Air Cooling vs Watercooling... Which is right for you?

I refuse to use water cooling in my upcoming build. Going air cooled. I keep getting told that these new Intel CPUs NEED liquid cooling.
There is no way at all that all of the 12th and 13th gen office workstations are liquid cooled.
Last machine I built is an i5-6600k built during those days that I still use all the time, but it’s in dire need of a serious makeover.
Cooling has become over complicated at this point.

Thank you so much for this advice, Im building a pc for my cousin who lives in a hot country and need to use a smaller case so I was considering an aircooler however this video has helped me make my decision to use a watercooler.

i use aio 120mm and i change the fan from 48 cfm to 56,4 cfm to a 12600 at full speed less than 60 celcius , i do a mistake i can put a bigger fan with 68 cfm but it is ok as it is

"The typical power usage of a high core count CPU is about 95 watts"

This aged poorly.

In all seriousness, it might be worth redoing this in the modern day, for modern CPUs. The basics are still applicable of course, but the existence of the 200w and 300w intel and AMD cpus means that water coolers are more of a necessary component in some builds.

I guess Im 2 years late to the party but for me is was more of a choice of cleanliness. Every PC I've had has been a magnet for dust. I HATED cleaning that Heat sink and fan caked with dust. Not to mention that its a huge bulky metal object that blocks a huge portion of accessing the mother board once it's installed. They are cheaper tho. With my AIO I have so much free space inside my case and no more dust problems. Cleaning the inside of my PC has never been easier and takes alot less time. Sure there's always the risk of a leak but this is why you shop around and carefully make a choice on the AIO you pick to minimize that risk. The way I see it as long as I get a minimum of 5 years out of it then it was well worth it.

Im using a 5900 with a Noctua NH15 and dont have any issues with the CPU temps, they do reach around 75C when under heavy load (LiDAR and photogrammetry as well as gaming) but never reached more than 80, and that's okay with me. my room does get super hot fairly quickly

Honestly I always knew that my i5 didn't need water cooling but K got it anyways because it looks cool 😂 same with rgb fans, we don't need them but eve wants them.

Fascinating and helpful, thanks.

The question I ask myself: Is it better than stock? As long as your airflow is good, even a cheap air cooler is better than stock.

im two years late on commenting, but still running an AIO for my 5950x, if i wasnt an idiot of which whom built their PC during the shortage my original plan was a 5950x with a 3080 full custom loop, but i ended up with a 3060 so my custom loop got put on hold, still trying to afford my 3080 wish 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I just wonder about the strain when some of these air coolers weigh up to a kilogram and it's seems a lot more sensible to have the smaller water cooled system instead, apart from that I would be happy with either really, but for the materials stress...cumbersome....

Majority of AIO are going to be e-waste in a couple of years.

Even after 2 years for my CPU I use an AIO. New AM5 built in Phantek Ethoo Pro 2, CPU AMD 7800X3D running @ 5127 Mhz idle temp 27C under load 57C using LianLi Galahad 240 AIO at 100% as exhaust at the top. 7 Arctic P14 140mm fans, 3 on the front, 4 Arctic 120mm fans front on the side, and 3 on the bottom, and another as exhaust in the back. GPU is XFX 6900 XT 16 GB never runs more than 62C max, and 4 WD 750 Black M.2 nvme gen 4 drives and 3 WD Black Gaming HHDs. Mobo is MSI X670-P PRO WiFi AMD. Using my old PSU Rosewill LIGHTNING-1300 which I had for over 12 years now and it's still kicking. My environment temps are around 30C to 20C depending on if it's cool outside or hot and if I have AC running or not. When it's cold out it probably around 15C to 30C if we don't have heat or if it is on.

Another 2 years after this video, air coolers are still killing it. Even at 200W+ under unrealistic loads, coolers like the NH-D15 and even the $40 TR Assassin keep temps well under 90c. Between that and the reliability/lack of leak potential, I've stuck with air coolers. If you're rocking an overclocked i9-12900KS and a 4090, you might be better off with at least an AIO to keep case temps down for the graphics card. Otherwise, I think air coolers are best for most people.

