Liquid cooled vs air cooled

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corgiperson@reddit

I think water cooling is a gimmick for any chip below like 175 watts. It’s so painful watching people throw a 200 dollar AIO on a 7600X while they have like a 3060. Buy a Peerless Assassin for 35 bucks, upgrade something else and call it a day.

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olalilalo@reddit

Air coolers last forever. Water cooler pumps fail. If your pump fails, you're not using your computer until it's replaced. Only thing that can fail on an air cooler is a fan, which are effortlessly replaced, and high end air coolers have two anyways so you can keep using the PC.

Liquid coolers look better and offer maybe a degree or two better performance at the top end. Air coolers are more reliable.

The CPU I have is completely fine with an air cooler and it cannot kill my GPU if not my entire build if it fails. At worst I'll get heavy throttling and a shutdown.

An AIO would be much prettier than a big chunk of metal but even if it's tiny, now that I have saved for and bought a 4080 super I'm not taking any risks and using running water over it.

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Piotr_Barcz@reddit

Water cooling I think generally has the advantage in that you can control what kind of air is going into the radiator, cold or hot. If you're prioritizing your general case temps then putting the radiator on top of the computer as exhaust will allow cooler air to get pulled into the case keeping the motherboard, GPU, VRMs and RAM etc. cooler.

However, I personally don't think you really have to worry about GPU temps as dual fan designs usually keep things manageable (87 degrees on a GPU under full load? That's where I draw my line, if I'm hitting over 87 C then I know my cooling ain't good enough).

Mounting the AIO radiator on the front 1. Gives you an easy fan unit (no need to install a million fans and wire them all) 2. Cools your CPU first (which is always the hottest part of the computer and if that throttles the whole computer runs bad)

Air coolers are fine too, the type of noise is different, closer to Brownian I think as opposed to a hum like the one the pumps (and those bedamned Intel stock coolers) produce. So if you get one of those Noctua DH-15s the big thing is just having good airflow thru the case (tower coolers like that allow for the air to go straight thru the case from front to back).

phonodysia@reddit

I can imagine. And I believe the most tricky/risky part would be avoiding air bubbles within the system. AIOs are not built to allow air bubbles inside. I think.

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----X88B88----@reddit

Waterbubbles are no problem, the manufacturers even include a small amount of air to allow for heat expansion. Of course you try to minimize the amount of air or you might get noise.

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Dressieren@reddit

Plastic is porous. When you are heating up the fluid that’s inside of it over time there will gradually be permeated. When you are running over 60c it will likely permeate a ml or two a year. This is what all of the fiasco about radiator placement on AIOs was about years ago. Gamers nexus did a piece on it. As long as the pump is the lowest point in the loop and the pump doesn’t have air caught in it you will be fine.

I have a H100i may or may not be a v2 that’s been running in a backup system since 2014 and it absolutely has gotten some fluid loss since then. If I move the case I need to shake and tilt it around to make sure all of the air is out of the pump.

https://youtu.be/BbGomv195sk?si=20ukE2EZ101q_lEd video by GN

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Routine-Lawfulness24@reddit

Liquid is also louder. But the main pro of liquid is aesthetics

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Pretend-Match-1348@reddit

This depends on the cooler / fans for both the air and liquid cooler and if you’re running at a noise normalized configuration.

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aotto1977@reddit

This depends on the cooler / fans

It's the water pump that drove a friend of mine so mad he switched back from liquid to air cooling.

There's no real minimum, but it is a very rare issue in general. Feel free to check Google, its hard to find cases of actual damage from a leak on a AIO made in the past 4 years. They use non conductive fluids so even if there is a leak, the chance of damage is low.

It WAS an issue a decade ago, but it is very rare now. The risk still exists though, and anyone that says otherwise is lying.

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xl129@reddit

In 8 years I've replaced the fluid once and have never done any other maintenance or had any leaks. It was my first time building any PC and I went all out with glass tubes and lots of 90° fittings, giving me lots of potential failure points.

I'll be upgrading from my 1080 to a 5090 but they do look tricky to get a water block on so Im hoping I can get one that comes with the block pre installed.

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Otherwise_Source_842@reddit

https://youtu.be/23vjWtUpItk?si=mAM6w8Rcey9t0lHu

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BigDickConfidence69@reddit

I prefer water because it takes up less space, making it easier to access motherboard connectors around the cup area. I also find them more aesthetically pleasing, but that’s just my opinion. Biggest downside it they last about 5 or so years before needing to be replaced. Air cooler never goes bad as long as it can fit the motherboard socket.

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JamesLahey08@reddit

Use air. Period.

