AIO or Air Cooled!?

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So, i always hear that Air cooled is "better" but i was wondering...Why!? As the better ones tend to be MASSIVE and normally are hideous to look at. I need to get a New CPU cooler and people say to get Noctua NH-U12A which itself is nearly £90. Why not for example get a Corsair Hydro Series H100x? Both the same price, one is HUGE the other isn't If space/Aesthetic is just as important as cooling (maybe not quite, but enough to make you question getting the NH-U12A for example. What else could you guys suggest?

I was thinking about the Freezer 34 eSports Duo Arctic, seems quite decent, reasonable price. Doesnt look to overly huge and nice black colour scheme but not too sure.As the case is a Corsair Air 540 if i did get a air cooled fan, due to the cooler needing to be facing the front of the case i would have 3 fans blowing cold (when its not insanely hot summer!) into the case, directly into the CPU cooler fans but that also have the issue of the RAM slots as not sure what ones will be able to fit in there without having any issues with the RAM i have as they aren't short ones.

Its for a Tomahawk Max with a Ryzen 5 3600.
 
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=23vjWtUpItk

^^^ Apparently.

My Noctua NH-U14S does a decent job with a 2700X.

yeah and its huge, ugly, still very expensive. I wouldn't be too worried about a few C less in cooling with an AIO with their much more sleek look and such. I guess i am just a little bias due to my last set up ran one and had no issues, problems or anything else with it and looked great. Vs that of say the Notctua that are ugly as sin looking and with the PC right next to me it would tilt my OCD knowing it doesnt fit the theme Lol
 

HRL

HRL

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yeah and its huge, ugly, still very expensive. I wouldn't be too worried about a few C less in cooling with an AIO with their much more sleek look and such. I guess i am just a little bias due to my last set up ran one and had no issues, problems or anything else with it and looked great. Vs that of say the Notctua that are ugly as sin looking and with the PC right next to me it would tilt my OCD knowing it doesnt fit the theme Lol

Hahaha. Don’t shoot the messenger. :D

Ugly yes, but more efficient evidently.
 
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I'm personally of the opinion that once you're outside of the budget coolers you either go high end air or custom loop. I've never been a fan of AiO units, I realise people like them for aesthetic reasons but I'll always opt for performance and reliability first and foremost. That and honestly, I like the look of a big beefy air cooler like the Dark Rock Pro 4 for example.
 
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I love may Dark Rock 4 air cooler, keeps my 9900K nicely within thermal limits all the way upto 4.8Ghz (1.275vlts) under stress testing and just by adding a second spare fan to make it a push pull config, idle temps dropped by 2-3c and 5-7c under load! which I thought was pretty a damn impressive result.

5Ghz under full load is too much for it though, as 1.35vlts are needed to keep it stable at 5Ghz or higher, which is, without doubt, water cooling territory, whether by custom loop or AIO. The way I see it though is I can have 95% of the performance of my 9900K 24/7 at 4.8Ghz with the DR4 for less than half the cost of a (decent) AIO, which is a fair compromise, IMO. Not only that, but I think its brushed matt black finish looks far nicer than any AIO, with wires coming off the CPU block everywhere.
 
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I prefer air to AIO/CLC for many reasons, but mainly because air last much longer with only thing that can wear out is fan. CLCs are factory seals with no way to service (add/change coolant) or replace parts as needed. AIOs that are not CLC have threaded fittings and fill plug so can be service / repaired as needed, but cost more and make as much noise as good air cooling. I can buy the best air coolers made for £50-90, but to have similar cooling and noise levels in AIO that is still not as dependable costs more like £150+
 
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I went for the Scythe SCMG-5100 Mugen 5 for my 8700K. Keeps it ridiculously cool at OC 4.7GHz all cores.
AOI Watercooler seemed a big hassle for a lot more money.

Oh, and it looks great in the case as well :p
 

FuF

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Used refurbished (many would frown upon that already) H100 for many years. Worked well, cooled well. Unfortunately, after so many years I realised that my PC is giving massive amount of heat. Checked, the pump packed it. So AIO went into the bin and moved to a large air cooler now. I was fortunate, no components burned out and nothing leaked, there are horror stories online where units pack in and leaked on other components.
Now with air my temps are a bit worse (up to 70C during gaming), but I know that chances of this failing are significantly lower. So my take on this, if you want something that will last longer, buy air cooler. If you update regularly and don't mind changing every few years AIOs are cool both metaphorically and figuratively and look pretty :)
 
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Used refurbished (many would frown upon that already) H100 for many years. Worked well, cooled well. Unfortunately, after so many years I realised that my PC is giving massive amount of heat. Checked, the pump packed it. So AIO went into the bin and moved to a large air cooler now. I was fortunate, no components burned out and nothing leaked, there are horror stories online where units pack in and leaked on other components.
Now with air my temps are a bit worse (up to 70C during gaming), but I know that chances of this failing are significantly lower. So my take on this, if you want something that will last longer, buy air cooler. If you update regularly and don't mind changing every few years AIOs are cool both metaphorically and figuratively and look pretty :)
70c isn't too hot, but depending on what case and case fan setup is you can probably get that lower by improving case airflow. Things like removing all PCIe back slot covers to increase rear exhaust venting around GPU usually lowers air temp around GPU and CPU intake and thus lowers their temps. Good rule of thumb is if it take more than a few minutes for temps to reach 70c when gaming, it's because case airflow isn't moving GPU heated exhaust air out of case like it should. ;)
 
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=23vjWtUpItk

^^^ Apparently.

