If you’re going liquid AIO then 280 and 420 are the only valuable options.
Otherwise go air 140 fans.
Scrungly_Wungly
I think air coolers are plenty. But Im the guy on the left. I know I ant smart enough to be the homie on the right
phero1190
Air cooler masterrace.
MakiiZushii
Air cooler is enough but AIO pretty
CleanOnesGloves
I’m about to get a 14700f and was wondering if I should replace the stock watercooler from the iBuyPower case and just get a ND15 from Noctua. I use that in my 8700k and the specs on both cpu shows similar TDP and power draw.
bensmom7
no
stickystrips2
Better performance and no risk of leaks
the_abortionat0r
Why does this weird shit get posted? There are literally CPUs that require water.
KEKWSC2
Nothing wrong with aios except when people rather spend 200 on them while having 7600/4060 tier parts instead of bumping performance.
Dev_Grendel
I only get downvoted when I tell people they don’t need an AIO that will last a limited amount of time for their CPU they’re not even overclocking, as opposed to an air-cooled that’s WAY cheaper and literally lasts forever.
theholypigeon888
Air is enough, but overkill is gud
RaZoX144
True, all those builds with 5600x/4060 and some monster 300$ AIO…
Assaltwaffle
The guy on the right should be labeled Thermalright, not Noctua.
Noctua is just to make you feel superior by having you pay just as much as an AIO for performance equal or inferior to a $35 cooler.
op4arcticfox
The real reason I use an AIO is because I won a decent one from a LAN event. That said it is noticeably quieter than my old noctua D15, which was great at its job but damn it was a jet engine when it got going.
Old_Pop2908
I went with a 480 aio because I wanted to see the hype. It really didn’t make much difference and the air-cooler will almost never fail
Justgrp
Unless you have an intel i9 13th or 14th gen and nothing can cool that piece of shit.
Lira_Iorin
I don’t have a demanding cpu, it’s a lower end 12th gen intel, but the cheap deepcool air cooler keeps it crispy cool. I swear it touches 26c sometimes, or so the sensor says.
iworkisleep
That’s right, arctic freezer iii 360 for my i3 10100f
Shatter_starx
Oc from 3.8 to 5.0 been building since I was 12, no air cooler is going to do that and I’m not going to look either bc I don’t care lol
shinku443
Had a phanteks air and now have an arctic aio…gotta say I miss using the phanteks, I should slap it on my current build to compare temps and noise
Donglemaetsro
I’m thankful I only considered water before snapping out of it. Aint nobody got time for that mess. Solid mid tier air coolers can handle anything you throw at em at a low cost.
awake283
Peerless Assassin is $100+ cheaper than AIOs. Works more than well enough on a 7800X3D. Easy choice.
elnatr4
Indeed they are. Rocking my Rock Pro and cannot be happier.
Temps are equal to Corsair water cooling systems.
Konsticraft
No one buys water cooling for the performance, people buy it because it looks cool and that is a perfectly valid reason.
GuruVII
Meh, I got my arctic liquid freeze III 240 for 50€, I don’t think there is anything at that price point with equal performance while being as silent as possible.
Anaeijon
I have a custom loop whith 2 280MM radiators just to keep my GPUs cool enough during workloads.
But for every other PC I personally have seen, except mine, Aircoolers are the better option!
It’s hard to beat a massive chunk of metal with delicate fins that can survive decades and never fails.
AIOs don’t offer any benefit over a beefy chunk of overengineered metal, like the Brocken 4 Max, Deepcool Assassin 4 or NH-D15, as long as you can fit those in your case. AIOs might have the benefit of better customizable airflow, especially in small cases. But if you have the room for a larger case, get a larger case that can fit a giant Aircooler.
Aircoolers are silent, efficient, unfailable. No Pump humming, no pump failing, no pump controller…
And, compared to custom watercooling, AIOs usually don’t have transparent parts. So you can’t even see if they might be contaminated, support life and about to fail.
There are weird edge cases, like mine, that require custom cooling solutions.
Two GPUs sit too close together and create a heat-trap between them, when under load. In that case those GPUs need something to take the heat away, and this something ideally is pure, distilled water.
But let me tell you: custom watercooling is fucking annoying. It takes days to plan a proper loop, days to build that loop and any mistake can lead to terminal failure for your hardware.
And then, whenever you have to change something on your hardware, you have to do it all again. With NVMe drives now often sitting under the GPUs you can’t even access you storage devices to quickly unplug them when installing a new OS.
It’s just not worth it to watercool, unless actually necessary.
volantredx
I’ve always wanted to do a custom loop. Not due to cooling but because they look cool. They just seem like too much work.
Meatslinger
An AIO is really just an air cooler that moves the moisture somewhere else before cooling it.
DisastrousConcept143
my i9-9900k does hit the 95 degrees with the ‘Be quiet dark rock pro’ cooler while playing intense games
uuniherra
I have the cheapest aircooler and my cou gets about 41°c after gaming.
BarleyHops2
The VW of PC building. Cheap, reliable, and easily worked on.
Noctua is the way.
coffeejn
Give me 2lbs aluminum block / fins with Noctua fans any day.
monitorhero_cg
No you just need three 280 rads
JLee1608
I feel like the recent ak620 digital is the best of both worlds, roommate runs a non digital it on my old 5800x3d and I’ve got the digital on my 7800x3d after using aios for years. This under load is same temp, less power draw and looks just as nice in my blacked out case as an aio would
DemonLordAC0
I have a 120mm AIO. It’s more than enough, and it leaves a lot of free space. But an air cooler would.probably be enough if I rearranged my airflow
phorkin
Used to run only custom loops. Finally went with an AIO on my 5950x. I had the h150i cappellox or whatever the hell. Something was going on with it and I decided to say screw it and go with the big bad noctua. Well, temps are very similar, albeit a tad louder at full tilt.