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BB_Toysrme@reddit

As an early (1998) water cooler guy; go air cooling. Water cooling is literally no better at cooling now that heap pipes have so drastically improved over the last few years. Now that we have 6-7 viable heat pipes in good designs the only real difference is a ThermalRight cooler can be had for $35 and combined with Liquid Metal you’ll pull temps better than a 300mm radiator AIO and a normal paste.

Water’s last bastion is visuals.

It’s a part of the industry that may die out over time.

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Active-Quarter-4197@reddit

Air coolers - cheaper - more reliable

Liquid coolers - more cooling - quieter

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foosanew@reddit

Cheaper you say,
laughs in Noctua...

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FPS_Scotland@reddit

Coolers like the Thermalright Peerless Assassin are basically as good as the NH-D15 whilst being a third of the price. Noctua prices haven't been anywhere close to good value for money in a while now, there's way better deals to be had.

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TheMegaDriver2@reddit

I love my D15. Been working great for two builds now and the next build will use it again. It's a very good cooler.

But I simply cannot recommend it anymore. It is so expensive and only slightly better than Thermalright coolers. Back then it was different but now it is just to expensive.

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tehpenguinofd000m@reddit

Anyone still buying Noctua coolers at this point deserves to be down the extra money

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TearyEyeBurningFace@reddit

Meanwhile air coolers also have the potential to be quieter and cool better.

The real difference is liquid coolers can give better clearance to large gpu and tall ram. And custom loops can cool your gpu as well.

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sckuzzle@reddit

Meanwhile air coolers also have the potential to be quieter and cool better.

Not really. Can you find an air cooler that is quieter and cools better than a liquid cooler? Sure. But liquid cooling has a higher max cooling and it is easier to make it quiet.

It's a bit like saying that bicycles have the potential to be faster than a motorcycle. Yea, it's possible. But outside of rare instances it's generally not going to happen.

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MathematicianLiving4@reddit

Good points although i would argue that the absolute best air cooler will never be as cool or as quiet as the best water cooling loop.

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How warm does your CPU get?

This is a question that fundamentally misunderstands how modern CPUs work. All modern Ryzen CPUs that haven't been software-restricted and are set to automatic overclocking through the Ryzen PBO (Precision Boost) will boost the clock until the chip hits its thermal limits (usually in the mid to high 90's), at which point it will start cutting power to keep the chip just below that limit (or whatever limit you've set). Intel's modern chips work similarly, though worse.

So with high workloads, higher end CPUs should be running in the 80's almost constantly. If it isn't, you either aren't pushing the kind of workloads that require a CPU as powerful as you have (which is totally fine — it's nice to have extra headroom even if you rarely use it) OR you have heat dissipation issues and the chip has trained itself to boost less and at lower frequencies (which most chips do — they will set performance limits and update them over time based on hear concerns). Or, I guess, you have so much cooling that it exceeds the ability of the chip to generate heat, but that's not really happening with an AIO OR air-cooler unless you have a super low-power chip. Anything mid-range or higher should be able to largely exceed most off the shelf cooling systems.

If youre comparing off the shelf units (AIOs for example) i'd prolly say a top of the line air cooler would win. If you're looking at top of the line custom loops then tbh fans are less important than rad surface area and/or rad design. Throw in 2 or more 560 quality rads and you can run your fans at silent and get insanely good temps.

Liquid coolings real advantage is in high ambient temperature environments.

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Firecracker048@reddit

Meanwhile air coolers also have the potential to be quieter and cool better.

Not on any cpus that pull more than 200watts. Air coolers have a limit, and anyone who uses an intel cpu pulling 200+ watts knows this limit

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ltecruz@reddit

The pump noise drives me crazy. When I say this someone always says that theirs are squeaky quiet, so I'll just preemptively say that pumps always have to make some kind of noise and some people are just more sensitive to its frequency than others. I happen to be one of those. So that potentially quieter is really just a maybe but ymmv.

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bitwaba@reddit

My AIO's default pump speed was un-necessarily loud. I cut the speed down to 60ish percent and it's quieter than the radiator fans running at 800rpm now, which is also pretty quiet.

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sautdepage@reddit

Geez, 800rpm is what I run my DH-15 when the CPU is burning up.

I'd like to re-word your response.

Air coolers - better value - more reliable

Liquid coolers - (potentially) more cooling - (potentially) often times more noisy due to a constantly running pump

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----X88B88----@reddit

For the AIO is about better case integration and dumping the heat directly out the case. This will be a bigger benefit when these pass-through RTX5000 cards hit.

