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

Watercooling vs Air Cooling will always be a huge debate... but with the efficiency of todays parts and the improvement in air cooling technology, is water cooling even worth it?
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[@anonymous4gent]

I live in Canada, so no cooling. I use my CPU to keep my heating bills down.

[@chilly243]

So thats where all this "global warming" is coming from! Pls, for the love of the flying Mountie, lower your power limits ;-)

[@saiprakashbaral8526]

​@c😅hilly243 Canada is one of those places that needs global warming

[@goldenheartOh]

Sign up for Folding at Home and heat your house while your PC fights cancer! Or you can volunteer your pc's processing power for any number of other research projects with that app, but I think its mainly for calculating protein folds. My room would get toasty after a night of processing with my 2070 Super & 3700x.

[@macblink]

hahaa bro keeps warm and cozy on his PC, rocking the stock cooler 😆

[@KeinNiemand]

Electricity is way more expensice then heating by other means

[@__murf]

I literally only just noticed that whenever I hear an American talking about PC temps that they talk in Celsius not Fahrenheit.. my little metric mind is blown

[@scubasteve53]

C makes for lower numbers than f its not actually cooler but the number is lower , pc gamers are obsessed with numbers , the lower the better on temps the higher the better in clock and fps , its dumb but... well people are dumb so it makes sense Edit In a moment of self awareness I just realized i am also one of those dumb people lol I think its just a subconscious desire , or to more easily compair performance because everyone measures temps in c

[@Jwellsuhhuh]

@@scubasteve53 lmao

[@AlphaMachina]

Yeah, I always stick with Celsius for monitoring temps. I think subconsciously we want that number to be lower, and Celsius gets us a lower "number" than Fahrenheit, despite the value or variable being the same.

[@__murf]

@UCld-0hKL3rcQeb3yIIA6LQA 1:54 - and give full measure when you measure.. unless its core temps, then measure in Celsius, as it look smaller

[@sleezuskryst1246]

Yeah that gotta do everything different from the rest of the world 😂

[@Sercil00]

I like the idea of having an AiO, but ultimately, I have to go with air cooling. The AiO only increases the points of failure. The pump can fail, leaving me with practically no cooling. If the fan on the air cooler fails, the CPU is still passively cooled, which won't be enough for heavy loads but should be ok for the most essential work and for ordering a new fan. The AiO can also leak and destroy the whole system, and it requires more maintenance. The air cooler manages fine even under maximum load, so I won't fix what ain't broke.

[@Bossfightmedia]

Same Idea here. What can fail, usually will at some point.

[@benjaminschmidt3612]

@@Bossfightmedia Well Murphy's Law still lives, but the point of fans failing and not just replacing them seems weirdly specific for me. I wouldn't live more than two days using my pc with broken CPU fans, and not do anything about it

[@mikem9536]

You can also build in redundancy with air cooling, if my cpu fan dies, I still have an 80mm pushing air at it via an air duct.

[@Chopper153]

Everyone knows this. Why do air-cooler users have to lecture others what to use? Just use what you want. I use water cooling but won't rant how bad the performance of air-coolers are.

[@Antoinne]

@@Chopper153 you were literally in a comparison video between air vs water cooling. Ofc everyone will point out the pro and cons between both cooling. What kind of discussion you wish to see here??

[@HelplessTeno]

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.

[@Magic_Muffin]

God loves and cares about you and will always be there for you no matter what✝️❤️

[@pradhumpatel5400]

i have 13700kf processor was using stock cooler got with the processor, temp reached 100 max all time and made my cpu dead got replaced under warranty. Now i want to know which cooler will be best fit for my processor kindly help

[@therealScopolamine]

Even 80 Celsius is too hot. I would hope it would be under 90 because that's when ur cpu starts to get damaged. I wouldn't want my cpu hitting 70 except under max load.

[@ReddwarfIV]

​@pradhumpatel5400 I recommend Be Quiet Dark Rock coolers. My two older PCs with 2nd and 3rd gen CPUs have Dark Rock Slims while my newest PC with an 11th gen CPU has a Dark Rock 4. Depends what fits in your case, obviously, but these are quiet and effective coolers for mid-range PCs.

[@hades4438]

@@therealScopolamine Your CPU never gets damage because of heat if it's not over 120 C and it will shot down before that. So this is a totally false information. 90C even 100C is normal for Intels and they can go on forever with that heat. The CPU already slows down to no pass that limit. So if you use the CPU at around 90-95, this means, it won't able to use full potantial and I repeat this does not damage anything. 80 C is ultra fine and you will just hear a loud fan. I don't know where you get those infos but I can assure you, you are wrong.

[@MonoMan1]

"Processors used to be very inefficient" A statement that will hold true in perpetuity.

[@Mike__B]

Say what you will, was quite nice early CPU I had that didn't require any cooling methods, no fans, not even a heatsink. Although didn't take long to enter the dark ages where they'd put tiny whine machines on to cool CPUs.

[@robertt9342]

@@Mike__B . It was so massive compared to the transistor count that the chip was the heat sink and could be passively cooled.. It’s like people waxing nostalgically over the model T

[@pavelperina7629]

Yeah, depends. My Athlon XP 1700 with GeForce 2 had power consumption 90W idle and 130W at load. My Core2Duo with passive cooled NVidia that got very hot had 60W idle and 140W at load. My i5-4590 with GeForce 1060 ... i don't know - CPU cooler is cold even when CPU is at load, GPU is rated 120W so maybe I can reach 200W or so, but I think it's more power efficient that idle PentiumIII as CPU and PSU fans are barely spinning and only somewhat hot part is the chipset. Now I have Ryzen 7 2700x at work which has up to 145W and orderered 5900x which is the same. New high end intels are going to have 240W. I think I've seen Pentium IV that had ... i cant remember maybe something like 160W idle and 200W at load.

[@MonoMan1]

@@pavelperina7629 I mean, yeah older CPUs used less power and/or required less cooling. But each new CPU gives much more performance, hence they're still more efficient. Of course, there are some exceptions like the 10900k vs the 11900k which "would be better as sand on a beach." But generally the statement holds true.

[@samiam9059]

AMD is more efficient than the new 12th generation Intels... Those are back to brute force power draws.

[@wolf001cmd]

I had an AIO leak ( from the radiator of all places, pinhole size ), and that firmly put me back on air coolers. Nothing to break, aside from easily replaced fans.

[@PabzRoz]

@@skeetlejuice522 How's that gunna help him? He said his AIO had a leak. That smart reservoir that Linus reviewed is only for custom loops. AIO's are one single unit hence the name AIO (All in one). You can't connect a reservoir to them.

[@DATBOCK]

@@skeetlejuice522 useless for an aio liquid cooler

[@How23497]

@@skeetlejuice522 on an AIO yeah?

[@crisnmaryfam7344]

@@PabzRoz Go fucking watch the video before making a comment that makes you look ignorant AF. IT helps because it would have held pressure on that pinhole, keeping it from leaking.

[@crisnmaryfam7344]

@@How23497 Sure, Pull the line off the radiator on the aio and run it in the loop. Not hard... You people seem to think AIO are like sealed and cannot be opened... Give that hose a good yank and it will slide right off your AiO radiator.

[@ScoobGruber]

One thing that makes me want to switch to water cooling is access around the cpu. Not that you have to do it much but trying to push the gpu release clamp is really hard if you have a large cpu cooler.

[@narwhal9852]

use a pen lol

[@megadeth440]

i've always used chop sticks to do that

[@hollymolly518]

@@narwhal9852 used so much force and slip and punctured my motherboard...

[@mre8ballgaming842]

True

[@ProrockAegwynn]

Same here with my NH D15. I've actually broken off my clamp with a screwdriver by accident and in the end it was the best thing that could've happened, now i can just take it out with ease and it's still tight in the slot.

[@VictorTorres-iw3ue]

Thanks Jayz. Living in the tropics, your info considering room temperature is gold.