It surprises me, how many people still consider air cooling as better option. Size, inability to access memory or socket, plus you have to make sure low profile memory availability... AIO are getting better, cheaper and more reliable. Those leaks happen, but it is similar to processors or motherboard shortcut (as new AMD and similar cases). I went with AIO, since it looks better, more manageable and easier to maintain, instead of having power station sized cooler that is heavy on motherboard. Sleeker and more optimal solutions are always superior to older ones, even more reliable.

What about a hybrid air and liquid cooler... just a crazy idea add a small amout of liquid in the pipes of the tower cooler. the heat from the cpu will evaporate the water to the top allowing the fans to cool the liquid thus condensing the liquid back down to the cpu

One thing that we might see (given how HVAC split systems can be built) is a PC case that has the parts of an AC unit: blowing cold air into the system while another part is exhausting heat out a window vent or something similar to a dryer vent. A friend of mine use to have a cooler he build with a standard 240 radiator in the front that air cooled his PC internally using a system of copper pipes in what amounted to a tote of water. Mind you: the PC itself was in the days of quad socket motherboards that he crammed into an ATX case. However, this solution for him brought him the piece of mind of keeping the majority of the "water" outside the system. Having said that: it wouldn't surprise me in the next 5 years or so to see full tower and even some mid tower cases using some form of air conditioner technology inside the case. After all: heat pumps have gone from being used solely on HVAC systems to hot water heaters.

My r5 5600x with a Thermalright Burst Assassin (single tower 120mm single tower 6 pipe) and under extended full load the highest temp I've seen is 61c. I live in sweltering Alabama, but I keep my inside ambient around 72f. Ever since I saw a guy destroy his high-end rig at a lan party in 2001 I've avoided water cooling. Now, I know water cooling is totally different and much more advanced, and I would be willing to use a quality AIO if I thought I needed better thermals.

CLC is too expensive. AIO 360mm and above is still pricey. I just bought a budget dual tower air cooler 6 heatpipes triple fan, each @1800rpm. I replaced the fan with 3 120mm fans 6000 rpm each. I have R7 5600G overclocked to 4.6 GHZ all cores, 4.9 Ghz single core stable with max temp 68 degree celcius. It just cost 85 dollars. 😅😅😅😅 the only issue is the noises..

im using 360 corsair ,,and its the third time they replace it cause its dies ,,im ready to give up on it

I had an AIO back in like 2010. The pump died after maybe two or three years, and I switched to a beefy air cooler. That thing never let me down.

The simple the better. Air cooling for me. When it gets too hot just put the pc inside the fridge

Also today good AIOs cost no more than those massive fan coolers that sit there taking all of the space on your mobo.

Jay 2 years ago "the power requirements of CPUs coming down over time".
Me today: "Ha Haha haha 😭"

Moving over to my first ever water cooling setup with a 240mm AIO on my upcoming new rig for two reasons: Firstly it's going to wind up cheaper, I've stuck with air cooling until now and the Noctua NH-D15 was the obvious choice to cool the beefy CPU I'm grabbing. But that's a £110 air cooler. For a marginally lower price I can pick up a Corsair H100x, which will do a better job cooling my CPU and serve as two 120mm exhaust fans, saving me money there.

Secondly I've long had a pet peeve with the sheer size of a dual tower CPU heat sink, it makes accessing anything nearby it on the motherboard a huge PITA. Being able to have a tiny little pump on the CPU and shift the big heat sink elsewhere is a very attractive prospect to me.

Biggest problem I've had with air cooling recently is the D15 fouling the top PCI-E slot, so the card had to go into the secondary one.

I got a huge rad. It cools the chip and the card. Card never sees more than about 55°C.

