Air vs water cooling (commodity level) comparison

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Since we regularly see folks asking about components, pricing, and performance in new build scenarios, I thought I'd share this review I tripped on today in my search for the end of the internet.



Having used Noctua coolers on a bunch of builds before I switched to the H60i and H80i for the three recent builds, I can generally confirm their findings, including the caveats about heat spikes.

For me, the AIO cooling systems provide two notable benefits: first being the stated thermal mass reducing temp spikes (and because the temp doesn't immediately spike, the fans don't spin up immediately either), and second being that not having the large cooler in the middle of the motherboard makes it easier to route cables and access fan headers and power connections when building/upgrading the PC.

Even so, I swapped the fans on all of my Corsair H60i/H80i installs to the Noctua high-pressure fans (NF-F12 PWM 4-pin). This results in the benefits of the radiator with the lower-speed/lower-noise benefits of the Noctua fans. A bit more cost doing that but I haven't regretted it a bit.

[edit] With regards to his comment about the pump failing, I have 4 in use and I have yet to see one fail. Arguably a small sample size, so YMMV.

Hopefully this will be useful to someone considering upgrades or new builds. /cheers