Liquid Cooler vs Air Cooler? 🤔

[JeremyMallek]

Also liquid is very good for sleepers if you don't have enough space in those smaller 90s cases

[tormaid]

You have it backwards, the slower heat soaking of liquid coolers means burst workloads have additional thermal headroom. Once fully heat soaked any cooler—air or liquid—will only perform at its maximum thermal efficiency.

[probablygeorge]

The AK620 by DeepCool also has a screen that tells CPU Temps and the top and bottom have light strips you can program. It's really great
For reference, I put mine on a r7 5800x, overclocked it until it peaked at 85c in stress tests, now it never hits 60 and almost never goes above 50 with maxed setting across a variety of games

[ZenTunE-]

I've got an air cooler for 2 reasons. Price and noise. With my lower power chip, a good air cooler is near inaudible in games. I doubt a pump would be as quiet.

But I would consider an AIO for one reason, a vertical GPU. Can't do that with a tower.

[SimMartin]

It depends… I like how liquid coolers looks. But i prefer air cooling. And love my Dark Rock Pro 4 in my stealth build 🥰

[mika]

I got air cooler instead aio for easier maintenance, less moving part the only part that probably malfunction is the fan easier to replace

[joedad]

Technically most good air coolers are just liquid coolers in a way smaller form factor, and without a pump (they instead use liquids with a really low boiling point and its a whole thing that i wont get into) so the only significant difference is that an AIO has way more radiator surface area and has access to cooler air when used as intake.

[ryankaufman]

Rocking a liquid cooler. I agree its for the aesthetics.

[echo]

This or that, cooler addition, for specific processors series? lets

[puppetzinc]

Forgot about noise. Most air coolers even the best ones will normally be noisier at full load every time.There is plenty of reviews that prove this.

[RIP_Texpert]

Another factor to consider is noise while overclocking, it's exactly why I got a liquid cooler because my deepcool gammaxx was annoying

[codyrisser]

I've used both in my rigs, honestly I haven't noticed a huge difference between the two for gaming purely aesthic but I do find air coolers are a little more reliable just because there's less moving parts, therefore less to go wrong. But as long as you use a reputable brand of aio you should be ok

[Petrolhead]

Your last line is completely opposite. The water acts as a filter to minimize the effects of quickly fluctuating temperatures, but it performs the same per fin area and thermal efficiency as an air cooler once it is saturated.

It takes longer to heat up the system, and to cool it down. For a burst workload, this is ideal. Water moving around the loop takes some time to get through the radiator and back to the block.

For the curious, this is exactly how a capacitor works. It takes time for the capacitor to become saturated, or fully filled with charges. When we spike the voltage for a short period, the capacitor soaks up some charges and then allows them to trickle through the output. A capacitor filters high frequency electrical signals, just like a water cooler filters high frequency thermal signals.

[EazyRanger]

Liquid cooler. I'm using the Artic Freeze 3 280mm aio. Super easy to install.

[stephenalexander]

I personally like AIO as they are more quieter and the price diff is something that can be managed. I’ve had both cooling system and I much prefer to have AIO over air cooler.

[HD]

I got a 420mm aio so i can go full send on overclocking my i9 7920x. Its the only way to keep up with newer cpus while keeping my wallet from crying. $115 for a 420mm aio is ridiculous with the only downside being the limited case support for 420mm aios. Even my lancool 3 needed some modifications in order to fit this behemoth.

[TheTopStarz]

I want to know more about the decibel levels, which one is louder but I'm finding conflicting answers, a lot of users say the air cooler makes less noise but some companies state the AIO makes less noise in comparison

[sawyermccall]

The pipes in a water cooler also look really cool and its quieter

[davidlopez]

It also depends on the type of whether you live in, for me, it's almost all year so hot, so liquid cooler seems like the best option

[stuffmcstuff]

For most gamers you only need an air cooler. If you overclock or do a lot of rendering work and all that jazz, probably better to go high end liquid cooling.