[@Nnamz]

Me: Do we really need another one of these videos? Also me: *watches entire video*

[@darrenmaharaj]

Some PC builders were not born the last time Jay did his last water VS air video.

[@lifeisinserthere]

Hahaha I love getting drunk and/or stoned..and playing JTC videos I've already watched half a dozen times, just to pick up what I didn't know last time I watched the same video.

[@albundy7718]

The real Reason Watercooling is getting more popular lately is simply that Cases with Glas-Windows together with RGB became popular.

[@Blafard666]

And also they do better at cooling.

[@GlennsHardWired]

Hey kid. Get off Dad's Dell. Your talking nonsensense again.

[@vuongpham6661]

www.youtubesolit.com/watch?v=yIGqWNjhsFo

[@MrBeetsGaming]

@@GlennsHardWired Too bad he's 100% right....

[@TheBiggestMoronYouKnow]

that and noise

[@C-M-E]

My first watercooled rig I was running a 1090T Black and rendering ALL the time. Absolutely necessary back then as Jay pointed out. Though now that I split my time between engineering modeling, renders and heavy simulations, I'm still an avid watercooling advocate. My work office at home in Texas gets pretty toasty the majority of the year and is mostly detached (outside of a door) from the rest of the house, so maintaining an air temp that makes the PC happy is strategic at the best of times. The office has heat and AC of sorts--the 'modular' kind--but of the three PC's I've built with watercooling, all of them are still 100% functional and in use. One of them has that same watercooler from the 1090T that's going on a decade of use and still perfectly serviceable; I've only replaced the fans on it. It's in use right now, and I wonder from time to time what kind of record for longevity it aims to set between it and my truck. 😁

[@sierraecho884]

What kind of stuff do you engineer and render ? You are not the typical gamer, watercooling is exactly right for people like you. I also need a ton of cooling when I do my photogrammetry scans. Still using air cooler, way simpler, cheaper and still the same performance once you figure out the ducting inside your PC.

[@C-M-E]

@@sierraecho884 Funnily enough since I posted this, I put in a 5900x with a mild OC that runs up to 4950MHz on boost and is straight aircooled with a pair of 5600rpm server case fans. I may or may not have karma'ed my watercooled setup, replaced it with a ginormous 5 gallon reservoir and a 4" thick massively oversized heat exchanger via DIY plumber's nightmare, and later that month we had a power outage and all my sh!t froze solid. I had an oldschool 212 Black on the shelf and never got back around to swapping it out.😁 I still do all the rendering and prototyping, probably run harder than I ever did on the old Intel CPU watercooled. The 'project of the day' (more like of the month) which seems to change between CFD, Zbrush and SolidEdge-type stuff project dependant, will get a little toasty but after an hour or so, it's never gone over 70*C even on days like this year where the outside ambient temp is at 110*F and the office is Warm! Granted the fans sound like two jet engines at full song, but that's nothing I can't drown out with good speakers. 😉

[@angrydalek]

Subbed. You answered my questions excellently without stalling for time for pushing a brand.

[@get2choppa429]

as cool and good as watercooling can be, good air cooling is just so much less of a hassle

[@ShinyMooTank]

Air cooler will never go bad and Noctua offer free mount upgrades to their cooler when AMD changes Socket/mount. You keep the air cooler and get a new mount. If a fan goes bad spend $10 - $20 and you're back in business. Very simple unlike AIO where there more failure points and not very easy to fix like the pump.

[@twitchmania7614]

I have an aio for about 3 years and i havnt had a single problem. 100 percent hassle free. Just like an air cooler. And if it does go bad. Ill just buy a new one.

[@bubkusjones]

Till you're trying to get enough cooling capacity and fit in tall RGB RAM, and have a motherboard where the primary PCIe slot is right next to the CPU. Then a good air cooler is a major hassle. That's my main reason for liking water cooling, you move the bulk (in both volume and mass) away from the crowded motherboard and to the frame of the case.

[@dildojizzbaggins6969]

@@ShinyMooTank *you're (short for "you are")

[@JCrook1028]

@@twitchmania7614 3 years is supposed to be some special long time?

[@GamersName]

gaming at night when temps drop to 20C is a thing right now

[@royvice666]

Yeah...NO, the temps drop outside, but in my room i haven't seen the temps drop to below 28C for......it's been 21 days now...yeah, last time i saw temps below 27C was june 25th i think... Maybe it is a thing to other people but night or day it makes no diference in my situation :(

[@magnusnilsson9792]

Nah, the sun is still up at midnight here.

[@shitpostcentraI]

I almost only exclusively use my pc at night due to this

[@SCHTRAM]

@@Venoox Ye man I have a small apartment, all windows open+porch door+a bigass 1m tall floor fan unit. My ap isnt dropping sub 26.

[@royvice666]

@@shitpostcentraI I know, right?

[@DeusMachina71]

I watercooled my last build because I have a compact atx case and it was easier to top mount the radiator and it takes up much much less space inside the case which makes accessing the internals such much easier and I can finally use all my ram slots without worrying about needing ultra low profile memory that gets covered by the cpu cooler no matter what.. slightly quieter with the right noctua fans as well, additionally it doesn't literally sit directly on top of the quite massive for my case rtx 3080. Watercooling is not dead at all

[@tiloalo]

Sounds like a bunch of excuses... recent air cooler have zero issue with ram clearance, and you don't need to take the hugest block available, plenty are super compact and more than enough for cooling. And that noctua fan can only be quieter on an air setup, compared to the same fan + the water pump. Aio are sexy pieces, but they don't really make sense except for threadripper and extreme build

[@mwktacticaltailor2244]

Amazing information as always, learned so much from your channel. Thank you to you and your team!

[@sneedsneed460]

Ive been into watercooling for a while, but recently went to all air cooling with a Noctua D15 Chromax and I really am enjoying the simplicity. The temps are still amazing and it just works.

[@christophergaumond1901]

i just purchased a redux i hope it will be good

[@RMquickbit]

@Todd K the stress on the motherboard is nothing unless your yanking your pc off your desk, then throwing it to a couch. Then throw it into your car, drive on a bumpy road for 8 hours. With all those jerks and vibrations, yes the stress on the mobo could be affected. Otherwise. You’re good to go

[@RMquickbit]

@Todd K add in 99% of KZbin creators don’t build with gpu support brackets. Jesus have you seen the 40degree gpu sag on so many builds. It works but I’d never be comfortable with that specifically. That pcie lane might be reinforced but on a card so heavy and the amount on pins on a x16 slot. You’re more likely to toast a gpu from its sag versus a cpu tower cooler applying incorrect pressure to the cpu/mb which results in damage… anyway

[@reddragon4482]

I bought one but it rattles my case for some reason? Does that happen to you or anyone? I changed to a watercooler and it doesn't do it anymore.

[@exceldoyadika]

Noice.. that d15 will outlive you .. im on the opposite side, this 2 years i've been using custom loop for my pc.. when im doing maintenance it took a whole day just to tear and cut a new pipe. But the nice thing is its very silent and my pc runs 24/7

[@bashbromayhem]

I usually do air cooling for easier maintenance. I can't afford much downtime on my desktop

[@rayr4320]

That was the best tutorial on the merits of different cooling systems. Pumps are subject to load failure, especially if they employ bearings. I suppose the same thing can be said about a noctua fan, but they are easier to replace for the lay person.

[@sysbofh]

Not to mention that an air cooler with a dead fan still (kinda) works. Not great, but compare it with an AIO with a dead pump...

[@chucklou118]

water cooled can leak, not common, but air cooled never can leak.