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Fast_cheetah@reddit

This is an underrated statement. I tried a 3080 with aio and air cooling and the difference was significant. It's difficult to get enough air coming into the case to displace all that hot air from your GPU and not have your PC sound like a jet engine.

That is a completely fair take and is completely fine. Not looking to challenge your personal position.

I just want to add, so people know, that distilled water/coolant will not harm your components in 99% of cases. When I did my open loop, I spilled so much water all over my system and nothing was harmed. Obviously you need to take care and switch the power off if there's a spill but distilled water and coolants are not electrically conductive (except very negligibly). I'm saying this just in case someone reads your comment and thinks it's more dangerous than it is. I've used AIOs for over a decade and now run an open loop. It's honestly really safe - especially AIOs because those things don't leak.

In answer to OP's question though, AIOs have shorter lifespans than air coolers and open loops are stupidly expensive and cost inefficient.

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Lutinent_Jackass@reddit

especially AIOs because those things don’t leak.

I was agreeing with you until I read this.

Also just a query, if coolant or distilled water leaks onto components that aren’t turned off and left running) for example if a leak isn’t noticed for a while), can it cause damage?

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DowntownOil6232@reddit

Absolutely I fried my card in like 06’ from exactly that

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LazyWings@reddit

My point was hyperbolic - it's so rare for them to leak (unless you're buying weird ones off AliExpress or something) that it's statistically safe.

In terms of if it hits components that are on and you don't notice, chance of damage is still pretty low. What happens is that the water can pick up debris that makes it conductive and it can cause a short. However, modern parts have so many protections in place that even this gives a negligible risk. Unless it's something like the water gets under the cpu socket or into your power delivery somewhere, it's most likely to just turn your PC off. You then disconnect everything and dry it. Wait a reasonable amount of time and you should have no damage. The one component I'm very careful about is the PSU but even those have a million protections in place. One thing I have seen though, funnily enough, is usb ports getting damaged. Those are one of the few components that seem weirdly susceptible to water damage - though that's anecdotal and I could have just come across a disproportionate number of such cases.

Remember though, this is all assuming the water picked up a charge somewhere. Also with AIOs, there's such a small amount of coolant that it's usually very safe. And with open loops, you're more likely to notice quite quickly if it's a larger leak. I had a tiny drip a few months back and I noticed some pooling on the back of my GPU. It was evaporating before it could pool to any significant amount and it must have been there for a good couple of weeks and I had no issues.

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terriblestperson@reddit

I don't know that there's actually good data on how rare AIO leaks are. I personally replaced a Corsair AIO that died from a leak, but I wouldn't have known it was a leak if I hadn't gone looking. I can imagine plenty of people replacing a dead AIO, figuring they got 5+ years out of it and that's good enough, without realizing it died to a leak.

Of course, that very incident makes the point that an AIO leak doesn't have to kill your parts. In that case, it was a pinhole leak (likely corrosion-related) and the system was absolutely fine, despite thermally throttling for like a month.

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Lutinent_Jackass@reddit

I suppose unless your PC is immaculately clean it’s highly likely to pick up debris?

Neither will use water cooking ever probably

You're gonna staaarve

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Gypsy_Goat@reddit

Dehydrate all that shit, won’t find 1 spot of water in my food after how that shit treated my boys rig

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ky420@reddit

Use s freeze drier even better, remove every water molecule

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rfc21192324@reddit

When my son was ~1.5 years old, he walked up to the desk and peed on the system tower (it happened to be standing on the floor).

Motherboard got fried on the spot. Miraculously, the graphics card survived, although it started glitching after about a year.

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Nublett9001@reddit

And how is your daughter these days?

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LazyWings@reddit

Haha, kids do crazy things. But just incase it's not obvious to people - pee is not distilled water 🤣 It has a lot of minerals in it and is definitely conductive.

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bedrooms-ds@reddit

At the same time... look what I can do if I fuck up... I'm a genius on this one.

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identifytarget@reddit

lol right. We have people burning out their CPU's in this sub. You know what has a ZERO percent change of fucking up? AIR.

That's usually the case of you are buying an AIO.

Should be fine.

People usually buy GPUs with water cooling built in or do custom loops if they want more than that. You don't need to go that far unless you want to overclock and chase benchmark numbers.

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Make sure your AIO manu has a good warranty. Even with proper use they fail regularly. Low cost water pumps just aren’t as reliable as fans.

That said the cooling of the good ones is more effective and quieter than air, and I personally prefer the aesthetic.

