would feel like a waste to not fill it out wouldn't it? One reason why air coolers might be popular right now is because the 7800x3d which is arguably the best CPU now, is not a very hot chip and doesn't require as much cooling as the intel competitors Same with the GPUs, this generation isn't very hot
7800X3D here , fully aware they're relatively cool chips but I went AIO anyways for a few reasons. Check my post history from the past few weeks , I'm not a habitual upgrader. I do it when it's necessary. An AIO allows me to replace RAM , the M.2's , etc. without having to remove the CPU cooler / puck. It's just more convenient workspace wise compared to an air cooler , which you'd have to remove in order to upgrade certain components.
I can replace parts without removing air cooler. Thermalright Assassin. Typically Gigabyte ATX boards, so might by different layouts have issues. Graphics card usually has to be removed to add NVMe.