[@Killingblaze]

I recently changed my desk over to the Lian-Li DK-05 and will be moving to liquid cooling in it after I build a server on the second platform. So I have been watching a lot of vids on water cooling and I like how yours are easy to understand but you never sound like your talking down to anyone even when your getting into the more technical aspects of the subjects you cover and well with this desk air cooling, though enough to handle the heat is not esthetically pleasing lol so I will be doing 2 custom loops once I have both systems built and your insights have helps a great deal - Thank you

[@lacucaracha111111]

"Power requirements of CPU sorta coming down over time" GPU: * nervously sweats in 300W *

[@joer8854]

"Smiles happily at 1000w psu" ;)

[@Fishingishard]

300? light weight. I'm at 360w /cries

[@lacucaracha111111]

@@Fishingishard Was just a healthy guess

[@S8ER]

I’ve seen my GPU at 480w 😭

[@THEpicND]

Power requirements of cpu sorta coming down over time Intel: laughs in 14nm +++++++++

[@mohammedbenbrika394]

Even though water may be better sometimes, I still love the look of a huge heat sink dominating the view in the window

[@1nsurgent]

same, have you seen that Scythe Ninja 5 cpu cooler

[@smokeyninja9920]

On the other hand, I love the look of my 1280mm rad sitting next to my case

[@sierraecho884]

Water is not better. Their working principle is completely the same. 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. Ever wonered why AC units always have ducting and out PC´s are just an open space mess ?

[@trifilosgr]

For me it also makes a difference if you’re using a dehumidifier Edit: dust is also a thing so maybe having a dust proof case with hepa filters and regularly cleaning it, I believe it would make a difference. Also an air cleaner and an external cooler near pc would be a nice thing to try.

[@eneomaos33]

What do you mean? What difference does a dehumidifier make?

[@alexbarnwell7732]

Humidity changes the thermal conductivity and capacity of air

[@iseeu-fp9po]

@@alexbarnwell7732 Could you please elaborate on that? The more humid the air the worse thermal conductivity or the other way around?

[@mandavaler]

Simply having a portable/window ac unit in the bedroom keeps temps low enough to have no worries about ambient temps

[@boulx]

@@mandavaler not cheap. i live in Cambodia and it s only fans day time

[@macblink]

always good to hear your clear explanations 👍🏻

[@Astro-ck6mh]

There's one thing that I must disagree with. Air or water cooling will heat up the room by the same amount assuming that your GPU/CPU is running at the same power. Only difference is that your GPU/CPU will reach higher temperature on air because the heat transfer is not as efficient, but the amount of watts to dissipate is the same for air/water once equilibrium is reached.

[@dralord1307]

Glad I wasnt only person that noticed that bit of thermal insanity lol

[@ivoivanov7407]

Exactly! If the CPU draws 50W (that is 50A@1V), the cooler, no mater air or water, will have to transfer 50W of heat into the room. J2C and the New Thermodynamics...

[@rikwisselink-bijker]

The point is that on water the CPU/GPU is cooler, making it probably turbo higher (or not throttling), drawing more power, leading to more heat in the room. If you have a fixed power draw for either air or water, then it doesn't matter.

[@Astro-ck6mh]

@@rikwisselink-bijker agreed 100%. It's just the way that Jay said it sounded wrong, but he probably meant what you just explained.

[@Eclipezz]

Jay, Its not the thermal capacity of water vs air, its the thermal capacity of the water vs the metal used in the aircooling heatsink

[@aaronthomas6155]

It's not even the thermal capacity of water....since the liquid in an AIO isn't pure water.....

[@radioactium]

@@aaronthomas6155 at that point you're being pedantic, you know that when people say water they just mean the fluid inside the loop. And I've heard of people just using distilled water in custom loops so it's not like that's entirely out of the question either.

[@hsharma3933]

@@aaronthomas6155 You’re right. It’s not pure water, and the added solutes actually increase the boiling point… that’s how antifreeze works. Might want to read up on boiling point elevation and freezing point depression. It’s chemistry 101

[@hsharma3933]

@@radioactium certain solutes in water that are present in the coolant fluids, when maintained in the right balance, actually increase performance vs water.

[@xeridea]

@@aaronthomas6155 It isn't all water, but the other solution still has a lot higher thermal capacity than copper or aluminum. Metal has high thermal conductivity, but very little thermal capacity. This is why with water cooling you won't reach max temp for around 30 minutes, it takes a lot of energy to heat water, while with an air cooler, temp will peak quickly, within a minute... and then a little more as case heats up, depending on airflow of case.

[@paulchamberlain7942]

Thank you for this summary. I have only ever used air coolers, passive where possible, and never seriously considered water cooling. You just convinced me to stay with air cooling for the forseeable future. I had never before considered that the distinction between the two strategies had been so blurred by the use of heat pipes. I can no longer consider air cooling truly air cooling, nor water cooling truly water cooling. This being the case, the "air" category has the advantages of not requiring a pump, a totally closed system with no evaporation, and resilience to overheating if the one failure point possible actually fails. Which the user would generally be alerted to by the bios.

[@ChrisPollard]

I moved to an AIO this year after upgrading to a 5800X from a 3200G. The air cooler (Gammaxx GT) was great on a 4 core chip, but was heat soaked in minutes on the notoriously toasty 5800X. Just a simple 240mm AIO, but even at full loads for long periods I'm only seeing temps hit 80-ish vs. 99 and throttling. Do I have my concerns about the AIO leaking? Sure. But they're usually pretty good these days, so I'll take my chances.

[@Chauncey1124]

What happened to the engine block custom build I was really looking forward to seeing you guys finish that build

[@pauld4238]

It had a non-factory tune on it and wouldn’t pass inspection in California now, so they shelved it.

[@Wanted_Tiger]

@@pauld4238bruh.....

[@deadly_mir]

It most likely got put on hold, builds like that take a bit of time and a decent amount of effort and planning. He said he wanted to or might If I recall, so he didnt guarantee he'd do it. If he is doing it just give him a while, the market situation and youtube tech vid algorithm is all over the place and is difficult to plan around currently. Basically he just wants to make content we all enjoy and that they enjoy making! So for now just think of it as being on hold for a bit unless he updates on it!

[@Wanted_Tiger]

@@deadly_mir yep i'm with ya on that point , just hope it does not end up like Red Dead Redemption build did.

[@walterday8933]

@@pauld4238 - Damned C.A.R.B. and their standards!

[@davids8628]

FINALLY an updated video for this topic. I feels like its only covered well in like 1 or 2 videos on youtube.

[@kzm4275]

5900X here with PBO on, with a Dark Rock Pro 4. Idle, it stays at around 30-33C. 50% CPU load, it goes up to 53C. When super heavy on the CPU (95-100%), I've seen it go up to 70C, nothing more than that. Super happy with the DRP4!!

[@james3429]

I got a Dark Rock Pro 4 for my i9 9900kf. I haven't really done much testing. Seems to do okay though.

[@PoRRasturvaT]

Funny how the first 20s didn't age well, hahaha. I was reluctant to get AIO but with the 13700K 250+W I jumped the wagon and got a silent loop 2. The refillable part is what sold me.

[@ffgrieverpl]

Exactly my thoughts :D . TDP of 90W seems like a distant past . Couldn't even keep my 13700k from reaching 100c and throttling on a decent air at around 280W. Now it can boost forever even on a minor, +200MHz OC (though ultimately I went for undervolt at stock speeds anyway, which results in around 200W, so air should be able to keep it cool enough).

[@user-wo4xz6ri4s]

Go to bios and turn off the AIB's auto overwattage settings. It boost 20-30% CPU tdp but gain ~3% performance only. Not worth the heat nor the electricity.

[@mandavaler]

Alphacools eisbaers quick disconnect tubes are what sold me i can make a full custom loop if i wanted with it but i just added a reservoir so i could so refilling and have an even larger heat sink capacity on a 360mm radiator

[@johnnypopstar]

@@ffgrieverpl When you say "a decent air", which one specifically? I'm considering a 13700k and was going to pair it with an NH-D15. Been using one on my 5820k and it's handled that fine enough.