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OkSheepherder8827@reddit

Both have pro and cons, if you want looks and have money to burn go liquid cooling, if not go air cooling almost ever cpu on the market is more than capable of being tamed by a 25$ fan cooler

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OriginTruther@reddit

Most 360mm liquid coolers have better cooling potential than any air coolers. Only high performance cpus or certain intel cpus run hot enough to require liquid cooling. Even an 9800x3d will work just fine with like a 120 Peerless assassin. You are going to need the larger 2 radiator and 2 fan models for cards like that but they will keep cool just fine.

Do it?

There's nothing wrong with that.

The cool thing about your pc, is that it is yours. You can mix and match how ever you like.

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DistinctPriority1909@reddit (OP)

I’m concerned with my unique setup that it’s going to have cooling issues, so I’m trying to not only figure out if I should water or not but also what “good” cooling components would be

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Vashsinn@reddit

Its all relative.

If you just want the next cooling, [peerless assaassin is peerless.

It's litteraly the best cooling option for some time.

If you have something that didn't even get that hot, your waring your efforts. What's the point of something like this on something that stays under 60 degrees with the stick cooler?

If you're running high end high temp stuff, then yes you need the extra umlh.

Personally I have 3 case fans and am aio and have never had issues with heating. But I am running a 2060 ti and i7 5600g.

Edit removed link because reddit

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the_violet_enigma@reddit

For my money, liquid cooling has been worth it. My computer is 2018 vintage, and the AIO has worked perfectly fine this whole time and I only ever started hearing the fan after I upgraded from a 10 series nvidia card to a 3060 and starting letting her rip. After all this time I’ve finally gotten to where my cpu temps can get up to 85-90 when I play on a dual monitor with high-intensity games for more than half an hour at a time with no breaks.

Come to find out I had intel turbo boost on the whole time, so I’ve basically my cpu running on maximum clock all along.

I also have a mini-itx motherboard with a matching small case, and no additional case fans.

Liquid cooling will get the job done.

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H484R@reddit

AIO coolers typically aren’t any better than a quality air cooler.

A custom loop on the other hand is superior to either

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theblitz6794@reddit

I like air coolers because they just work

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altiuscitiusfortius@reddit

I've had Aquariums for 35 years. Leaks happen no matter how perfect your set up. I don't want it near my pc

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The price difference can be negligible between the two. Peerless Assassin $30, 360mm AIO $50-80.

With modern PC cases that actually put thought into airflow, 100% agree.

The main argument I see for AIO is in SFFPCs. Even a well designed small case is going to have restricted airflow, an AIO gives you the ability to slap a radiator on the side and pull in cool air from directly outside the case.

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Blacktip75@reddit

Liquid cooling (custom loop) is for the most part aesthetics and fun in building. For some it is the pursuit of the last percentage in overclocking.

For regular use the downsides/risks come at a very high price with little to no practical gain, pretty much a typical hobby.

How dare you have a reasonable opinion? /s

I'm in the same boat. I like the ease of access around the socket area of the mobo with AIOs but I also like how straight forward air coolers are to maintain.

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crawler54@reddit

never going back to air, period.

1)hanging a giant block of aluminum off of the cpu torques the mb hard, opening the door for stress cracking and intermittent failures, and the risk is compounded by the constant hot/cold cycling.

2)aio can run the cpu cooler.

3)aio blowing out replaces case fans and keeps internal components cooler... the fans on my lf2 420 aio don't even run during periods of low use, like when browsing the web... to duplicate that with air you'd need a huge hunk of metal that had enough cooling capacity to hold three 140mm fans :-0

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Xumayar@reddit

1)hanging a giant block of aluminum off of the cpu torques the mb hard, opening the door for stress cracking and intermittent failures, and the risk is compounded by the constant hot/cold cycling.

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makoblade@reddit

Unless you have an aesthetic preference, focus on the cost and quality of the cooling, assuming you're talking about the typical headsink + fan vs AIO liquid cooler.

Personally for anything that's not super budget I'll just go with an AIO because I think it looks cleaner and is substantially less painful to work around without having to take the cooler off. Being quieter is also a great reason to favor them.

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sleeper_shark@reddit

Air cooling is better in almost every way. Cheaper, more reliable, generally equal performance.

Water cooling is quieter in my experience and subjectively looks cooler.

I personally have an AIO water cooler

Personally I prefer air coolers for several reasons.

Air coolers

Pros: -Quieter -More reliable -impossible too leak -no pump noise

Cons -potential memory clearance issues and height clearance with the case itself. -potentially less raw performance when compared to large liquid cooler

Liquid coolers

Pros -aesthetics (subjective) -no memory clearance issues with the pump. -potentially better performance with 280/360mm+ radiators

Cons -potential for leaks -more noise -more expensive -more expensive to replace if your pump dies -smaller AiOs (240mm) match high end air coolers at best. Often performing worse than similarly priced air coolers (Noctua/be quiet!)

