Air Cooling vs. Liquid Cooling: The Ultimate Showdown (feat. Noctua NH-D15 vs. NZXT Kraken X72)

The best air cooler vs. the best liquid cooler – analyzed, benchmarked, noise and temperatures tested, and final winner(s?) chosen.

*Products in This Video*

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made with product links.

If you liked this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, leave a comment, and hit subscribe to see more computer part reviews coming soon. If you really want to help out, hit the share button to share this video with others on places like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, forums, and other social media.

I hope this video helped you make better consumer decisions. Thanks for all your support!

[HardwareScientist]

I realized I mispronounced Kraken after I made the video! Oh well, it sounds better my way anyway ;) Timestamps below:

Price 0:45
Installation 1:14
Compatibility 2:44
Power 4:13
Looks 4:31
Performance 5:52
Warranty, Maintenance, Safety 9:55
Conclusion 10:56

[sumanth]

Final verdict: air cooler wins, but liquid cooler is the winner

[maximilianlindner]

I would have been satisfied with two simple numbers to compare between the coolers.

This guy: Graphs, Math and Quantum Mechanics!

[vertigoalopolus]

You didnt cover the fact that the Noctua coolers (all of them) can be upgraded to any CPU slot configuration, past, present, or even future - Noctua will send you a mounting kit if you ask for one, for free, and they pledge to do so for all slots in the future.

[DualityV_]

and the NH-D15 will last for life... no pump to replace, just the fans and thats a quick swapperino and noctua prolly upgrades the mounting brackets along the way.

[philm]

The difference in noise profile is quite understated here. The Db scale is logarithmic, so the difference between 39 and 48 is just shy of 10x louder.
I swapped a faulty AIO that hit ~50Db for a D15, and the difference in sound profile was extremely noticeable.

Also, as others have stated, after you've been gaming for an hour+ two things happen.
1 - AIOs lose their cooling lead as the water temperature increases
2 - AIOs must keep the fans ramped up for several minutes after the load has decreased to lower the water temperature again.

This means you can turn your game off to do something else, then need to wait as it sits there burring away at 50Db for what feels like no reason.

[jastin]

everyone gangsta until the AIO starts leaking

[Felale]

You had major positive pressure in the D15 setup and negative pressure for the Kraken setup. The Kraken had the better airflow. You should have put 3 120mms on the top during the D15 test.

[Templesdarkest]

NH-D15 gives you 95% of the performance for 60% of the price. That being said if i was gonna have a TG case I would have gotten and AIO

[Siren_Jin]

So far this has got to be the most descriptive review I’ve seen yet, thank you! Fortunately, I bought this air cooler (NH-D15) and my temperatures drop right away at least by 10 Celsius. I was using a Artic freezer 12 air cooler and could only push my CPU (i7 8700k) to 4.2Ghz anything after that would overheat and crash, now that I’m using the NH-D15 air cooler I’m able to render much quicker due to a stable over clock of 4.8Ghz without overheating and crashing thanks to the new air cooler (NH-D15) however it does peak to 87 Celsius when rendering a project on (Sketch Up, V- Ray plugin). This was an easy install for me, but I did have to move my GPU card down a slot as it is very wide.

[WhoAmIWill]

Take a shot every time he says krayken

[-Kerstin]

lol, I've had both of these coolers. I had the Kraken X72 first but then realized that I hate it and got the Noctua NH-D15 and I'm very happy with it now.

[DefMunkyYT]

This pretty much mirrors my thoughts on the subject. It's less about which is better and more about what the user wants. I'm an air cooler kind of guy but there is absolutely nothing wrong with liquid cooling if that's what floats your boat. Both have pros and cons and neither is perfect.

[charliek]

Fantastic video! But i have to say the fans on the Kraken arent that good. I replaced mine with Fractal fans (the white ones that are as good as noctua fans) and it became more silent and cooled better. I had the X62 btw.

Still tho, the D15 is just less hassle and cheaper. so i agree with your statement

[CrimsonTrauma]

When I bought my Ryzen 1800x a couple of years ago, AM4 sockets didn't exist. Noctua sent me a well packaged AM4 mounting kit for the cooler. That is some impressive customer service!

[chenshilongsun]

This is such a detailed yet easy to understand comparison test. I’m glad to have purchased Noctua instead of AIO.
Only downside is the color and size, but I suspect I’ll grow to love the aesthetics of the classical beige Noctua

[Cunning_Jester]

Thank you for the great video. I especially love seeing all the graphs with the in depth breakdowns. Looking forward to seeing more of your content!

[scottmiller]

Been using the Noctua DH-15 Chroma black for about 4 months now. Incrediblely impressed with how well it cools my 5800x3d in the NZXT H9 Flow case.

[CashmereSky]

Don't forget the Noctua products DO have visual upgrade options, fans and cover plates. You can make them look nice now, at a premium fee obviously. Great review!

[_Davepocalypse]

This was fantastic, you had graphs I hadn't even dreamed of. That GPU temp graph was especially good. You deserve a sub.