[@ocm6382]

@@johnnypopstar I'm having difficulties cooling my 13900k with a NH-D15. Different cpu, but thought I'd share

[@thegreatboto]

I've always been in the air cooling camp due to there being fewer thing to break/go wrong, general convenience, less maintenance, and a good air cooler has pretty decent performance overall considering the prior considerations. Though, water setups almost always look super and I appreciate the effort that goes into putting those loops together. Just have never been into putting together a loop myself. Keep it up Jay!

[@ardianmusliji8349]

"I built it for him, still mine" jay kills me

[@ProjektLament]

I have the old intel AIO for a build I did in 2016. Still running strong.

[@Vysair]

I have never seen such a crystal clear explanation before! And this is coming from a Tech Savvy Programmer!! You have talent in teaching

[@CommodoreFan64]

I've tried my hand at AIO water cooling, and had a pump fail in less than a year, I have a PC on air cooling that has been running the same air cooler for over a decade still going strong with just changing the thermal past once a year or so, and giving it a good clean.

[@DrSpaceman69]

Yes the longevity of a good air cooler is unmatched

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@DrSpaceman69 100%, and I do a fair bit of PC salvage from my local recycle drop off, and 9 times out of 10 unless it's just totally trashed, I can usually save a decent air cooler with just a good cleaning, fan lube/replacement fan if possible/needed, and fresh silver thermal paste.

[@itsdeonlol]

I will just stick to air cooling. It's reliable & I can rest my mind with ease.

[@130n35s]

I use an aio at the front, with a silent grow-tent fan hooked up with a little insulated ducting. I could remove all the fans, but like their rgb effect to show case temperature. The grow tent fan also has a magnetic display that I can manually adjust speeds even though there's a detector inside to change speeds. Don't have room for top exhaust, and this made for a perfect air through-put.

[@PuffyWuzHere]

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.

[@RavTokomi]

We need more AIO cooled GPUs. Thats where the real wattage is.

[@stealin2192]

I would love to see Corsair or anyone make an aio for every 30/6000 series

[@TheKansasDude]

My 6 year old EVGA 980 Ti Hybrid, runs at about 245 watts through a 120mm AIO. It puts out some serious heat lol. GPU temps under load are about 50-55c. It has been a trooper

[@sebastianmorales2753]

My 6900xt asus lc is greatttt

[@TheKansasDude]

@@sebastianmorales2753 Does it crank out some god awful heat like mine does? lol The air coming out of my overclocked i7 8700k on a 360mm aio is hardly warm under full load.. Atleast compared to the air coming out of my GPU radiator.

[@sebastianmorales2753]

@@TheKansasDude I have two aios on my pc one of them is a 360 and the gpu is a 240 mm. And let me tell you dude, it's a mf heatbox

[@KrazyBean14]

I'm always gonna be an air cooling guy. Water in the system just always scares the shit out of me.

[@weetjewatikwil1]

Noice

[@official_commanderhale965]

@@eek8605 to each their own. I could care less on the sound mine makes since I have Studio quality headphones and don't hear any of it.

[@eek8605]

Ngl if your pretty sensitive no matter how quiet you put your asetek pump you can hear it, thats why i switched back to air cooling as fans can go quieter than a pump

[@eek8605]

@@official_commanderhale965 fair enough i mean when you chilling without headphones thats where it triggers me lmao

[@dr.brennstab2201]

@@eek8605 That's the exact same experience I have and I had a custom watercooling.

[@d.o.9808]

One of the pros of AIOs: you have the zone of the MB more clean to work, you can use RAM with higher and better heatsinks, great video bro

[@oxyuran5998]

In my old rig I got away with a giant passive heat pipe and fin design but since I'm going for a more showpiecy kind of build with the next one I will go for an AIO, although most decent aircooler could handle the 5600X no problem. Also in summer and without air conditioning I get up to 30°C worst case in my appartment (26-27° and 50+% humidity on the regular). Then a water cooler will buy me more time with a cooler CPU and lower fan speeds, so I'm sold on an AIO.

[@jackchristenson1027]

I’m sucker for fans and a good ole heatsink what can I say

[@skeetlejuice522]

Why did you even bother saying it?

[@crisnmaryfam7344]

Me too, I just prefer mine to perform a bit better and have water moving through it lol.

[@Fate_GO]

*badumm tsss!*

[@demigo1031]

Air cooling for consistency and reliability. AIO for aesthetically. Custom water loop for.. big D energy.

[@thedeegee1601]

My Noctua NH-D15 Chromax with White Covers want's to have a talk.

[@TravisFabel]

@@thedeegee1601 they can talk with the 11 140mm noctura fans that cool my loop silently.

[@demigo1031]

Don’t get me wrong guys. The Noctua NH-D15 Chromax/Noctua fans hands down one of the best air cooler/fans for consistency, reliability and aesthetically.

[@christophertorres8369]

Thanks so much for the video Jay

[@syedhammadhussain6699]

Awesome info. Thanks man!

[@Goodluckbuddy1408]

“The most you’ll experience is 80-85 degrees F” Washington State: *Laughs in heat wave*

[@MikMoen]

Not even that, these last couple years during "normal" Summer days it can get into the 90s.

[@brettpeckinpaugh]

I shut my PC down here in the Seattle area during that heat wave. And for the record, the humidity here in the PNW is not that high. Currently 40% at the moment which is pretty low. I even use evaporative coolers during the summer with great impact on the heat.

[@Goodluckbuddy1408]

@@brettpeckinpaugh I’m 30mins away from Seattle and during that heat wave I had to get a hotel lol. Our apartment complexes along with 70% of Washington don’t have ac.

[@ycar80]

@@MikMoen *Western Washington. In most of Eastern Washington hitting 100 during the summer is pretty normal.

[@cementhead75]

It was a pretty cruel joke that the heat wave hit the same week as the big steam sale. I think my pc was on for maybe an hour total that week.

[@MMagid1000]

My girlfriend and I don't have heating in the house. In the winter, we use our gaming PC's to heat the room and it works really well. (2 AIO water-cooled desktop computers)

[@tsjeriAu]

I also use my computer as a space heater during winter time, unless it drops to like -10C, I can avoid using the actual space heater especially during the night. Uses less power than the space heater, too.

[@YOEL_44]

My room at summer becomes a multimedia sauna system, a first gen Cryorig H7 for cooling a Ryzen 3600, just about enough

[@mattk6827]

Nothing wrong with water cooling if that's what someone's into. I've never found a need, air coolers work fantastic but then I've always used the larger towers. At least once they became popular after the days of the zalman flower type coolers. Never had issues cooling, no leaks, I actually like the looks. They're extremely quiet. If anything it helps the airflow in the case and I've never had trouble with one being vented out the rear of the case. Custom loops are about the only worthwhile venture imo, but those get complex and expensive. And of course something like a dual loop with the gpu as well as overrad for quieter operation. Most aio's are still more expensive than a quality air cooler. A few are getting competitive or cheaper, likely because the cheaper air coolers were matching or beating them. I just don't envy the headache of cleaning a custom loop, the maintenance etc. Or having to worry about leaks. If a fan on an air cooler dies the cpu just throttles and there's an alert. No sadness of a leak killing half the components.

[@batuksri]

Most people get AIO because new graphic cards are huge and run hot. A large tower heatsink+fans with a gpu close will just spew hot air at each other. An AIO has a small footprint, leaving more room for air circulation while heat is carried through the hoses.

[@gorkskoal9315]

this. I want to upgrade my computer. I haven't needed to even think about a CPU cooler untill now. and it's appalling how tight a fit the motherboard is do anything with. I have a some idea how bat it'd be to squeeze in a fan. Especially when so many reviews say something like it was awful to install and doesn't work all that well.

[@brilliantlysplendid]

I’ve always liked the way that the giant air cooling towers look, especially that double tower. It’s an entire cube of heatsink! That being said, I can’t fit one of those in my case, it’s a cooler master elite 110. Maybe I just have a thing for cubes..