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Batmanue1@reddit

I've done both - the gains of liquid cooling just don't outweigh the maintenance. Is it quieter? Yes. Is it cooler? A bit...but now I gotta worry about a pump failing, or evaporation/coolant top off, or a leak to clean up.

I tried a AIO several years ago and it worked great until it developed a VERY small leak from the CPU mounting face after several years. Took the whole computer out. I'm not touching them again after that, back to aircooled for me.

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FieryXJoe@reddit

At the end of the day a water cooler is just air cooling with an extra step. It is still cooled by air flowing through a radiator.

What water cooling does is add more thermal inertia and let you use a larger radiator. So it will take longer to reach its equilibrium temperature but once it does its practically the same as an air cooler with a radiator of the same size and the same airflow.

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Even_Research_3441@reddit

Here is something that helps you think about:

All computers are air cooled. When you water cool a PC you are just moving the heat somewhere else before you cool the radiator with AIR.

In the PC you are building, if you can't fit enough radiator for your needs right on top of the CPU, or GPU, then you gotta water cool it so you can put a huge radiator somewhere else.

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the_lamou@reddit

and in days of heavy overclocking could potentially dissipate more heat.

So... today? Overclocking is more common than it's ever been. It's just that now it's fine automatically by the chip rather than manually. Most chips, especially anything from AMD, will boost to infinity (not really, but close enough) until they hit thermal limits and start throttling. Liquid will still give you more headroom for a given space than air. Sure, if you toss a monster of a heatsink on, air can perform well, but you're still getting far less efficient cooling, and you're getting a smaller temperature drop per cubic centimeter of case volume dedicated to cooling.

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Dressieren@reddit

Liquid cooling absolutely does give you more headroom for overclocking. For you to get to that point you would need to also be running an insanely power hungry chip like the 13900k, 14900k, or using a delidded CPU.

Budget air will be better than budget AIO currently. High end AIO can beat out high end air when you are outputting over 225w give or take. Custom loop will perform better than AIO and air and cost almost 4x the price unless you’re going down the Ali express route.

Liquid coolers look better. That’s it. My noctua cpu cooler is amazing

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chlronald@reddit

low end aio better than low end air cool, but higher risk

high end aio is comparable to high end air cool, but more expansive

aio have the advantage on flexibility, I can have a itx size machine with an external mounted radiator that out perform anything I can fit into the case. (or in my case cram a 420 aio with self standing radiator into a Dell pre-built to solve the infamous thermal problem)

aio could also be atheistic pleasing as you don't have a big block in the middle of your PC

Take away: if I am building full size tower and putting it under the table I would go with air cool,

and if I am building an itx or putting my tower next to me I would most likely go aio

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whatMCHammerSaid@reddit

Good air cooling solutions are efficient and pretty quiet. They are usually less expensive and with less points of failure (just the blades and motor). However they require a large space horizontally.

Good water cooled solutions are more expensive and have more points of failure (blades, motor, pump, hose, sedimentation). They require less horizontal space and are quieter. And I gotta say, they are usually prettier to look at.

So if you are going for longevity, budget and can live with the noise which is honestly not bad, go for air. Otherwise go for water cooled.

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liquid cooled is a LOT easier to install imo

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kirtash1197@reddit

How on earth? In both cases you have to install the piece on top of the cpu, but in liquid cooling you have to also install the radiator. Literally an extra step.

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lichtspieler@reddit

I get both of your points.

But the CPU area with a large GPU can be tight with a big AIR cooler => https://imgur.com/xdhvGWC

and while AIO's migh require a few extra steps with the radiator, a lot of cases make it very EASY with removable radiator trays etc. while the CPU socket area is also very EASY with a water block, since you have much more space to work with.

The poster mentioned EASIER not FASTER, so I dont really get the downvote train, big AIR coolers with big GPUs are not easier to mount and even worse when it comes to maintenance - removing the fans for cleaning etc., while cleaning a radiator and fans is much easier to do.

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Liquid cooled because the radiator should push hot air directly out of the case...whereas air cooled dots on top of your CPU blowing back into case.

