Best AIO Coolers 2026

Whether you’re pushing for the highest sustained clock speeds with your new Ryzen 9 9590X3D or Core i9-14900K, or you just want your modest rig to stay quiet under load, there are some important things to consider when choosing the best AIO (all-in-one) cooler for your new PC (or if you're just upgading your CPU and / or cooling).

AIO coolers are much more convenient and affordable than custom liquid cooling loops. And, traditionally at least, AIOs have been able to deliver lower CPU temperatures with less fan noise than air coolers. That’s not always the case these days, though, as the best air coolers have gotten better and, in some cases, bigger.

You’ll need to be sure there’s room to install an AIO cooler in your PC case, preferably in the top or rear in most cases, exhausting your CPU heat out of the chassis. AIO coolers mostly come in three sizes, defined by the dimensions of the radiator and the fans the radiator is designed to fit: 120 (one 120 mm fan), 240 (two 120 mm fans), or 360 mm (three 120 mm fans). And some coolers have thicker radiators, like Arctic's impressive Liquid Freezer III Pro.

There are some 140, 280 mm, and 420 mm AIO coolers as well, but they are far less common. As you might expect, the larger the radiator (generally speaking), the greater the cooling potential. That said, radiator thickness, materials, and fan and pump performance can factor heavily into cooling capability and noise output, too.

If you aren’t running a flagship CPU with lots of cores and 5-6 GHz speeds, and you don’t plan on overclocking, a 120 mm AIO (which you can usually mount in the rear exhaust fan area of your PC case) should suffice. That said, Intel's 13th and 14th Gen CPUs are generally more demanding on coolers. And AMD's Ryzen 9000 lineup, while less thermally demanding than Intel's chips, isn't exactly easy to cool either. So if you want better temperatures and slower-spinning fans, a good 240 mm AIO cooler is a better starting point, but it won’t fit in as many cases. A 360 mm AOI will generally give you better cooling and may be quieter than a 240 mm model, but it will fit in fewer cases.

While this is not the deals post, we found an excellent price on the formidable 360mm Gamedias Chione P5-360 AIO for Prime Big Deal Days. For just $75 (with promo code FTFF7776) you get a performant 360mm AIO with a IPS screen that's easy on the wallet.

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In your quest for the best AIO cooler, don't forget to consider thermal paste or another thermal interface material (TIM) to use with your AIO cooler. Most coolers these days will come with some kind of paste, either in a small syringe or pre-applied to the metal cold plate (sometimes both). But to make sure you're getting the most efficient thermal transfer between your CPU and cooler plate, check out the many products we thoroughly tested to find the best thermal paste for your CPU.

While AIOs come with their own fans, case fans are also critical in keeping temperatures down. The cooler the intake air is hitting AIO or heatsink, the cooler your CPU temperatures will be. That said, we've started fan testing at Tom's and have published our first Best PC Case Fans article covering several recent PC fans including some from Noctua, Arctic, Phanteks, and more. Find out which fans perform best for your needs, be it quiet operation, high-performance, or RGBs, we have you covered and expanding testing testing more fans as we speak.

Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake S cooling tests

If you're considering buying one of Intel's latest Core Ultra desktop processors, you may not need to spend as much as you think on cooling. Arrow Lake S is generally a more efficient design (though there are some serious tradeoffs in performance, particularly in gaming), so you generally don't need as much cooling performance as we saw with Raptor Lake chips.

Check out our testing below to see what kind of cooler you'll need to keep the latest Ultra 7 and Ultra 9 CPUs running fast and cool.

➡️ Intel Core Ultra 9 285K cooling testing

➡️ Intel Core Ultra 7 265K cooling testing

Quick List

Best AIO Coolers You Can Buy Today

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler

If your primary cooling concern is the lowest possible CPU temperatures and you don't want to pay extra for RGB or a screen, Arctic's 360 mm Liquid Freezer III Pro is, hands down, the best option I've ever tested, whether you're using a high-end AMD or Intel CPU. Nothing else even comes close.

Just note that its radiator and fans together are 63 mm thick, so it won't fit in every case. And its default settings are arguably overkill for even a 9950X3D or a 14900K. So if you're sensitive to fan and pump noise, you'll want to tune things down a bit. Aslo, Intel users will have to install an included contact frame, which makes installation more complicated. Installation is pretty standard for AMD users.

Aside from performance, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro also wins on price. Its $125 U.S. MSRP is competitive or below many other big-name cooling brands. But the cooler is also often on sale for much less. When we wrote this, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 mm was selling for just $88 on Amazon. At that price – or really at any price around $100 – it's hard to argue for any other AIO cooler.

Read: Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro review

Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

Thermalright continues to prove it's a market leader, raising the bar for performance and value with the Grand Vision 360. This 360mm AIO’s thermal results were better than previous coolers we’ve tested, both with Intel's current Core Ultra 9 285K and the older Core i7-14700K.

Its cooling performance wasn't drastically better than close competitors from Be Quiet and NZXT, but at $129 in the US, its more affordable than those alternatives, while offering up more features.

Unlike most AIOs in this price range, the Grand Vision 360 includes a fancy LCD screen with tons of preset customization options. And while not everyone wants or needs that in their cooler, Thermalright at least delivers the feature at a lower price than most competitors, and doesn't sacrifice cooling performance for a flashy LCD. If you’re looking for an LCD-equipped AIO that cools extremely well and doesn’t break the bank, Thermalright’s Grand Vision 360 is the liquid cooler you’re looking for.