[@Theres_No_PlanetB]

Same. Dang some cases can't fit larger air coolers

[@iyeetsecurity922]

There's always ice _cubes_ then. Just put em in a ziploc and your rig'll be good and chilly.

[@Kryptic1046]

You dastardly cubist.

[@MidinVal]

Looks like a giant electric transformer station LOL

[@JustIn-sr1xe]

I have that same case. I modified the height of the psu bracket to closer to the lid. and made some cuts to add in a 3 slot gpu...

[@flavio-machado]

Ryzen 3900x; Noctua D-15, Highest temps are 60-64 (rendering). Enviroment temp: 27-32 C

[@Jasontyo]

I have a 3900x with a Hyper 212 RGB Black Push/Pull, its fine. 50's-60's

[@k4rim865]

Thats my idle temp. Damn. Is my chip damaged or something?

[@andreidavid145]

Ryzen 5 3600; Noctua D-15S, Core P3 (Open air case). Awesome thermals.

[@yomom6567]

@@k4rim865 silicon lottery probably

[@andreidavid145]

@Swifty9748 D-15 is an awesome choice. Just double check that it will fit

[@JR-zw2vb]

Always appreciate great contents to learn. Good point made in considering the temperature in the surrounding environment when applying air coolers; not many think of it and jump into Noctua. After watching few of your vids, I'm getting an AIO watercooler for higher core CPU. Got more confidence in maintaining it. And no more fears of malfunction. As it seems easy to maintain than a car. Cooler Master H 212 can finally rest in peace. Thanks.

[@mikem9536]

If you go AIO don't get anything under 280mm, otherwise an air cooler and a couple of air ducts is better.

[@JR-zw2vb]

​@@mikem9536 So true! And never thought of air ducts! lol. BTW, by now I got a few AIOs, but learned the lesson that if you go OVER 360, then you need to upgrade the case to match the size as well. Darn!

[@NoBuddy89]

Noctua and a proper airflow situation outperforms alot of AIO configs in my experience :P Only had a few builds where AIO was noticeably ahead, but not by enough to make me sold on it. Customer wanted it tho, so they got it. But for my personal builds and my recommendations, AIOs are never in there, then again, I dont even recommend OC :P

[@sraztec01]

still Air cooling with Hyper 212 Evo just upgraded the fan from 120mm to 140mm and saw a temp drop and Once a year maintenance of blowing out the dust. ; )

[@mrcnorth7149]

Air cooling for all the pc's I have ever built. Simple and easy to maintain.

[@betraid]

What maintance do you have for water cooling?? None. 9 fucking years on service don't even changed thermal paste and my cpu is 60-65ºC under heavy load. there is nothing to compare whatever you use anything could fail vent or pump whatever, anyway u have to buy new one if it fails, and since they ain't expensive no one gives a fuck if it fails :D for less than 100$ u can buy both options. i stay with water cuz i spend almost all my time at pc, so i hate the noice from vents and try to minimize it.

[@RicochetForce]

@@betraid Air-cooling is the most reliable form of cooling for a computer. By its very nature it has few points of failure, and those points of failure are incredibly cheap and easy to resolve. For peace of mind, affordability, and reliability air-cooling has no equal.

[@nickcifarelli8887]

what I like most about your videos is your attitude. How you talk, your pragmatic approach to figuring shit out, simple logic and to the point. Carry on Lad!!!

[@kevino2622]

I just took apart my EK custom loop and going back to air cooling with a Noctua D15... I have like zero time to be pulling the loop apart once a year now I'm a dad. So in the spare 30 minutes a month I get to play games, I just want something reliable that can sit there for years and not need my attention.

[@bandeyekhoda3943]

I'm all for air cooling. I don't play games on my PC and I hadn't done an upgrade in 12 years so I'm not that familiar with water cooling. but you had me thinking with that ambient temp speech, it easily gets into high 40's Celsius (115-124 F) in the summer here and we use evaporative AC, so inside temps are still above 90 F at noon, maybe I'll go for a proper AIO if I see temps go up. thanks for the info.

[@ericio2213]

I only put an AIO because my air-cooler was blocking one of my ram slots.

[@StopaskingformynameYouTube]

I had the same conundrum when i was putting together my system, i ended up using LPX ram from corsair instead as i've had 3 water cooling loops fail on me, one EK radiator started leaking from the fin stack while i was gaming, killed the entire system. and two AiO coolers just had failed pumps after months of use. I will use aircoolers for the rest of my life just because it's safe and easy.

[@weetjewatikwil1]

Noice

[@martinw245]

ericio22 An NH-D15 S, the high compatibility version may have helped you. Its offset and only has one fan. The extra fan only makes a mere two degrees difference to cooling. Most people don't realise that the second fan on a big air cooler does very little and can be dispensed with for hardly any increase in temp. The velocity of the air passing through the heat sink is the same, its just a slight increase in static pressure with a second fan. Tall heat sinks on RAM are a gimmick too, they do very little. I use GSkill Ripjaws with my D15S.

[@diegoperez6687]

@@martinw245 NH-D15s with gskill trident z neo with no problems in clearance. My 5800x is nice and cold while also being super quiet.

[@StevenNassibian]

Same. Bought a Hyper 212 RGB Black edition but it blocks the 1st slot when using tall ram. Moving the fan to the other side (pull config) but temps were similar to the stock cooler. Now with standard push config, full load is 60C, Idle 42C (19C ambient). Just bought a 280mm AIO so I can use all my shiny new Corsair Vengeance Pro ram.

[@dmannthey]

Even with an AIO it's just so much more aesthetically pleasing to look at a water cooled system.

[@sunohonmy4024]

not all the time, some times i wud rather have a pure black air cooler

[@patricktho6546]

depends

[@martinw245]

Purely subjective. I prefer the look of my D15S with Chromax black fans and black heat sink covers.

[@dmannthey]

It is purely subjective, and it's not everyone's preference. Just mine.

[@ChristheDowned]

Really informative, thanks man.

[@jonasvogel3672]

Very late to the party, but I decided to go with an AIO for the aesthetics. The area around the CPU becomes pretty lean and I actually get a good luck at the entire motherboard, which is loads better to look at then a cumbersome aircooler, plus I don't have to worry about clearance. I am not running particularly heavy loads, but I want my PC to look a bit nicer overall.

[@thechemtrailkid]

Ha, I'm the exact opposite. I love the looks of a big air cooler, especially the blacked out NH D15; I think I like how it makes the case look fuller. Between decent AIO and air coolers though it's basically all preference save for clearance issues.

[@Chopper153]

@@thechemtrailkid Not for modern power hungry CPUs. I had to buy an AIO for my 13600k because the huge NHD15 won't fit in my case and perform worse than an AIO.

[@ishraqmirza2724]

@@Chopper153 my 7700x works fine on a d15s, without pbo…

[@mikem9536]

@@Chopper153 It won't perform worse than an AIO if installed correctly.

[@nuri2118]

@@Chopper153 Than you fcked something up. Cooling with my Noctua D-15 for years and never let me down. Always had problems with the aio softwares and i will never go back to water cooling again.

[@colinjava8447]

I like custom watercooling, for the aesthetics, temps, quietness. The costs and maintenance are annoying though. I like coming up with new ideas for my loop and implementing them though.

[@travisdonotsuscribegototjs9323]

Right, i have a solid panel BeQuite Case so ended up doing barbed fittings with braided Tubing to prevent a line collapsing

[@mrtoasticles7144]

What maintenance are there for aio ?

[@colinjava8447]

@@mrtoasticles7144 nothing really, just cleaning dust out of fans

[@mrtoasticles7144]

@@colinjava8447 idk im scared of aios cuz i heard they can leak but they look so goo. I want a cooler master 240 one.

[@colinjava8447]

@@mrtoasticles7144 it's possible but it's pretty unlikely. I wouldn't be put off by it personally if I was getting an AIO, unless it was some very cheap brand/model.