Sykolewski
Rocking on my noctua nh-d15 and couldn’t be more satisfied
38 Comments
Ol’ reliable remains undefeated
If you’re going liquid AIO then 280 and 420 are the only valuable options.
Otherwise go air 140 fans.
I think air coolers are plenty. But Im the guy on the left. I know I ant smart enough to be the homie on the right
Air cooler masterrace.
Air cooler is enough but AIO pretty
I’m about to get a 14700f and was wondering if I should replace the stock watercooler from the iBuyPower case and just get a ND15 from Noctua. I use that in my 8700k and the specs on both cpu shows similar TDP and power draw.
no
Better performance and no risk of leaks
Why does this weird shit get posted? There are literally CPUs that require water.
Nothing wrong with aios except when people rather spend 200 on them while having 7600/4060 tier parts instead of bumping performance.
I only get downvoted when I tell people they don’t need an AIO that will last a limited amount of time for their CPU they’re not even overclocking, as opposed to an air-cooled that’s WAY cheaper and literally lasts forever.
Air is enough, but overkill is gud
True, all those builds with 5600x/4060 and some monster 300$ AIO…
The guy on the right should be labeled Thermalright, not Noctua.
Noctua is just to make you feel superior by having you pay just as much as an AIO for performance equal or inferior to a $35 cooler.
The real reason I use an AIO is because I won a decent one from a LAN event. That said it is noticeably quieter than my old noctua D15, which was great at its job but damn it was a jet engine when it got going.
I went with a 480 aio because I wanted to see the hype. It really didn’t make much difference and the air-cooler will almost never fail
Unless you have an intel i9 13th or 14th gen and nothing can cool that piece of shit.
I don’t have a demanding cpu, it’s a lower end 12th gen intel, but the cheap deepcool air cooler keeps it crispy cool. I swear it touches 26c sometimes, or so the sensor says.
That’s right, arctic freezer iii 360 for my i3 10100f
Oc from 3.8 to 5.0 been building since I was 12, no air cooler is going to do that and I’m not going to look either bc I don’t care lol
Had a phanteks air and now have an arctic aio…gotta say I miss using the phanteks, I should slap it on my current build to compare temps and noise
I’m thankful I only considered water before snapping out of it. Aint nobody got time for that mess. Solid mid tier air coolers can handle anything you throw at em at a low cost.
Peerless Assassin is $100+ cheaper than AIOs. Works more than well enough on a 7800X3D. Easy choice.
Indeed they are. Rocking my Rock Pro and cannot be happier.
Temps are equal to Corsair water cooling systems.
No one buys water cooling for the performance, people buy it because it looks cool and that is a perfectly valid reason.
Meh, I got my arctic liquid freeze III 240 for 50€, I don’t think there is anything at that price point with equal performance while being as silent as possible.
I have a custom loop whith 2 280MM radiators just to keep my GPUs cool enough during workloads.
But for every other PC I personally have seen, except mine, Aircoolers are the better option!
It’s hard to beat a massive chunk of metal with delicate fins that can survive decades and never fails.
AIOs don’t offer any benefit over a beefy chunk of overengineered metal, like the Brocken 4 Max, Deepcool Assassin 4 or NH-D15, as long as you can fit those in your case. AIOs might have the benefit of better customizable airflow, especially in small cases. But if you have the room for a larger case, get a larger case that can fit a giant Aircooler.
Aircoolers are silent, efficient, unfailable. No Pump humming, no pump failing, no pump controller…
And, compared to custom watercooling, AIOs usually don’t have transparent parts. So you can’t even see if they might be contaminated, support life and about to fail.
There are weird edge cases, like mine, that require custom cooling solutions.
Two GPUs sit too close together and create a heat-trap between them, when under load. In that case those GPUs need something to take the heat away, and this something ideally is pure, distilled water.
But let me tell you: custom watercooling is fucking annoying. It takes days to plan a proper loop, days to build that loop and any mistake can lead to terminal failure for your hardware.
And then, whenever you have to change something on your hardware, you have to do it all again. With NVMe drives now often sitting under the GPUs you can’t even access you storage devices to quickly unplug them when installing a new OS.
It’s just not worth it to watercool, unless actually necessary.
I’ve always wanted to do a custom loop. Not due to cooling but because they look cool. They just seem like too much work.
An AIO is really just an air cooler that moves the moisture somewhere else before cooling it.
my i9-9900k does hit the 95 degrees with the ‘Be quiet dark rock pro’ cooler while playing intense games
I have the cheapest aircooler and my cou gets about 41°c after gaming.
The VW of PC building. Cheap, reliable, and easily worked on.
Noctua is the way.
Give me 2lbs aluminum block / fins with Noctua fans any day.
No you just need three 280 rads
I feel like the recent ak620 digital is the best of both worlds, roommate runs a non digital it on my old 5800x3d and I’ve got the digital on my 7800x3d after using aios for years. This under load is same temp, less power draw and looks just as nice in my blacked out case as an aio would
I have a 120mm AIO. It’s more than enough, and it leaves a lot of free space. But an air cooler would.probably be enough if I rearranged my airflow
Used to run only custom loops. Finally went with an AIO on my 5950x. I had the h150i cappellox or whatever the hell. Something was going on with it and I decided to say screw it and go with the big bad noctua. Well, temps are very similar, albeit a tad louder at full tilt.
Rocking on my noctua nh-d15 and couldn’t be more satisfied