Do you prefer an air cooler or an AIO?

[gwwak]

Air for me. They are cheaper and perhaps the most important, it fits my case. My case is old and it doesn't support an AIO larger than 120mm.

[A&A]

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-prone-to

Sort yourselves out :)

[D. Flame]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von A&A:

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-prone-to

Sort yourselves out :)

Thanks for the assist, mate. I have been proven correct.

[Monk]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von spicy little monkey:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Karumati:

nothing beats custom water loop

Prone to leaks, very expensive, and not worth the effort.

Not prone if you do your build right, doesn't have to be very expensive (can do a full loop for a few hundred bucks), though can cost more than the average gaming pc if you go to extremes and if it's soft tubing it's not much effort tbh.

Looks are very subjective, I prefer the looks of my old hardline builds, but enjoy the simplicity of my current soft tube build.
The performance is unbeatable, though most do not need it, modern aur and aio's along with gpu aur coolers are far better than thry used to be.

[Monk]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von The_Abortionator:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von D. Flame:

Wrong. Nothing implies "spontaneous." That is just a No True Scotsman fallacy.

Even experienced builders check them for leaks because they are prone to leaks. Even a skilled builder can not guarantee that their build will not be leak free on the first try, so they have to test them.

Bro you seem to not understand English.

Saying "they are prone to leaks" literally implies they can leaks spontaneously. Thats what that means in the English language.

What you are describing as your definition is literally "they can leak if not assembled correctly".

That meaning is completely different to "prone to leaking".

And also you seem to not understand what no true scotsman means.

I'm not modifying your claim, I'm pointing out the meaning of the words you typed and what it is suggesting.

Someone building a loop incorrectly IS NOT cooling loops being prone to leaking because if you claim human error makes loops prone to leaking then that applies to ANYTHING a human assembles.

You also can pressure test a loop with air before filling it with water.

I've been doing custom loops or a decade now and the only leak I had was user error and it appeared during the testing phase before the system is powered on.

They are no more prone to leaks than your home central heating system is.

[gwwak]

Custom water loops are not worth it unless you already have top end parts. You are spending hundreds extra for a very marginal decrease in temperatures. Now if you want a show piece, that is a different story. For 99% of the population, a big AIO will do the job and with less fuss and much easier ease of installation.

[Kue8all]

Large twin air cooler, the fact that you can get great performing air coolers for really low prices now is great.

[A&A]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von gwwak:

Custom water loops are not worth it unless you already have top end parts. You are spending hundreds extra for a very marginal decrease in temperatures. Now if you want a show piece, that is a different story. For 99% of the population, a big AIO will do the job and with less fuss and much easier ease of installation.

https://youtu.be/yFswDJPvtPY?si=CgBZyTmyrqSUy12g

But how many people will watercool their PC in a pond? (The result is impressive)

[Dutchgamer1982]

air cooling -> never broke ever last 20-30 years easy longer than any other component.

aio -> any component I had for that died within 1.5 year mostly the pump very dangerous as for aio you will not always notice it failing....

I have currently a custom waterloop and the headaches it gave me do make me say never again!


performance wise you will not see much difference if you have money to spend..

good aircooling (say a 100 euro aircooler on your cpu and spending 200 extra on the brand of gpu you pick for a better model... and spend 100 euro extra to get on a case with good airflow instead of the cheapest one.. (good cases tend to cost 200-300 euro.. and a few higher volume fans..

that will often outperfm aio... and get quite close to a custom loop.

and while granted my custom loop performs better.. about once every 1.5 years I had the pump in it break with a pricetag of 250 euro to replace.. that and all the hassle.. not worth it..

if you want something more fancy.. go full passive... those 1000 euro cases that can handle 600w 100% passive... well thats nice

plus my current case was 300 euro + 600 euro of watercooling. component + 200 euro of fans and such.. so spending 1000-1200 on a case that has it all in one.. while elimitanitng the risk of breakdown... sounds like the way forward..