[@lucascain8180]

but consider this: there's a lot more RGB on an AIO or custom loop

[@Cosmstack]

I mean, aside from a potential display on the waterblock, with aircooling you can still get just as much. Just put RGB fans on the cooler and in your case

[@kjorndogg3244]

I'm just waiting for the day where RGB heat pipes are a thing. Lets be honest it's just inevitable.

[@kaziwill]

RGB is trash...

[@lucascain8180]

@@Cosmstack but u cant have rgb pump res block and fittings on a heatsink

[@play_mo_games]

More rgb = better performance

[@catxsoho]

One of the biggest reasons I am waiting to start my build project is because getting a good aircooling system or AIO is much more expensive then air cooling, I live somewhere where I can easly get to 35-40°C in a humid enviroment. I'd rather wait and save up an other €300-400 so I can make sure my CPU is always nice and cool being able to have a fully watercooled system, or an AIO and adding good air ventilation to keep the GPU and the motherboard cool as well

[@vLarsn]

I used a Corsair H100i aio for about 6-7 years. First on a amd FX-8350 then on a r5 3600. Pump started making weird noises about a year ago, so I switched to a Noctua NH-U14S air cooler. Currently I'm using the same cooler on a r9 5900x. Idle 35c, full load 70-75c. I'm really happy with the cooler, but I do prefer the look of an aio cooler.

[@johannesbohm6458]

7:25 nope thats not how physics work... All the heat from the CPU will be transfered to the air, no mater what kind of cooler you use. If your CPU draws 100W you have a 100W heating element. Aircooling does not magicly lower your Power consumption.

[@adamkirby5986]

I have scrolled further down the comments than I thought possible to see this correction. Quite scary...how many people missed this error! Thanks for restoring my lost faith and brain cells. :D

[@niko5514]

You are with your comment not completely correct either. The total energy of the system stays the same (first law of thermodynamics). 100W is not a measurement of energy but a measurement of power (work/time). There is no physical reason for the power of a system to remain constant. Water has a very high specific heat capacity. Therefore (compared to other common materials) a high amount of energy is necessary to raise the temperature of water. Thus this energy is transformed and can't be used to spread into the room immediately as a rate of work. But when the water temperature decreases this absorbed heat will be released and spread into the room. Thus heating the room up at a later time. This explains a common experience if you have a walk by a big lake. In the winter it feels warmer and in the summer it feels colder.

[@johannesbohm6458]

@@niko5514 I know. I just simplified the matter since in the end its going to have an similar result...

[@WayStedYou]

I was gonna say what the fuck is jay talking about

[@niko5514]

@Q - AGEIDO Well if one is to change the boundary and initial conditions and don't assume equal heat (loading conditions) for the different cooling solutions than one might find your argument appealing. Our arguments above where guided by comparison under the same loading conditions. Which usually is the way to compare two technical systems in the first place for a specific property. You are arguing with the classical "rebound effect". Nevertheless this effect is highly depending on the use case. For example: I would argue that a decent CPU like a 5800X will not produce more heat on a Noctua air-cooler than on a water-cooling solution. Your original argument is only valid in a user case which involves a bad air-cooler vs. a good water-cooler or a crazy CPU.

[@Dseated]

The race to the bottom in the watercooling market makes the high engineered air coolers so enticing.

[@steveyjay8657]

Thorough as always... Thanks.

[@charliesierra6919]

Fascinating and helpful, thanks.

[@infantryrecon101st]

Definitely still need water cooling for GPU's makes such a huge difference! Even just putting an AIO on a GPU makes a world of difference and is totally worth it.

[@Midknight0122]

@@mikeycrackson The stress on the socket would be crazy without built-in supports, would be interesting to see it done by a manufacturer though.

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@Midknight0122 We really need to see more PC case makers start making square cases where the motherboard is mounted horizontal, and with a basement for the PSU, so the motherboard can have the add on cards standing vertical like the old days, so there is less stress on the motherboard's card slots with how heavy some GPUs have gotten, and I really think that would solve a lot of issues

[@cafu6313]

I have NZXT G12(Noctua NF-A9pwm) + NZXT Kraken X52 mounted on my EVGA SCII 1080ti. 2000Mhz @1V, playing at 1440p highest temps are around 60-63c in summer days

[@infantryrecon101st]

@@mikeycrackson True would just be tricky to fit into a case.

[@infantryrecon101st]

@@cafu6313 Right on! I got the same setup going with my 2080TI. 23C idle and 40C while playing 1440p. GPU core overclocked plus 90 and memory plus 200. Running around 2100Mhz right now but have not tried to go higher yet.

[@AaronMais]

Water, custom loop. I didn’t see him mention the benefits of being able to cool your graphics card as well.

[@gl4989]

You can get better temps with a gpu air cooler like the accelero xtreme series

[@daniellindegren1182]

@@gl4989 we just watched a whole video of him explaining water is more efficient than air. How does this differ for a graphics card?

[@okpen1234]

The only reason I started all my water-cooling is because I wanted to get a silent GPU

[@darwinwallace77]

@@okpen1234 Me too

[@corruptedpoison1]

He was talking about AIOs not custom loops.

[@CoreQ]

I like the good year 3R tires behind you

[@MMOPC78]

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.

[@feelsgoodmanjpg7762]

I've built a custom loop this year. Really love how quiet my PC runs now. What I don't like about air cooling is, that the fans are ramping up pretty fast when entering a game or starting heave load. The water cooling chills until it reaches about 35°C water temp. The only downside (besides the price) is that my RX6900XT has pretty load coil wine, which is very noticeably now :D

[@meepmeep8875]

Have ya looked at the EK Liquid Devil variant to add it to your loop? I'm planning on doing my first custom loop and goin ham with it

[@yae_123]

Uses a noctua cooler. To this day, I have not noticed any major noise issues when gaming.

[@ZombieRommel]

I have quiet noctua fans myself but I never really understood noise complaints. I game with closed back headphones (DT 770 Pros) which are very noise isolating, and I wouldn't be able to hear a burglar smashing my windows with them on when game audio is blaring, much less a cpu fan ramping up. I highly suspect people who complain about fan noise are gaming on a speaker setup or are using open back headphones.

[@whatjake7898]

@@ZombieRommel Thank you! When gamers bring up this argument I always say there is no way they even hear a swat team breaking in let alone a fan in a PC. Plus they have fans on the radiators that are doing the same thing. It’s a terrible argument.

[@Magnulus76]

CPU fans are why, back in the day, you didn't place a gaming PC at ear level to show off to your friends or be a fashion statement. Once you put your PC under a desk, you don't really notice the noise any more than you would a console.

[@geht-dichnix-an4183]

Build my first full Custom Loop this year thanks to your videos with my 9900k and some slight overclocks. Keeps it cool and quite. And I can finally close my case thanks to this since the last cooler prevented me from closing it (O11 Dynamic XL). The fans on that noctua-monster prevented me from closing it.

[@mjsheen8445]

I had been always pro air cooling which is a low maintenance option. I bought Noctua hoping it would be sufficient but found it to be lacking in actual usage with constant high CPU load, for example, AAA gaming. Best air cooler, such as Noctua may match water for a short lived test but the cooling performance start to drop with constant load. As you mentioned, water has bigger capacity to absorb heat and even the best air cooler would not match it. The same goes for engines. The best air cooled engine would not be able to match water cooled engine. Still, I blew up my PC twice for not cleaning dust build up and I certainly won't be able to maintain water cooling.

[@SnowWolf9999]

There is a reason Porsche went water cooled, they finally hit the maximum performance they could push via air cooling w/o warping their engines.