We are pleased 😊

I bought PS120 because the community seems to love the performance. It is indeed great for the money. But then the trouble is when you had issue, you have to remove it, especially in my mini-ITX build. Its really hard to troubleshoot any kind of issue, and at some air coolers, you may need to remove it just to install an m.2 or ram (in my case I have to remove it if I want to for some reason replace my m.2) which is quite frustrating. not to mention how many pins blocked and just physically impossible to reach once the air coolers seated.

Another thing is I found out that eventho air coolers are at most cheaper than AIO, I spent more money on more case fans. If I stack everything up, AIO will ended up much cheaper with better thermal performance.

Also with mini-ITX build, I couldn't count how many times those fins cut my hand, I literally have blood marks at some part of my air coolers lol. That thing is sharp.

And after all that fuss, I still need to figure out the perfect air flow just to make sure hot air are efficiently exhausted out of the case.

I just quit and tried Arctic Liquid Freezer ii 240 as my first AIO. Couldn't be more satisfied with it.
A LOT of noise reduction, better cooling performance, A LOT less cumbersome to work with, very space efficient and it looks great!

I don't think I will ever go back to air cooling.

My next step perhaps with custom loop lol

2 years later and with the release of 7950x and 13900K There is no air cooler that can do the job without it's fans going full tilt.

I got an aio sometimes it works normally, sometimes slowly creeps to 100⁰ and stays there i have no idea whats wrong with it but im done with aios theyre too much hassle

Just few days ago i moved to Liquid Freezer II 360mm. Was on AK620 before that but after 1 hour of gaming, the GPU (6900XT) would saturate the case with heat and the fans started to spin loud. Not just on the CPU cooler, but the case fans as well. Wasn't bothering me at the beginning when i had 8 mechanical hard drives in the case and there was always some noise, but 3 months ago i switched to NVMe SSDs only and then the fan noise got quite noticeable. Now with 360mm rad and 3x120 fans which never get above 50% i barely hear anything coming out of my case. Yes, in 5-6-7 years that AIO might be up for replacing, but the silence is unrivaled and that's more then a reasonable amount of time for a new cooler anyway. Now i begin to understand all the custom loop enthusiasm and think when i change to AM5 next year, i'd go custom loop with 2-3 big radiators as well.

If it leaks does your system short out?

I have a custom loop for the GPU and CPU and the temps never get above 60 even under insane load and normally sit around 35 to 40. I’m running a 4090 and 13900KS.

Romans 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

Don´t need expensive and overly complex water cooling solutions.
What the AIO does best is it transfers the heat through the flexible hose directly to the outside of the case.
You can do the same thing with air coolers by installing custom ducts.

i thoroughly enjoy the topic of watercooling, but i'm too paranoid to use it in my pc. i know i would just constantly be in fear of leakage. so, i stick with air cooling. it's fine. my pc is pretty much noiseless and temps more than fine.

i just love the look of the big beefy air coolers just a big fucking dual finstack and ye planning this shit out is annoying at least noctua has a compatibility list :)

I'm a dedicated enthusiast of water cooling, a preference I've held steadfastly. My powerhouse, equipped with a Ryzen 5 3600 and an RTX 3060ti, is entrusted to the cooling prowess of a Lian Li Galahad 360 system. Nestled in a warm climate, the thermometer reaches an average of 40 to 45 degrees Celsius during the summer months, while the winter chill brings it down to approximately 20 degrees Celsius. The initial days were a breeze, with my system maintaining a comfortable 10-15 degree Celsius divergence between CPU and ambient temperatures. Regrettably, over the span of nearly 2.5 years, a gradual shift has occurred. The gap between ambient and CPU temperatures has expanded significantly, reaching a substantial 30-35 degrees Celsius. Despite my efforts to rectify the situation by cleansing the components and applying fresh thermal paste, my endeavors have been in vain. I eagerly welcome any suggestions as they would undoubtedly prove invaluable in addressing this mounting concern.

