Which cooler is better?

What is your case, and why do you think you need liquid cooling?
What will you be cooling?
Are you going for maximum overclocks?
Is noise an issue with you?

My canned rant on liquid cooling:
------------------------start of rant-------------------
You buy a liquid cooler to be able to extract an extra multiplier or two out of your OC.
How much do you really need?
I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler like a Noctua or phanteks can do the job just as well.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
google "H100 leak"
I would support an AIO cooler only in a space restricted case.
-----------------------end of rant--------------------------

Your pc will be quieter, more reliable, and will be cooled equally well with a decent air cooler.

A restricted case is one of the few good applications of a aio cooler.
What is the make/model of your case?
What is your graphics card?

A 7600K overclocked does need a decent cooler.
But for the $100 or so you will pay for a 240mm aio, you can come close to a decent case and a cooler

On the flip side, I have a preference for AIO's, I think that aircoolers, especially in the largest variety are nothing more than huge, blocky chunks of crud taking up far to much of the view in the center of my window.
Of course geo and I go through this every time I see that rant, since it's totally corsair biased (in all fairness corsair has some very loud fans, but then again if you push a hyper212 hard it sounds like a rice-burner) which while maybe warranted, doesn't cover All the AIO's. There's plenty of other brands that run almost dead silent under load, it's all in the fans. Corsair fans on a Noctua NH-D15 heatsink would sound absolutely miserable same as Noctua fans on a radiator, purr.

Air coolers have just as many drawbacks as AIO's do, they are just different in application.

When it comes to warranty on AIO's, Corsair is as good as it gets. I've personally seen them replace an entire pc that was damaged by a h100 that blew a hose (the h100 is very old design and used harder, almost plastic hoses, no longer in production (geo, fix your rant ;p)).

As far as better? None of them is really better. Temps are done on test benchs, so will only show those results. Your pc will have different characteristics, so will have different results, and while the Arctic might be ahead by a few °C on the bench, can be a few °C behind in your pc, simply due to fan mechanics and airflow characteristics. Equitable, would be a better assumption.

But geo is right in one respect, unless you have a serious desire or need for an AIO, a good aircooler is both cheaper (usually) and equitable in performance in the same wattage range.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-D15S 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($78.38 @ OutletPC)
Case: Fractal Design - Focus G (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.94 @ Amazon)
Total: $133.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-02-01 00:38 EST-0500

A h100i v2 will run @$110, the others I'd not even bother with. So that's $20 difference to totally solve all airflow, cooling, fan issues and its a really well built case.

@Karadjgne:
I wrote the rant some time ago, and I agree it needs some updating.
I have no animus towards Corsair.
How would you suggest I amend the rant?

One added thing that bothers me about AIO coolers is how to mount them and the impact on case cooling.
It is a dilemma without a really good answer.
I suspect the best is to depend on a really good front air intake setup which filters all intake air to keep the case clean via positive pressure.
The negative is that an aio radiator mounted on the top of the case will need to draw in cooling air from the heated inside of the case.

As to aesthetics, that is a personal preference. Not much for me since I do not have a window.

I've run my kraken x62 both ways, as exhaust top mount and as intake front mount. As exhaust, I see my i7-3770K @4.6GHz runs p95 26.6 small fft at 68°C, gaming 55°C. As intake I see 67°C cpu and 55°C gaming. Case is fractal design define R5 (supposedly a choke on airflow, hah) and I run just 4 fans. 2x intake and 2x top exhaust, no rear. Honestly, orientation really doesn't make much of a difference at all, unless you are worried about mediocre or crappy airflow. Gtx970 OC 124% only changes 2°C at loads. Considering how much cpus/gpus bounce during any game, and it's an AIO, so liquid temps are more important than actual cpu temps, all in all there's no real difference.

The H100 is not really used anymore. It's so old that you barely ever find one on ebay anymore. The pump has been redesigned, replaced, the plastic hoses replaced with low-loss rubber (flex is not as much a concern now on fittings), so leaks went from rare to almost non-existent. With today's designs and quality control from places like fractal and nzxt etc leaks are about as rare as mobo warping under a dual tower.

There's nothing really bad about Corsair AIO's other than the fans. That's where 98% of any AIO's noise comes from, those high rpm, analog monsters. If Corsair would slap on some better pwm and run the fans at @600-900rpm as I do, they'd be next to silent. As is, 1800-2300rpm is a crying shame.

Dunno how you'd fix the rant exactly other than a re-write, today's AIO's are quite different than the old H100, and similar designs.

But then again, there's only a few cpus, under extreme conditions, that honestly benefit from a 280mm AIO vrs a good aircooler.

If you are into liquid cooling that much, you could build and customise it yourself. Phobya Pure Performance Kits are available on a fair price (eventually they are cheaper in Europe than oversees) , have powerful pumps, thick copper radiators and good reviews.

Love those Lian li cases.
I think the A04 is one of the better old ones.
I would hate to discard it.
I really think you can get it to work, and well.
What is your current cooler?
The 7600K does not come with a stock cooler.

First of all, two front 120mm intakes should be sufficient.
You can increase the intake capability by using higher rpm fans if you really need to(at the cost of more noise)
Your R9-280x is a very hot graphics card and needs all the cooling air it can get.
If you use the front intakes for a cpu cooler radiator, the motherboard and graphics card is going to have to work with heat from the cpu.
With two front 120mm intakes, the air will exit SOMEWHERE, taking your cpu and gpu heat with it.
A single 80mm exit fan is good to direct the airflow to the rear and top openings.
Leave off the extra I/o expansion covers too, it can only help.

Your case is 177mm wide. Measure the height available for a cpu cooler.
Normally, 160mm buys you a top performing air cooler.
But, your space may be less.
One of the best with a 120mm fan is the cryorig H7.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13C-000U-00005
You may want to orient it so that the heat is directed up towards the top 120mm opening instead of the traditional rear orientation.
You may not get the top possible cooling, but it should be better.
You may well run into your safe vcore oc limit before you run into heat limits.
FWIW:
As of 6/19/17
What percent of samples can get an overclock
at a vcore around 1.4v.
I5-7600K
4.9 72%
5.0 52%
5.1 27%
5.2 16%
5.3 samples exist, unknown % of occurrence


If the cryorig H7 is unavailable, or you do not have 145mm available, here is the noctua TDP guidelines.
Noctua is top quality and uses quiet fans.
https://noctua.at/en/tdp-guide
They offer detailed dimensions so you can check compatibility.

If you still want to pursue liquid cooling, look for a 120mm radiator unit.
You should be able to mount it in the top 120mm opening, drawing cooling air from inside the case.
If needed, some, or all of the radiator/fan can be mounted outside the case.
I would use a fan with a full 25mm depth instead of a weaker half height fan.

@karadjgne:

How is this for an updated rant?
My canned rant on liquid cooling:
------------------------start of rant-------------------
You buy a liquid cooler to be able to extract an extra multiplier or two out of your OC.
How much do you really need?
I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler like a Noctua or phanteks can do the job just as well.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
Past that, A AIO radiator complicates creating a positive pressure filtered cooling setup which can keep your parts clean.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
Google for AIO leaks to see what can happen.
While unlikely, leaks do happen.

I would support an AIO cooler primarily in a space restricted case.
If one puts looks over function, that is a personal thing; not for me though.
-----------------------end of rant--------------------------

Your pc will be quieter, more reliable, and will be cooled equally well with a decent air cooler.

What case fans are you running?