[@zealinbarden3942]

​@@SnowWolf9999I thought they stopped air cooled engines because of emissions regulations

[@sierraecho884]

Sorry but this point is wrong. The problem with an engine is it would overheat if it stands still so no fresh air can cool it down you had the same problem, you need to evacuate the hot air from the inside of the case and this is done by using air ducts. The problem is not the air cooler ( their working principle is the same) The problem is the AIO radiator sits flush to the case and pumps the hot air out or cool air in white the air cooler sits inside the case and pumps the hot air inside the case.

[@Nirfin]

Jay pronouncing niche (neesh) like nitch as in lilo and stitch got me rollin'

[@Alex82pd]

All perfect and useful. There is a thing though: I would add the difference with building a custom loop. I did have an aio, but as you said the main heat generator is not the CPU, but the GPU with almost 350w on the 3080. So I removed the aio and installed a custom loop. The GPU of course thanked me heavily, it changed the GPU like night and day. The CPU also has improved to be honest compared to the aio, despite the aio being a corsair with dual 140mm fans.. I suspect it is because the water flow is much higher and that increases the efficiency of the heat exchange of the plate on the cpu itself. Having tried them all, I see little improvement using an aio l, but massive benefits with a custom loop, for the gpu mainly

[@Opt1685]

Yes! My GPU used to be air cooled. Ran hot and sounded like a jet during games. Switched to water, the temps literally dropped 20 degrees and is now silent. IMO it's a much better investment to water cool the GPU.

[@TravisFabel]

AIOs may eventually die out in popularity because they're generally not much better than good air coolers. But a real custom loop, can make a huge difference.

[@blagmate5516]

I appreciate the simplicity of an AIO. I recently transferred my main rig to a Corsair 4000D Airflow case from a Corsair 220T case. I installed a Corsair three fan AIO. The cooling difference shocked me, if I may be frank. I haven't checked how as yet, but I would like to AIO cool my GPU with a two fan AIO in the case top.

[@ionutdanielserban9498]

GPUs are very easy too cool on air if done properly. Heat density and transfer is a very, if not the most important factor in water cooling vs aircooling, and srry to say this but JAY here get soo much wrong, as it's expected from a custom water cooling guy. Even tho water have much higher thermal capacity, it also has a lot worst heat transfer than raw metal, or a vapor chamber, which means air coolers let the heat go, much easier and faster. So in the end, you have a top air cooler performing almost equally with a good 280/360 at same noise ratio, when transfer is good and heat concentration is not that high. Say a 5950x running at 200w. That being said a loop will always keep the heat more evenly spread throughout the loop, which means it will always have a lower temperature on the coldplate, and it will always be more beneficial for low TDP and high density CPUs with bad thermal transfer. A 3080 might consume a lot of power, but it has direct contact and a very large die. A 5800x, packs a lot more power and thus heat in a lot less space, not to mention the IHS, despite consuming a third of a 3080. A good 3080 like a tuf or msi x trio, that has a good stock radiator it's only bottlenecked by the shitty fans it comes with and case airflow, especially now with the fashion of having a PSU shroud in a 40-45L case. Now take that GPU, remove its plastic shroud and slap 2x120x25 fans on it, and chose and optimize the case the best you can in the PSU shroud area (perforated shroud, hdd drive cage removed, solid removable bits of the shroud removed, excess cabling tucked behind the motherboard etc.) Run mesh case like that with its fans at 700-800rpm under load. That GPU with the fans around 800-1000rpm will sit in the mid-high 50s to low 60s. ON AIR and at a 350w load with a $30 mod.

[@Alex82pd]

@@ionutdanielserban9498 well, the 3080 founder I have had the fans ramping up to max, cooling below 70c, then temperature was left going above 70 and fans were ramping up again. I made all the changes in the case I could, increasing the air flow from the front, exhausting top and back, installed temp sensors... The condition was stabilized with noise from the fans and the temp on its 70c setpoint eventually. With the custom loop the gpu now doesn't go above 50/55c top, fans of the radiator reach just above half of their speed and the control is smooth due to the thermal mass of the water, and it holds clock at 1980. The PC is silent as it has never been before. It is a bit expensive, but my thinking here for the video is that while I see little effect to have an aio instead of air cooling just for the cpu, the custom loop extremely benefit my gpu, and also has improved the cpu due to higher water flow compared to the aio. Maybe some custom 3080s have better cooling, but with the case having to dissipate320w of gpu and 130w of cpu, fans and all will make some noise inevitably, and agree the case would need to be large. I am just using 2x 240mm radiators in my setup...

[@Justin_80]

Of course I didn't 'need' a 360mm AIO, but it looks cool and that's all that matters.

[@WyFoster]

If you have an 11900k you do! 🔥

[@spursylad1994]

Finally someone that gets me

[@exceldoyadika]

@@WyFoster heck even my 10700k reach 72 on load @5.1 all core... im using 240+360 rad.. this 10 and 11th gen are seriously toasty boy when oc..my room ambient temp is quite high tho, usually around 25c.

[@WyFoster]

@@exceldoyadika hitting high 60s low 70s with the H150i with my 11900k at 5.0. 1.37v 230watt power draw. No wonder it's toasty.

[@chieftain9]

For my needs, I’ve been perfectly fine with air cooling. My current setup has more than enough room to utilize even the biggest air coolers. However, I am in the market to downsize. Unfortunately, there’s not many cases that fit full atx mobo/psu and keep it small. Lian li o11 mini air is the closest, but still big imo. So aside from making my own custom case (have the ability, not the time), I’ll probably have to downsize both mobo/psu to get what I’m looking for - including a move to water cooling. Was personally staying away from aio for their minimal lifespan, but if they have a fill port - that’s a game changer.

[@allanmcelroy9840]

I'm still trying to see if I can keep for original 14inch high, 7.5 wide and 16.25 long tower case from 2008

[@absufan]

Good video. I've used AIO's, but have eventually come back to air. What did it for me was a friend having a problem one night while we were playing. His PC shutdown during his twitch stream, and we eventually figured out the pump in his AIO had stopped working. I loaned him an old Intel stock cooler to use while he waited on a warranty exchange. Meanwhile, I did some testing of my setup where I disconnected the fan on my tower cpu cooler and played some games. While the temp was higher than the normal temp with the fan running, I was able to continue to play due to the good airflow in my case. Since then, I always use dual tower air coolers, and I have spare fans in the closet, so I'd never have to go long with a failing fan. To each their own though, as they are both great tech.

[@nofreenamestoreg]

Air gets the job done without hustle and the real big reason for going air is the brutal low maintenance. Do not see benefit of water for just 4-5 degrees lower temps. Event an overclocked CPU is running great on air :)

[@CrustedCheese]

It's not the coolness of my custom loop, its the quietness that I enjoy. Graphics cards OC'ed under 100% load tend to get loud :)

[@hashhacker2130]

agree, but on good aio's the difference is about 15 degrees. if it dosen't leak, then i'd easily have better longetivity

[@kingsleyabrokwah3930]

@Gareth Tucker I'm the same way. My temps are plenty solid, but I value silence over everything else. And my PC is QUIET

[@electrified0]

@@hashhacker2130 Depends entirely on your airflow situation. In my current mini ITX build, I started with a H100i v2 on intake, which at the time was supposed to be among the best. It started failing after 3 years, and I decided to try out air cooling, but had to go low profile due to my build size. However, since I was able to remove the water block radiator and have regular intake fans in its place, my GPU now ventilates much better and my CPU temps are around 2 degrees LOWER with a small form factor air cooler than they were with water cooling.

[@hashhacker2130]

@Disciple Games it also depends on your airflow which is usually cramped on mini-itx and other small form factor builds. sometimes even bad placement of components block airflow which isn't the case with aios. there are many factors, but a good aio can give you a good performance and quieter experience

[@IDoNotLikeHandlesOnYT]

With the rise of 3D printing, I'm surprised we haven't seen lots of people making custom air ducts/guides to control exactly where the air goes inside the case. I don't think it'd have to be at the level of the Power Mac G5's ducting to be beneficial. Simple prints could help with getting cool air to the CPU cooler (like how Intel tried to popularize ducted side intakes many years ago) and getting its hot air directly out of the case. It could also help with, e.g., VRM cooling when the CPU has a waterblock and therefore no fan-just put a small and slow fan nearby with a custom duct over the VRM area. And if you want three intake fans on the front and three exhaust fans on top (in a "normal" tower case), you could print a baffle to go diagonally down from the top front of the case toward the middle, to prevent the air from the top intake fan being immediately extracted by the front exhaust fan.