if your building a budgetpc.. do not pick that 150 euro aio over a 40 euro aircooler (ofcourse do compare not every aircooler is the same but there are plenty of cpu coolers in the 40-70 euro range that outperform most aio's

for astetics I guess it makes sence.. if you want the watercooling look without the watercooling hassle and cost.. but performance wise aio and aircooled are on same lvl.
with custom loop on a whole different pricepoint and cost.

personally I'd stay far away of them and go for good reliable aircooling. or splurge on full passive cooled.

or if you want the absolute best performance and can handle it breaking down and bleeding money like no tomorrow (like every 1.5 year something will break costing more money.. go custom loop..

[Monk]

What kind of rip off merchant are you buying your pumps from? A ddc is about 50 bucks and a d5 is around £80, I've had 1 (d5) die in a decade after 4 years of continual near 24/7 usage.

Never had an aio pump die, longest running is 13 years, the fluid evaporating caused it's retirement not the pump lol and air coolers are as reliable as the fans you fit.

Some of the best cases you can buy are in the £100-150 price range.

Those passive cases will not handle a top tier system if you even glance at over clocking and you cannot run fast memory in them if you want the system to remain passive as fast ddr5 needs some firm if active cooling, be it air flow from fans or water blocks.

As I've said before, it's about picking the right tool for the job, but, overall tower > aio > custom loop when it comes to performance and added perfirmance comes at a price.

If you are not into heavily overclocking high end parts you don't need a custom loop at all, a big aio will handle pretty much any cpu and tower coolers tend to reach their limits on the high end or heavily overclocked systems and I'd not use one beyond mid tier tbh.

[C1REX]

Arguably the best AIO on the market is Arctic Freezer III

Arctic Freezer III 240mm - £59.98
Arctic Freezer III 360mm - £76.99
Arctic Freezer III 420mm - £79.00 (very small number of cases are big enough to fit it on top)

So not super expensive. Less than Noctua NH-d15chromax.black for £108.49 but more than Peerless Assassin 120 SE for £27.99

[Liquid Inc]

Had an air cooler years back in the Phenom II era; A Gelid GX-7, which i still have in a box somewhere.
Fans were replaced by much better ones, and it served well. Huge heavy block of a cooler though....

After that i switched to AIO's. Currently my 12700kf enjoys a Strix LC 360mm, which keeps it under 70'c even when pushing 4k in Cyberpunk.
I doubt an air cooler would give me any better.

[tyl0413]

Air all the way, why would I put water inside the computer thats just insane.
But seriously, air cooling is cheaper and is way more than enough, other than for extreme overclocking I don't see the use case for a watercooler, and yeah theres a small risk it might leak and ruin your PC, also takes up way more space, most people just do it because its the current trend not due to any technical advantages.

[gwwak]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von C1REX:

Arguably the best AIO on the market is Arctic Freezer III

Arctic Freezer III 240mm - £59.98
Arctic Freezer III 360mm - £76.99
Arctic Freezer III 420mm - £79.00 (very small number of cases are big enough to fit it on top)

So not super expensive. Less than Noctua NH-d15chromax.black for £108.49 but more than Peerless Assassin 120 SE for £27.99

Air still rules in terms of bang for buck. Sure the AIOs perform better than the Peerless Assassin, but you are paying over twice as much.

[L.o.D.]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dutchgamer1982:

aio -> any component I had for that died within 1.5 year mostly the pump very dangerous as for aio you will not always notice it failing....

I had a Swiftech water cooling system in my pc back many years ago. The Swiftech pump, despite the claims of only being good for 5yrs, lasted me 10yrs, till I went a different route with a new at the time build. Custom loops seems to be better over the AIOs. Still got the res, pus and rad from them. The waterblock I used, I for the life of me cannot remember what the brand was. Not sure iff it was Dangerden or not.

[spicy little monkey]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von The_Abortionator:

If you don't understand something that has zero bearing on the reality surrounded said thing.

Very cute coming from the guy who doesn't understand what prone to leak means.