If you’re unsure whether you want air cooling or a liquid-cooled AIO, there are a few things to consider. Cookies help us deliver our Services. Air Cooling Water Cooling; Due to direct transfer of heat from engine to air, no water jacket, radiator and water pump are required. Engine is smaller in size and its design much simpler. AIO water cooling is considered the best for cooling efficiency short of a custom loop, but is it really? Take max temps of each core over 2 minutes. Everyone go buy one. One goes for pretty colored coolants, the other wants only cooling performance and doesn't worry about looks. Air cooling wins in pretty much every way here. As an Alphacool design, it was one of the fanciest radiators with anti-kink coils and compression fittings. Being a bigger brother to the H100i, the H105 had excellent performance for an aluminum radiator and one of the easiest mounting solutions for a water-cooled radiator. Unless your CLC has variable pump speeds, do not slow/undervolt the pump! That liquid cooling, closed loop cooler (CLC) or All-in-one (AIO) not really what's considered 'water cooling' which is usually a reference to the full custom loop designs. First, fans aren’t as efficient as water cooling, which can pose a problem with severely overclocked processors or … [Discussion] What's your reasoning for water cooling vs air. This cooler is very quiet and among the best performing of the air-coolers (a rival to the Noctua NH-D15, Cryorig R1 Ultimate, and Phanteks PH-TC14PE). Before we even get into the pros and cons of both liquid CPU coolers and air CPU coolers, first we need to discuss some factors you’ll need to consider before you can determine which style cooler is right for you. A rule of thumb for water cooling is to plan for 120mm of cooling for each component you want to cool. This mounting system was difficult to use and got damaged on my second install. We're going to be thorough and analyze every cooler. Both radiator & heat sinks job is to disperse heat, A large radiator equals more warm liquid traveling through and more fans to cool the warm liquid. Continued into comments. Plug it directly into the PSU if you have to! No. Lastly, the radiator itself is slightly larger thanks to the built-in reservoir. Aside from crucial assembly differences, the biggest effect on both coolers performance is surface area. ), Notes! I can sum up the points easily and if you need more details, look back to the analysis (or ask a question!). Liquid cooling takes up less space than fans. And there are absolutely reasons to go with air cooling: a good entry-level air cooler is typically about $20 less expensive than an entry-level liquid cooler, and has the potential to be quieter to boot. It features dual 140mm fans that move up to 97 cubic feet of air per minute, allowing the radiator to draw tons of … Stiff tubing. You can of course make something much cheeper that will barely ever go above ambient, but that involves getting a huge heater core & submerging your pump. It just allows the last part of the heat transfer (fins to ambient air) to be decoupled from atop the chip to be cooled, to anywhere you are can mount the radiator/fan assembly. [Discussion] Air cooling vs Water cooling (8 coolers tested). Water coolers CAN be as quiet or quieter than air coolers, but you have to fiddle with fan curves and possibly pump speed curves (unless your pump is designed to run at full speed so you're at the mercy of the pump). So, besides aesthetics, why do you choose water over air? This is a question better suited for other subreddits, but in general, there's a misconception that water cooling is better than air cooling. The thing about all in one liquid cooler is that they come in a single unit that is comprised of the radiator, pump, water block, and tubes. Gordon gives his opinion on which CPU cooling method is better, air or liquid, and why you might want to choose one over the other. Liquid Cooling vs. Air Cooling: Five Things to Consider Before You Choose. One of the things that you’re bound to be faced with when working with a new build is the question of the cooling solution. Too Long. The water simply carries the heat from the CPU to the radiator, where it is dissipated. The diminutive size means that you can use this radiator in cramped spaces and still be able to get a small overclock. Has two resistance points when screwing in. Tiny screws, very large, painful fan installation. Watercoolers aren't as safe as air coolers. Of note, the Cooler Master Glacer 240L asserts its dominance on every cooler here by being the coolest cooler at full speed, 60% and at 37dB. It almost always increases cooling performance. The process is the same for the air around an evaporative cooler. There's so much noise coming from the fans at full speed that it can easily overpower a loud GPU fan. Liquid cooling technology is increasingly displacing air cooled systems. Semi-stiff. This fluid becomes a vapor and and travels up to a condensing point (usually the crimped tops of a heat pipe) and on its way, transfers heat to the length of copper pipe (which then transfers to aluminum fins). Surface area is more important. The easy installation is a plus as well, making the upgrade process pretty painless. Surface area makes a difference here! Even at full speed, it's difficult to hear this air cooler working. Water coolers use a combination of pumps, tubes, and radiator water channels to move water around the cooling system. Make sure it gets full 12V power. Best CPU Coolers For You. Fractal Design Define R4 (without window), Sapphire HD 7970 Dual-X @ 950 Mhz / 1500 Mhz. Air coolers are almost always cheaper and almost as effective. This air cooler was designed to be quiet first and foremost, and it really shows. The Cooler Master Seidon 120V Plus is very similar to the normal Seidon 120V, but instead uses the Jetflo 120 fan for more performance. In the past, when custom water cooling was the only option, this may have been true. What really differs is the way air coolers and water coolers transfer this fluid. The H75 benefited from having two SP120L