My Noctua NH-U14S does a decent job with a 2700X.

Use one of these (NH-U14S) in push/pull for my OC'd I7-8700k (4.9 all cores @ 2.8v mid level LLC). Testing with Intel Burn test / Prime 96, never seen it go much above 80C. Gaming more like 55/60C (aluminium case and good case cooling).

Great coolers. Closed case, so don't care about the colour scheme. Used it in the last three builds.
 
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I need to get a New CPU cooler and people say to get Noctua NH-U12A which itself is nearly £90.
Brand hype costs.
Scythe Mugen 5 is pretty much same caliber cooler and only step behind the best for £43.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html
Two pressure oriented Arctic P12s for push-pull would add £12.

one is HUGE the other isn't
If you want actual cooling power, you need big surface area.
Waterpipes in place of heatpipes don't do anything for dissipating heat into air.
Though water's high heat capacity masks inadequate heat dissipation into air in short load spikes.
Hence why waterpipe coolers should be stressed for like 15+ minutes to tell actual cooling performance.
 
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yeah and its huge, ugly, still very expensive. I wouldn't be too worried about a few C less in cooling with an AIO with their much more sleek look and such. I guess i am just a little bias due to my last set up ran one and had no issues, problems or anything else with it and looked great. Vs that of say the Notctua that are ugly as sin looking and with the PC right next to me it would tilt my OCD knowing it doesnt fit the theme Lol

As a long time custom loops user I find AiO looks repulsive with no style soft tubing and pump integrated with cpu block :p. CPU coolers like Noctua NH-U14, Thermalright Archon IBE-X2, TRUE 140 Power or Reeven Justice are beauty in pure form, technically near perfect.

Gues it is like with vram coolers on mother boards, You cen get coolers or You can get fashion accessories.
 
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As already pointed out by EsaT, pretty much any of the top air coolers are fine. There's really a limit as to how good you can cool a CPU with air and in my opinion, we hit that a while ago. Just pick one that suits your budget/aesthetics/space etc.

As an example, the NH-U14S (which is a fair bit cheaper) comes with in a degree or so of the NH-U12A, but is a fair bit cheaper.
 
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Brand hype costs.
Scythe Mugen 5 is pretty much same caliber cooler and only step behind the best for £43.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/scythe-scmg-5100-mugen-5-rev.b-cpu-cooler-hs-046-sy.html
Two pressure oriented Arctic P12s for push-pull would add £12.

If you want actual cooling power, you need big surface area.
Waterpipes in place of heatpipes don't do anything for dissipating heat into air.
Though water's high heat capacity masks inadequate heat dissipation into air in short load spikes.
Hence why waterpipe coolers should be stressed for like 15+ minutes to tell actual cooling performance.

Mugen is working well for me. Impressive for the price.
 

FuF

FuF

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70c isn't too hot, but depending on what case and case fan setup is you can probably get that lower by improving case airflow. Things like removing all PCIe back slot covers to increase rear exhaust venting around GPU usually lowers air temp around GPU and CPU intake and thus lowers their temps. Good rule of thumb is if it take more than a few minutes for temps to reach 70c when gaming, it's because case airflow isn't moving GPU heated exhaust air out of case like it should. ;)
Thanks for that, but I'm not worried :D My case airflow is quite decent with quite a few fans and as I've got an old CPU (2500k at 4.5Ghz) that slightly bottlenecks my ageing GPU (980GTX) it's always running 100%. Temps go down very quickly as soon as the load goes down. But yeah, going back to OP, air can be ok as long as you're not pushing your hardware to the edge.
 
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Thanks for that, but I'm not worried :D My case airflow is quite decent with quite a few fans and as I've got an old CPU (2500k at 4.5Ghz) that slightly bottlenecks my ageing GPU (980GTX) it's always running 100%. Temps go down very quickly as soon as the load goes down. But yeah, going back to OP, air can be ok as long as you're not pushing your hardware to the edge.
Hard to say how good airflow is without monitoring air temp going into cooler after 15-20 minutes of heavy load. If component temps max out in a few minutes of 100% load testing, airflow is probably fine, but if it takes 15-25 minutes for temps to peak airflow could be improved. Just in case (no pun) I've included below link to case airflow guide and what I use to monitor airflow temp into coolers.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...-i-put-my-temp-sensor.18564223/#post-26159770
 
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