Air Cooler vs AIO CPU Cooler

[LukeMurtagh1995]

Hello all,

I am looking to get a new PC case and with it a new CPU cooler. I have always gone with air cooling in the past and currently have a Noctua NH-D15. I initially thought of swapping it out for a beQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 as I think I will prefer the all-black aesthetics of the beQuiet! cooler when compared to the Noctua. I have however recently been thinking about AIOs. The Corsair H150i PRO and the CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R have both caught my attention. I am however new to watercooling and so I have a few questions. What maintenance if any do AIOs require? All I do with my current air CPU cooler is just clean the fans and the heatsinks every now and then. Secondly what is the failure rate of modern AIOs? I imagine the worst case scenario would be the coolant leaking and damaging other components such as the GPU. Thirdly what would be your own personal suggestion? Is it worth going for AIOs because they are aesthetically better, or is it safer and easier to just go with a high end air cooled for the CPU?

Thanks!

Specs: CPU: i7-9700K overclocked to 4.7GHz.
CPU Cooler: See above.
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus XI Hero (WiFi).
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200
Storage: Samsung 970 EVO 500GB M.2 SSD and Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD
GPU: EVGA GeForce RTX 2080TI 11GB FTW 3 Ultra
PSU: Corsair RM1000i 1000W 80+ Gold
Case: Fractal Design Meshify S2

 

[LukeMurtagh1995]

I personally don't see the point of AIOs unless you're really stuck for space.

Yeah, considering even the best AIOs only seem to take away a couple of degrees of heat when compared to air coolers it does seem silly to go for an AIO when an air cooler will do. It's the introduction of new failure states which is putting me off AIOs for the time being.

 

[LukeMurtagh1995]

Will have to agree with adidan, unless you're going custom loop then air cooling is the safest way forward, and usually costs less if a mid range cooler suits your needs.

Even the Dark Rock Pro 4 costs less than the AIOs I was looking at. On Overclockers the Pro 4 is £84.95 whereas the MasterCooler MasterLiquid ML360R is £149.99 which is only £20 off being double the price of the Pro 4. From what I gather the very minimal improvement in temperature is not nearly worth the extra cost or the extra hassle an AIO could cause vs an air cooler.