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amaROenuZ@reddit

Here's a simple list of reasons to use a watercooling system, disregarding aesthetics and personal preference:

Your CPU exceeds the TDP capabilities of air coolers, which typically cap out at 200w.
Your case cannot fit an air cooler that adquately cools your CPU, which may be the case if you have a narrow tower, or a small form factor PC.
You frequently move your PC around, as this can put a great deal of strain on your motherboard due to the weight of heatsinks.
You have extremely tall RAM, as this can have clearance issues with large heat sinks.
You have an extremely hot GPU, as this can result in hot case air which will degrade the effectiveness of a tower cooler.
You are running a custom loop for the GPU and want to simply cool both the CPU and GPU off the same radiator.
There is an excellent deal on watercoolers and you can get one that meets your cooling needs for less than an air cooler.
Microcenter is out of doubletower coolers and you don't want to wait for one to be shipped in.

Air cooling is simpler than watercooling, and all other things being equal, has less failure modes and simpler fixes when things do go wrong. So long as you can adequately meet your temperature needs on an air cooler, it will be quieter (no pump noise) and more reliable than a watercooler, and likely cheaper as well.

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VoidNinja62@reddit

I did a 240mm AIO to be trendy and I'm pretty much done with them.

It wholly deppends on a billion other factors, from what your CPU is, what case, what motherboard, what you use your PC for, what the weather is like in your area, ect ect.

For some builds it is better cooling per decibel to use air coolers.
For some it's better cooling per decibel to use an AIO.

A custom water cooling loop will ryoically be the best, but for gaming it is entirely overkill and extremely effort intensive from the actual build to maintenance.

Basically though, unless your case can't fit a thiccboy air cooler, then go grt one of those. Otherwise, use an AIO that can fit your case.

Some cases are designed to be used with an AIO rather than a full size air cooler.

If you have disposable income and even more time abd effort to burn, consider a custom water cooling loop.. but even then I think you should just use that time and money to buy and play more games with a simple air cooler.

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ScoobertDoubert@reddit

Air cooled always. It's cheaper, cools just as well, isn't louder (and sometimes is quieter), much much more durable as there is no pump, no seals and hoses that can degrade and there's no water in my PC which should be argument enough in and of itself.

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ShaftTassle@reddit

AIOs don’t use water, they use a non-conductive fluid.

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dekomorii@reddit

Air coolers are better, but liquid coolers are better looking

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ShaftTassle@reddit

Depends on what you’re basing the term “better” on - temps? No, air cooling is not better. Reliability or risk of failure? Then sure.

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AnOrdinaryChullo@reddit

So much anecdotal nonsense in this thread. Here's what's what OP:

Liquid coolers are much better at keeping your CPU cool
By the time it breaks or starts malfunctioning you will replace your system 2 times

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tucketnucket@reddit

Liquid looks better, can cool better at the top end, can be quieter. Liquid is less reliable as the pump can go bad. Liquid can cost more. Although, a solid AIO really isn't that pricey.

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FolioGraphic@reddit

So I always went with AIO liquid solutions for a long time ( first half dozen computers or maybe a couple more ) i wound up with decent cooling on all my intel machines but at least half of them would wind up making a lot of noise, clicking/ticking inside the cpu unit and I found cleaning them to be a bit more work. When I switched to AMD processors I also looked at higher end air cooling even though the AMDs (5950X) tended to get hotter. With less to go wrong, easier to see whats happening and easier to clean, i now prefer the high end air cooling options

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I like liquid because it takes way more time to heat the rest of the room. I found that air cooler heats up the room faster than AIO. My last build had a mobo that didn’t like to give clearance for a bunch of cooling solutions without compelling the use of a PCIE riser cable. When a chonky gpu goes vertical, clearances for air towers becomes an issue.

Arctic’s liquid freezer (two or three) 280mm can do thermals in the same league as 360mm, and Thermalright can do 360mm cheaper than the huge chunkie air coolers.

I dgaf about potential pump failure and permeation, by the time that happens the rest of the system is old ram, old pcie, old m.2 gen. I’m still waiting for a pump to fail on me well before system is obsolete.

Air has its place & liquid has its place. Neither would stop existing.

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johns_87@reddit

I used to build PC's with air coolers. Now I buy pre-builts with AIO liquid coolers. Both are funtionally adequate. If you want to overclock and need better cooling, you may be better off with liquid. If you're just an average gamer, air is enough.

Liquid is just a fancier air with more things involved.

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sammroctopus@reddit

Air cooling is just the better option in my view, less expensive, more reliable, less that can go wrong, the worst that can go wrong is the fan stops working, nowadays they are very quiet, they are good at cooling, and they are easier to install, replace, and fix.

There’s a reason air cooling is the most commonly used in almost every application.

Yes liquid cooling is probably better for overclocking but again in my view overclocking is pointless because you are getting a tiny little bit more processing power whilst at the same time risking system reliability and in my view it’s not worth it.

