AIO Cooling and Air Cooling CF/M Differences

duztyy

Commendable
Nov 10, 2016
15
0
1,510
So im looking to cool my i5 6600K with a Cooler Master EVO 212 Air Cooler, which was suggested to me. However, the case I have is a BitFenix Prodigy M, with which I have some major concerns about airflow in the system. The Cooler Master I have selected has a CF/M of 82.9, would a AIO with a lower CF/M have the same cooling capacity due to it being a liquid cooler? Or do I need to shell out the big bucks for liquid cooling?

Extra info, I'm running a gtx 1060 as well in this system.
 
Solution
The cfm is the air rating of the fan, how much air it moves measured in cubic feet per minute (cfm). That all by itself says very little about the overall effectiveness of any cooler, a high cfm fan sounds great but what is it attached to? An air cooler with 4 heat pipes, 5, 6, 7 heatpipes? A single cooling tower, dual cooling towers? A radiator with water cooling and is it a thin radiator, thick radiator, 120mm, 240mm, 360mm?

More importantly is to compare coolers based on their performance. A 212 evo should work fine and allow a bit of overclocking. You may not reach maximum overclocks but to be fair it's a budget oriented air cooler. If it were enough for handling high end overclocking there would be no need for higher end air or...
The cfm is the air rating of the fan, how much air it moves measured in cubic feet per minute (cfm). That all by itself says very little about the overall effectiveness of any cooler, a high cfm fan sounds great but what is it attached to? An air cooler with 4 heat pipes, 5, 6, 7 heatpipes? A single cooling tower, dual cooling towers? A radiator with water cooling and is it a thin radiator, thick radiator, 120mm, 240mm, 360mm?

More importantly is to compare coolers based on their performance. A 212 evo should work fine and allow a bit of overclocking. You may not reach maximum overclocks but to be fair it's a budget oriented air cooler. If it were enough for handling high end overclocking there would be no need for higher end air or water coolers.

If you're not planning to overclock or only planning to overclock moderately the 212 evo should be fine. No need for a $100 aio water cooler. The cpu itself is still a quad core so it won't put out as much heat as say a 6, 8 or 10 core i7. The case airflow may not be ideal given the layout but so long as fresh air is coming in and hot air is vented out it should still do fine. Whether air cooler or aio, both rely on air to cool them. So long as you've got a decent exhaust case fan mounted behind it and it's able to vent the heat absorbed by the cooler itself. The 1060 is a fairly efficient gpu and isn't as hot as other gpu's so it shouldn't make the cooling problem any worse.
 
Solution