Liquid vs. Air Cooling

JonnyLo · Mar 2, 2018

Hello,
I am looking for a little insight on the positives and negatives when comparing these two methods of cooling your cpu. I am running a Nuctua NH-L9x65, It is a standard cooler where the fan lays down on the radiator. It is a REALLY good cooler and silent no matter what the rpm runs up to. I am just curious though if there are any advantages to using liquid? Does it do that much of a better job or is it just a different method and nothing more? A board, cpu upgrade may be in the not so distant future. I may switch to a liquid cooler also, depending on what kind of feedback I get. Thanks!

Deleted member 1560910 · Mar 2, 2018

Air cooling doesn't leak. I will not take the risk with my hardware

k1114 · Mar 2, 2018

You can only go so big on an air cooler before you have concerns about damaging the cpu/mobo from weight or fitting it where it needs to be. Water is not much more than changing the heatpipes to water pipes to move that heat to the fins. The advantage of that is being able to have big radiators mounted elsewhere. Wc is also more efficient at moving that heat since water is being pumped. So with all that, wc will be able to handle more heat but if you don't need that extra heat capacity, you are paying a lot more for leaking possibilities or a pump dying.

mwryder55 · Mar 2, 2018

I had a Corsair unit spray coolant all over the inside of my case several years ago. It still works fine after being cleaned up.

To answer the original poster I think a major advantage of the liquid cooling systems is the flexibility of placement of the fans, especially being able to push the hot air out of the case instead of recycling it inside the case. You also avoid the chance of damage from a heavy piece of metal hanging off the board, especially if the case is dropped or knocked over. I know they have problems but liquid cooling has worked fine for me with my 2600K.

JonnyLo · Mar 2, 2018

I appreciate the feedback, in light of the possibility of leaks and the fact that the Noctua I have now keeps the temp down on my FX 8350, I am sure it will be more than sufficient if I go up to a Ryzen 7.

jossrik · Mar 2, 2018

If you go custom liquid, you can pretty well ensure you're not going to have leaks. Mock it up, put it all together outside of your case/system, run it for a day. I don't use the compression fittings cause I'm afraid of leaks, where I can help it, but if they're as good as barb with clamps, they're pretty secure. Also, you can get rid of LOTS of waste heat, where every you have room in your case. The caveat, you won't really get that much better temps than big air, course, you don't have a 2Lb weight attached to your motherboard either. The other nice thing about custom water, once you're invested, you don't have to rebuy a lot of parts every build, pumps, radiators, and reservoirs can be reused on your next build, and the build after that if you take care of your stuff.

Karadjgne · Mar 3, 2018

There is no real set advantage to either design, both have strengths and weaknesses. There's only really 3 different classes of coolers, better than stock/mid grade/high end. In these brackets both designs are equitable. A Corsair H-60 AIO performance is equitable to a CoolerMaster Hyper 212. A corsair H-80i is comparable to a Cryorig H5, a NZXT Kraken X61 is equitable to a Noctua NH-D15s. But thats performance. Not price or noise or case/motherboard compatibility. Nor is it reliability. Leaks from AIO's are rare, just as motherboard damage due to massive tower weight is rare. I've seen pumps fail, I've seen aircoolers from reputable companies with warped bases. No company or product is perfect,they all have a certain % of rma's due to manufacture defects and/or user abuse blamed on manufacturing defects.

Cpus put out a certain amount of heat, usually pretty equitable to the power of the cpu. Under a certain degree of general usage you get the TDP of the cpu. For the FX, that's 125w. Peak power is @1.5x TDP, or @180w. Peak is the maximum heat wattage your cpu will be capable of under stock settings. Running most applications, you'll only reach @TDP, and since the NH-L9x65 is a 165w cooler, you are plenty good for almost anything. If you try rendering or stress testing and put the cpu at all 8 cores @100%, you'll hit Peak power, or @180w and have serious overheating issues.

The 120mm slim, single fan AIO's and most budget air coolers are 140w-150w.
Mid-grade are @180w-250w, that's most decent 140mm aircoolers and 240mm AIO's.
High end is 250w+ which includes almost all the big twin tower air coolers and 280mm AIO's.

Are you good with that Noctua? Absolutely, it's a fantastic cooler for average usage and even some small OC. If you push that cpu, medium OC, you'd be better off with something more capable, in Mid-grade. If you really push the OC and punish the cpu with long renders or other massive cpu usage apps, I'd suggest go high end.

Either design is a personal decision.

JonnyLo · Mar 3, 2018

Karadjgne :

There is no real set advantage to either design, both have strengths and weaknesses. There's only really 3 different classes of coolers, better than stock/mid grade/high end. In these brackets both designs are equitable. A Corsair H-60 AIO performance is equitable to a CoolerMaster Hyper 212. A corsair H-80i is comparable to a Cryorig H5, a NZXT Kraken X61 is equitable to a Noctua NH-D15s. But thats performance. Not price or noise or case/motherboard compatibility. Nor is it reliability. Leaks from AIO's are rare, just as motherboard damage due to massive tower weight is rare. I've seen pumps fail, I've seen aircoolers from reputable companies with warped bases. No company or product is perfect,they all have a certain % of rma's due to manufacture defects and/or user abuse blamed on manufacturing defects.

Cpus put out a certain amount of heat, usually pretty equitable to the power of the cpu. Under a certain degree of general usage you get the TDP of the cpu. For the FX, that's 125w. Peak power is @1.5x TDP, or @180w. Peak is the maximum heat wattage your cpu will be capable of under stock settings. Running most applications, you'll only reach @TDP, and since the NH-L9x65 is a 165w cooler, you are plenty good for almost anything. If you try rendering or stress testing and put the cpu at all 8 cores @100%, you'll hit Peak power, or @180w and have serious overheating issues.

The 120mm slim, single fan AIO's and most budget air coolers are 140w-150w.
Mid-grade are @180w-250w, that's most decent 140mm aircoolers and 240mm AIO's.
High end is 250w+ which includes almost all the big twin tower air coolers and 280mm AIO's.

Are you good with that Noctua? Absolutely, it's a fantastic cooler for average usage and even some small OC. If you push that cpu, medium OC, you'd be better off with something more capable, in Mid-grade. If you really push the OC and punish the cpu with long renders or other massive cpu usage apps, I'd suggest go high end.

Either design is a personal decision.

Thanks for all that info! i have a better understanding of the whole thing now, I never even took in to account cooler size vs. wattage. appreciate it!

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