[@kbjis]

3d printing is actually expensive AF.

[@deathfromace]

@@kbjis Is still is? I figured it all went down in price massively by now

[@fynn8252]

@@deathfromace It's not super expensive to start but if you want to get all crazy with custom air ducts, you would need a lot of CAD experience.

[@fenrir7969]

@@kbjis Not really. An Ender 3 and a brain is all you need to get started.

[@charljefa]

PLA 3D printing wouldn't be 100% waterproof - PLA is the most common 3D printing by far nowdays SLA could potentially be if done properly

[@Jpilgrim30]

The good old devils canyon 4790k. I will always have fond memories of that CPU. I had just got back in the game and was going to do a 4770k build when Devil’s canyon released. I got lucky with a chip that was solid as a rock at 4.8 GHz all cores. Probably could’ve pushed it further but I was plenty happy with that. That system with a GTX 980 and later a GTX 1080 was a beast. I got back in at a perfect time with devils canyon and Maxwell releasing right in that time frame.

[@sierraecho884]

I too used the i7 4770K with 2400Mhz RAM, great times. Just my GPU was a GTX 770

[@gooe9561]

I had a 9900k being cooled with a dark rock 4 pro. Held good temps. I honestly see few cases where a water cooler is going to be necessary.

[@TheTito995]

I have a 3900XT cooled by an NH-D15, the highest it ever goes during rendering or gaming, is about 65 C, my room is not air conditioned and it stays about 25-27 C there

[@tsjeriAu]

I also got a NH-D15 (black version) for my 2700X and it's such a beast, even during Cinebench stressing it's barely hitting 80 degrees with an ambient temperature of 31 degrees Celcius (hottest week so far in Norway), 4GHz all-core. CPU drawing some 170-ish Watts. During more reasonable temperatures of some 20ish degrees it's mostly around 55-60 during gaming, with a fairly lax fan curve for less noise.

[@feldmuis]

Same but with 3950x, got mid/high 70's when running a cpu specific bench. Got an cooler right behind the block ramming the hot air out of the case too. The computer room is nice an toasty though.. T_T

[@1989johno]

@@feldmuis nh-d15 is such a great cooler

[@thedeegee1601]

My 11700 with D15 get's 50C during gaming with the fan at 500 RPM.

[@randalllawkin]

ID-COOLING SE-207XT Black NH-D15 competition for only $50 on Amazon. Upgrade the fans for even more performance if you want to scale up.

[@Varrisk]

Noctua NH-D15 with dual fans (with one fan offset to clear the ram)

[@EriIaz]

Cooling what? And what’s the environment?

[@zengrath]

I'm super happy about my H110I AIO i bought i think 5 years ago now, still working with no issue, but my next PC i'm totally looking into going with custom water cooling, Not so much that I feel i "have" to, but i "want" to, as a project and having that experience. And it'll be nice to know i will have plenty of cooling and best of the best. But time will tell if i find it worth it and i continue to do this in future bills, but i'm at least going to do a custom loop once just to do it. I been doing a ton of research and watching all your videos on it and feeling pretty confident about my abilities to do so. I also live in Florida where it's super hot most of year (middle of state) and yea water cooling seems to be a good idea if i think it's worth the price and extra work.

[@DC-te1gw]

I got an AIO in 2012. It's still running perfectly. No problem with the pump. I did replace the water lines as the rubber was getting old and I wanted to add a water reservoir. Reason I chose water cooling is because it's quiet. I built a new pc in 2022 and installed a water loop for an i7-11700k. The fans stay at idle and the temps stay below 75. An aircooler trying to keep the cpu under 75 degrees, when the cpu is pulling 210watts for an hour or so would be very loud.

[@waveformdistortion]

I use a custom loop, but with an old CPU block (XSPC Raystorm) that I haven't bothered upgrading in many years because I like the way it looks. It's cooling my 10700K well enough that I haven't paid attention to the temperature at all to know what it's running at. More interesting, at least to me, is the EK full cover block that I just picked up on a clearance sale for my GTX 1070. I figured if I can't get a new graphics card, I could at least keep the clock speed as high as possible on the one that I have. That GPU now runs at ~35-38C under full load. Air conditioning keeps my living room in the low 20s range, so a rise of 10 to 15 degrees is just awesome. I have a temperature sensor installed in the endtank of one of the radiators, and I use the reading from that as the input source to control my fan speed so it ramps up and down evenly even if the CPU or GPU is not under load while the other one is.

[@EverythingisFire]

Damn. That's some great temp performance on your GPU. I have (am stuck) with a 1070 also. It's an Asus blower style that sits at 65-70c.

[@Campas25]

I like AIO's because i travel a lot with my tower and a air cooler ads torque to the cpu socket

[@georgiosrigas8094]

Excellent. Thanks!

[@manthanks9063]

I use 420mm radiator with 4 noctua fans and dual d5 pumps to cool my dual eypc 7742. My temp at idle is around 45C and at maximum load is about 55C. This setup is so quiet since the fan speed is always at idle, but my room got hot real quick, you can feel the heat

[@sierraecho884]

What are you doing with this kind of CPU ? Your usecase is not a regular gamer use case.

[@carbon_no6]

I may be wrong, but scaling up an air cooler tower you need more metal and more material means a heavier item; the strain that may be placed on the motherboard is going to go up as a result. I know they mount through to a bracket, but that’s still being supported by the motherboard itself.

[@JosefKrzywon]

I'm to old for the water stuff here... I was rised with the mantra: don't mix fluids and electricity :)

[@shadoudirges]

...Yet you still drive a car with an electric fuel pump?

[@TheLordNugget]

I have been using liquid cooling since like 3 or 4 builds ago now. I like it because it looks cool and gives me amazing temps. I used that this time to overclock the hell out of my hardware. I've heard arguments that air cooling allows overclocking as well, but from what I've seen I'd need the massive case I've got just to fit the proper heatsink. Liquid cooling allows for more options in a far smaller package. Info on my system: Custom loop w/ cpu, gpu, and RAM on the same loop. Yes, I liquid cooled my RAM so I could overclock it. It has a 280mm rad and a 420mm rad w/ 8 total fans in the system. Ryzen 5 1600X overclocked to 4.0 GHz on all cores at 1.435v (Yes, likely higher than it should be but it's stable and has been for 3 years now) 2400 MHz RAM overclocked to 2999 MHz voltage is increased but not by much. Timings were loosened a little for stability. Gave me better performance due to benefit to the Infinity Fabric or whatever it is. Asus ROG Strix NVidia 1080 TI overclocked by +155 on the core and +700 on the memory I typically see my cpu at 49 degrees and the gpu at 52 degrees under load. My system isn't quiet simply because of the number of fans and since I game with a headset I just cranked out the performance. I'm eyeing the next AMD release for my cpu upgrade. Already got the chassis, RAM (much faster, not making that mistake again), and psu. Crossing my fingers that my gpu holds out for...say...forever at this rate.

[@vICI0S0]

I use a Noctua nh-c12p se14 with a CoolerMaster AP140mm Fan, just finished a 5minutes stress test with full load (full core use) and 100% of power draw on a i5-13400f and the cpu didn't passed the 36ºC with the fan fixed at 40% of full capacity (1200rpm), the ambiente temperature was 14ºC. I've used this cooler for around 8 years, and I must say that I just love it. Only down size is exactly the RAM space, if you are planing to use 4 RAM sticks make sure to research before to get one of this giant series of coolers.