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PicnicBasketPirate@reddit

Pound for pound, air coolers are generally superior.

Less to go wrong, more direct heat dissipation (assuming you have good airflow), and more efficient up to a point. As Air coolers get larger you're fighting diminishing returns where you simply can't get the heat from the hotspot to the extremities of the cooler fins.

Liquid coolers have their advantages. At the smaller side of things ( <240mm) it's primarily due to the majority of the cooler bulk being placed away from motherboard, allowing better access to components and better cooling of sub components like VRMs (this is of minimal benefit in most cases).

Where liquid cooling really shines is in more extreme/niche cases. When you need a lot of cooling capacity a large radiator is hard to beat, bonus points if you can plumb the radiator to be completely external of the room the PC is in, doing away with recirculating exhaust and heating up the room. Liquid cooling can also be significantly more flexible. Allowing you to plumb multiple components into the same loop.

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Nerd2wheeler@reddit

Air coolers

cheaper
more reliable
Easier for a novice to maintain, as the only moving part is the fan
generally has a longer lifespan
I still have a hyper 212 EVO that just went into a friend's Ryzen 5 system. I bought that thing back in the AMD FX era and all I had to do was pay 10 dollars for a new fan and mount. Still works.

Liquid coolers

(potentially) more cooling - this is not 100% true. High end air coolers can keep up with the performance of most liquid coolers. You have to go into the very top end of liquid cooling to beat reputable air coolers.
(potentially) quieter
MAJOR DOWNSIDE, takes up more room in your case
the 120mm AIO's are complete garbage, especially for the price
more moving parts equals more points of possible failure. You have a pump that could wear down (especially if coolant gets too low or you get an air bubble in the pump) Improper pump and radiator positioning can cause this. Coolant has a limited lifespan as well
The lifespan of coolant in an AIO (all-in-one liquid cooler) is typically considered to be around 3-5 years
when they leak (which is extremely rare) they can cause major damage to the PC if it's powered on
can be more difficult to install

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Nerd2wheeler@reddit

My Desktop is air cooled and runs just fine, my gf's is using a 240 aio and has done well since 2020.

My aio failed after 1 year of use, pump died.

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Sinister_Crayon@reddit

Water cooling done right has its advantages. For example in smaller form factor builds it can often be used to effectively move the heat away from the hot components to a single space where you can fit fans. A well designed cooling system can also dissipate a little more heat more quickly, and if you have a "peaky" chip where heat rises rapidly under certain workloads then the water flowing through the system provides a very effective heat sink, effectively damping the peaks without having to ramp up fans.

Now, having said all that these are niche use cases. Water cooling is by definition niche as it's really not required. Maybe 10-15 years ago I would've said water gives you much better performance but in the last few years air cooling systems have become much better designed and therefore are honestly better for most people's use cases. Air is also much cheaper and lower maintenance; you do need to periodically flush and clean out a water cooling system to maintain optimum performance but honestly few people do it.

You can also do water for aesthetics; a well designed water loop can look sick. However, water cooling adds a bunch of components any one of which can fail suddenly (block, tubes, radiator, pump, reservoir) while air cooled system just have fans... usually more than one.

Ippherita@reddit

One thing I watched linustechtips on youtube is that he commented that liquid cooled has the benefit of being less bulky.

They sometimes need to travel with their beefy desktop to function to edit videos on the spot. Air cooled towers are heavy and have the risk of dislodging from its place and fell down onto the graphic card. Damaging both the graphic card and motherboard. Liquid cooled system don't have such risk.

Normal people do not need to move their pc frequently, so take this just as a small consideration.

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AdvantageFit1833@reddit

If you really need liquid cooling, you probably know it, but air cooling is very sufficient in most cases and it's reliable as rock. If you got one of those monster processors that run hot af and only liquid could keep them at bay, otherwise they have reliability issues and are expensive. There are cheap ones but that's just more and more reliability issue. Many go for it purely because it might look cool despite they would not need it for cooling purposes.

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Gold-Program-3509@reddit

liquid cooler still has fans to cool the radiator ,it just makes cooling more complex.. absolute no gain . its nonsense for low to mid tdp cpus

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VruKatai@reddit

Its not an accident that this sub is overwhelmingly pro-AMD and that AMD generally takes to air cooling better than Intel. Just keep that in mind when broaching this topic.

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xl129@reddit

Air cooling is superior to Liquid cooling until the point where air cooling is not sufficient to keep your rig cool.

That's about it.

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Botucal@reddit

Liquid coolers have the risk, albeit small, of a pump failure (my one and only AiO actually sized up within a year).