Read: Thermalright Gran Vision 360 Review

Best Budget 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler

ID-Cooling, much like rival Thermalright, has established itself as a company that delivers solid colling performance at budget-friendly prices. Its FX360 INF 360mm AIO, while not the cheapest in the company's lineup, is still quite affordable at around $80. For that price, you get RGB fans and an infinity mirror on top of the CPU block, a tube of one of the best thermal pastes we've tested, and shockingly great performance for the price.

The ID-Cooling FX360 INF was within striking distance of the best coolers we've tested, just one watt below the best results we've seen cooling the Core i7-14700K with no power limits. And it kept our newer Core Ultra 9 286K more than 10 degrees Celsius below its throttling threshold. And even more impressively, it did all that with a maximum noise level of just 44.4 dBA – and when tied to our test system's default fan curve during our heavy gaming test, the cooler topped out at just 40.9 dBA. Those are both some of the quietest results we've seen from an AIO.

You could spend more – and you'll likely have to spend a lot more – to get slightly better cooling performance and / or aesthetic features like a customizable screen on the water block. But if all you care about is keeping your CPU cool and your system quiet while adding some RGB lighting to your rig, ID-Cooling's FX360 INF is one of the best – and most affordable – 360mm options we've tested to date.

Read: ID-Cooling FX360 INF review

Best Multipurpose AIO Liquid Cooler

Silverstone’s IceMyst AIOs show that there’s still plenty of room for innovation in the CPU cooling market. Apart from doing a good general job at CPU cooling, this cooler lets you add multiple fans ($16 extra per fan) around the base of the CPU block and direct them over your VRMs, RAM, SSD, etc. This is a feature unmatched by any existing product on the market. And the IceMyst coolers also cost less than many high-end AIO cooler alternatives.

In our CPU cooling tests, the IceMyst AIOs (we tested both the 360 and 240mm models) performed very well, usually landing close to the best-performing coolers in terms of chip-chilling abilities. And when all coolers’ fans are set to the same low noise level of 38.2 dBA, Silverston’s IceMyst 360 performed the best of any cooler we’ve tested, handling 237 watts. The 240mm model also did well, handling 228W.

My only complaint is that by default, the IceMyst’s included radiator fans run much louder than needed – but that’s easily fixed by implementing a custom fan curve. If fan noise bothers you, don’t worry too much because when set to run silently the 360mm IcyMyst provides the best noise normalized results I’ve seen from any cooler on the market.

Read: Silverstone IceMyst 360 and 240mm AIO Review

Best 280mm AIO Cooler

Lian Li’s Galahad II LCD 280 shows that with the right design, you don’t need a 360mm AIO or a loud cooler to keep modern high-end CPUs from throttling. Its performance is amongst the best we’ve seen from any AIO, and its limited 280mm size means that it will fit in many cases where a 360mm model won’t. The included LCD screen is vibrant and adds eye-catching functionality to the cooler’s aesthetics.

At $229, the Galahad II LCD 280 is on the expensive end of the AIO spectrum. But if the LCD display isn’t your thing or you’re on a budget, the non-LCD versions of the Galahad II are available for $159.99 for the 360mm version and $119.99 for the 240mm model.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II LCD 280 Review

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler

If you’re looking for a strong 240mm AIO, you can’t go wrong with Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity 240mm. Our testing shows it's the best-cooling AIO of its size on the market. It's also quiet in most workloads, and it has a very reasonable price of only $119.99.

I never imagined that a 240mm AIO would have this level of cooling domination. Lian Li’s Galahad Trinity II Performance 240mm managed to sidle up to or outperform 360mm AIOs that were previously considered among the best available.

Read: Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 Review

Best 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative

After installing and testing it, I found Cooler Master’s new MasterLiquid 240 Atmos especially impressive. It’s clear the company has improved its flagship AIO in several key areas. Noise levels are low in most common workloads, and despite its smaller 240mm profile, the 240 Atmos is one of only a handful of AIOs I’ve tested that's capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature, even in the hottest of workloads.

The attention to detail is also apparent in the packaging (which incorporates installation instructions) and RGB lighting. And Cooler Master backs the quality of this product with rated lifespans of over 160,000 hours for the fans and 210,000 hours for the pump, combined with a 5-year warranty.

Lian Li's Galahad II Trinity Performance 240 cools just slightly better and sells for a little less. But Cooler Master's Atmos includes an ARGB controller box for syncing your lighting with other components. If you can make use of this controller, which would cost about $20 on its own, the two coolers are effectively evenly priced.

Read: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 Atmos Review

Best 120mm Closed-Loop Liquid Cooler

In most instances, you can get better performance with air cooler at a lower price than a small 120mm AIO. And an air cooler won't add pump hum to your PC. But there are certain kinds of systems, whether they be extremely compact, or just with very little clearance above the CPU socket and no space to mount a larger 240mm radiator, where a small 120mm AIOs will be your best (or perhaps only) choice.

We tested four popular models of these compact liquid coolers. And while the Enermax LiqMaxFlo SR 120mm wasn't quite the best performer when it comes to cooling, it offered the best balance of cooling ability, quiet noise levels, and price (selling for around $80 when we wrote this).

Enermax's cooler also brings a unique feature in its block-mounted RGB fan, which adds a some glow, while also helping to circulate air around your VRMs and RAM. In very tight cases where you might have to use a 120mm AIO, the extra airflow in this area can be a very helpful feature.

Read our 120mm AIO roundup: Testing Be Quiet, Corsair, Cooler Master, and Enermax models

Best AIO Cooler Specifications

Savings on the Best AIO CPU Coolers

Savings on the Best AIO CPU Coolers

Whether you're shopping for one of the products that made our best CPU coolers list or one that didn't, you may find some savings by checking out our list of Newegg promo codes or Corsair coupon codes.

MORE: Best Air CPU Cooling

MORE: How To Choose A CPU Cooler