fans while the Performer only had one fan. See the background on my previous review for more info about fin density. Doing so will hurt your temperatures dramatically. When it comes to CPU coolers there's a lot to choose from. It's unfortunate that this cooler sacrificed a lot of usability for some flair. The Corsair H75 and Thermalright Water 2.0 Performer were very similar. All core temps are then averaged. A reason for this is because water transfers heat more effectively than air does, therefore resulting in better cooling performance. Easy latch system. Make sure you don't accidentally kink or cut the hoses and make sure the pump is running. Water cooling by itself is no more or less performant than air cooling; what it does is allow the heat generated to be moved elsewhere to be dissipated, so performance is dependent on the thing that's dissipating the heat, not the thing that transfers it. This would allow them to maintain their profile without compromising on performance. Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L (100% pump), Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L (42% pump / 5V). Liquid cooling is the best way to cool a CPU because water transfers heat much more efficiently than air. Virtually inaudible (masked by PSU and HDD noise). Neither GPU shut down during testing. The Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L is an interesting radiator. More surface area simply allows the heat to spread out more and dissipate from the cooler more easily. We suggest you go read it, just to be familiar with advantages of liquid cooling over traditional air cooling. Liquid cooling vs. Air cooling. You MAY have to flush the entire cooling system, much like a custom loop. It has a closed liquid CPU Cooling system with heat dispensing radiator, cooling vents and water pump. The cooled fluid makes its way back down again and the process repeats. In case of water cooling vs air cooling vs aio cooler I personally think AIO Cooler is technically the best of both Water Cooling and Air Cooling worlds. Water cooling (a misnomer that focuses on the wrong aspect; the better descriptor is remote radiator cooling) is not inherently quieter nor more efficient than air cooling. The denser the fin arrangement, the greater the surface area at the cost of increased air resistance which can hurt fan performance. Small water coolers will be more effective than similarly sized heatsinks. Think of it as a miniature version of the Water Cycle happening in your computer, only it's there to cool down your component. 2 x Fractal Design Silent R2 (front), Cougar Vortex HDB 140 (rear). And it all comes down to which combination of characteristics you value most in a CPU cooler: price, performance, compatibility, lifespan, and/or aesthetics. All fans are configured to push air through the cooler. 37 dB is the lowest my phone can record in my room. Air coolers and water coolers actually work in similar ways. Extremely annoying push-pin with screw system for 1366/115X/775. However, like all large air coolers, it's big and hard to work around. Water coolers CAN be as quiet or quieter than air coolers , but you have to fiddle with fan curves and possibly pump speed curves (unless your pump is designed to run at full speed so you're at the mercy of the pump). Closed-loop coolers (Corsair, NZXT, Cooler Master Seidon/Nepton, etc.) The problem with liquid cooling is that not all systems are made equal. After 1-2 years of use, you have to check the water for low levels (due to evaporation) and cleanliness. Since AIOs are generally more common than a custom loop, we decided to have a look at these before we proceed to a custom loop. The downside is that they had to run much louder than Silver Arrow to achieve similar temps. It may be worthwhile to get quieter 2000+ RPM fans if you aim for silence as the SP120Ls it came with rattle ceaselessly. It also didn't help that this cooler had small screws and a very difficult fan-mounting system. That said, most manufactures have a good warranty or coverage on them. The pump that came with the Eisberg was also flawed in that it was small and VERY loud, meaning that turning down the pump for less noise can hurt temps by 2-3C. Only when you plan on spending $100+ do water coolers provide noticeably better performance. In fact, they use the same radiator! Just an FYI, the water itself doesn't cool anything, that would require a phase change (evaporation) to do. The best air cooler vs. the best liquid cooler – analyzed, benchmarked, noise and temperatures tested, and final winner(s?) The Glacer 240L/Swiftech H220/H220-X are the best coolers ever. 1. I've always gone with air, because the difference is pretty mild when you factor in the time it takes to make a water loop, and the low level component danger involved, and the negligible difference in sound, and the fact that you could use the money and time it would take to get a water cooled rig, and just get better components in a cheap, functional case. Liquid cooling also makes your PC run quieter because you won’t have fans constantly running at a high RPM. It only lost at idle noise because the pump ran at full speed. There are several reasons for this growing trend: Therefore weight is reduced. None of the coolers I tested had any failures. See the background on my previous review for more info about fin density. does an AIO cooler use water (and maybe some other juices) to exchange heat from a CPU (or GPU, I don't discriminate) into a radiator, to be exchanged with the air yes or no. Cooler Master Eisberg Prestige 240L (5V pump). However, liquid cooling a PC can also be dangerous if water leaks onto hardware. Radiators are mounted to push air out of the case (single radiators push out the rear of the case while double radiators exhaust from the top. Therefore, water coolers are inherently less reliable. Some of the people in the other movement are promoting pure distilled water as the best choice for liquid cooling as it requires almost no maintenance. You must check for leaks before using it. 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