So nowadays, if an air cooler suffices for my intended CPU, I'll just go with it. My current build is all about airflow anyway.

However, in my old build, the AiO allowed my GPU to stay cooler, because the top mounted radiator removed the heat from the CPU directly from the case. So in small cases, AiO is often the way to go.

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apagogeas@reddit

I have used both. Air is considered safe and it can't get damaged somehow. Liquid has the issue of leaks or pump going bad (I have had this happen to me). What I mostly like on liquid cooling is it doesn't dump any heat inside the case, this allows better temps overall and allows a quieter system.

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Kaneshadow@reddit

The heat sinks with the copper apple made of razor blades behind the fan, to my knowledge cool more efficiently than water cooled.

I built a water cooled machine a few years ago, just because I've always wanted one and it was a fun project, and not because of any performance increase. I will say it's much quieter, which I didn't think I cared about until I had it. And it vacuums up less dust. Also it has a glass door and my toddler thinks it's a fish tank. You can't match that kind of cuteness with air cooled

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AGTDenton@reddit

My server is air cooled because it is simply hosting media servers and storage so I do not need AIO/watercooling.

A heatsink is unlikely to fail and fans are often easy to replace without removing the whole assembly, of course smaller cases will dictate that. With good quality thermal paste and low heat requirements you shouldn't need to replace it during long term use. My previous server got 8 years without changing anything cooling related.

air cooling now costs around the same as liquid cooling for more noise and imo doesnt look as good.

the main benefit is that on budget side air coolers are much better bang for the buck and you dont have to worry about it eventually leaking or the pump dying

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BadMofoWallet@reddit

Unless you’re shelling out for a be quiet DRE or a noctua NH-D15, air coolers are generally much cheaper than a liquid cooler while in some cases cooling better and being quieter. I personally bought a phantom spirit 120 replaced the fans with the noctua redux 1700 and I’m getting like 15c better temps than I was getting with my arctic liquid freezer 2 280mm…

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Otres911@reddit

Something was wrong on that there is no way phantom spirit reduces temps by 15c compared to liquid freezer 280

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Frozen Prism is about $50

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josiahswims@reddit

The thermaltake 360 aios start at 60

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Due_Shelter_489@reddit

For now, I feel at ease knowing nothing will go wrong with an air cooler. I had a bad experience with an AIO. CPU temps would spike like crazy. At this point, I don’t see any real benefit of an AIO when it comes to temperatures. They do look nicer, but I prefer function over form.

The worst thing that can happen with an air cooler is a fan failure, but the heatsink can compensate much better than a failed AIO pump. Plus, there’s dust, that can be easily resolved.

Honestly, air coolers still look great.

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ZygomaticCapstone@reddit

My Ryzen 7 7800X3D doesn't get that hot. Air cooling is sufficient.

Water pumps can malfunction. They are generally louder due to the water pump.

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Larawanista@reddit

Most of the time, liquid coolers are an overkill. I've been on i9 9th Gen then i9 12th Gen on air cooler. No issues.

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finding_myself_92@reddit

I prefer liquid cooling for a couple reasons.

1) noise levels are better as long as you don't have a radiator that's too small

2) it looks better in my opinion, with more custom options

2b) more open space in your case for a cleaner look, because the radiator is against the outside of the case.

2c) custom loops have a lot of fun colored coolants

2d) you can bend the tubing into fun shapes if so inclined.

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retropieproblems@reddit

3% failure rate doesn’t seem worth it to me.

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kadiepuff@reddit

I've been water cooling the last few pcs but my most recent one I air cooled and I may not go back to water cooling now. Sooo much cheaper and quieter and temps literally don't go past 70c even in stress tests. Im Not buying the highest end i9 and over clocking to 7ghz or anything but I'm Not buying budget cpus either so I'm very impressed with the air cooling.

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Longjumping_Line_256@reddit

Depends, You can get a good Air cooler that matches or comes vary close the them AIO's these days, and Air will always be more reliable, I've had a couple of AIOs die and idk, I prefer air, Can get a Thermalright Phantom Sprit with 7 heat pipes gets pretty much matches most 360 AIO's for under $40 bucks.

Real water cooling, well that will cool better than anything else, but its expensive, a pain to maintain, higher chance of leaking.

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ccipher@reddit

If your CPU is temperature sensitive and wattage spikes a lot, water is the best hands down. Much more mass to transfer heat and even when the system is saturated (water temp reaches peak and you are using the rads more than the thermal capacity of the water in the loop) its marginally worse than air cooling. If your CPU is not overclocked and you run mixed loads then one could hardly find any reason to run water loops.

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