AIO to strong EZ

Thank you very much very well explained.
The only important factor to me is this: Price to performance ratio (once a certain min. performance is reached which I am happy with, say 80°C on CPU max. for example)
Don´t care about RGB and shiny nice plates which you can´t see anyway etc. etc. etc. What do I get for my $.
My Mugen 4 is from like 2010 or so and in my 3rd PC build. Performance is fine for the CPU I am using which was the i7 4770K and now the R5 3600 will be upgraded to R5 5700X when needed in the future. I doubt that I would still be able to use an AIO for about 13 years, the pump or other component would have probably failed during that time.

I need to see what happens when you put the radiator of an aio in a usb powered mini-fridge.

...planning on an upgrade of my 12 year old system to an 8 core/16 thread CPU (Ryzen 75700X with a TDP of 65 W), 64 GB of memory, and an RTX 3060 12 GB GPU. for CPU cooling I'll be using an Arctic Freezer 34D Sports duo.

My case is an old Antec P193 "tall" mid sized (between a mid and full tower) case that has 7 fans (4 filtered intake and three exhaust) which includes one large 200 mm filtered intake on the left side panel instead of a window. (the latter hard to avoid these days). As my system is used for primarily 2d and 3d graphics production and I'm not into gaming, RGB lighting is pointless, this is a "work" machine.. Currently running a Titan-X blower GPU so the heat dissipates out the back helping with keeping system temperatures down.

If I moved to an AIO watercooled system I'd have to replace my top case exhaust fans with the radiator (just for the CPU) leaving only the single back fan to exhaust heat from the GPU and other components. The Arctic CPU cooler has a twin bank heat sink with dual fans attached. so in a sense I will be running 11 fans altogether when adding in the CPU cooler and GPU.

As my case only has two fans at the top a larger AIO radiator would not work.

The only water cooling I would ever consider is a custom loop in system but that means a new case and more expense than I can afford.


BTW I do live in the Pacific Northwest (Portland) and have noticed over the last 30 or so year summers have become more unbearable (earlier this week we had 4 days of 100℉+ temperatures with a maximum of 108℉).

I have an asus lc 120mm water cooler. My cpu temps reaches 83c sometimes on a full load. I live in a humid country in the philippines. Is it that high? I have done deep cleaning and checking the aio, no leak.

I think Air cooling will disappear in the future as the new PCs require a lot more of cooling .

I have a 12900k running at about 20-23C that I use for virtual machines and for compiling. It can jump up to about 45c under load. But the little H100i (refurbished) seems to do a great job. All in a Corsair 4000D airflow using Corsair LL120 fans. (along with 32G DIMMs of DomPlat all running a rain theme btw) I don't think the Maximus VRMs would fit with a Dark Rock Pro. Not sure. I like the H100i. I can replace the H100i about as fast as I could a DR Pro seems to me.

Guys can you recommend what to pick for my pc, my processor is i7 12700kf should i buy air cooling or aio?

I went back to my modified and ancient "Swift Tech" air cooler which is basically a copper brick with aluminum spikes protruding out of the top. Cooling is good so far but I don't push the 10980 at all.

I know this video is 2 years old now, but I can say that with the current top end CPU's on the market, you can't usually run air coolers - primarily, because they're not totally effective on heavy loads AND it's hard to find cases that fit really big cooling towers anway. AiO's or DIY liquid cooling solutions are pretty much the only viable option lately, unless you're barely taxing your system (and what would be the point in that?) or you've got a giant case, like a Thermaltake Tower 900 - and even then, it may not be enough to keep your 13900k from melting under stress.

I really can't decide! I've come into a bit of money and looking to just get an entire new rig (long story short, my rig is decent (3080, Ryzen 7 3700X etc) but basically I ruined the build as it was my first solo build) - as I struggle to build with anxiety I will break something, especially now that I did, I want to go through a PC builder with a warranty etc. But they only seem to offer AIOs and a couple of basic bitch style CPU fans, the new build would be with a Ryzen 9 7900 - would a cooler master fan cut it?