AIR vs AIO. 18c drop in temps

Stu said:
I'm confused... @Ross Thomson says that it’s clearly been shown that higher end AIO are not any better than higher end air coolers, and @doyll disagrees with the comeback that a be quiet! Silent Loop 280 was as good at same noise levels as top tier air... aren't they both saying the same thing?
Click to expand...
You need to read the post Ross Thomson was answering:

Rossi~ said: ↑
Except for decent AIO's from water cooling companies the likes of Alphacool and EK. IMO, are the AIOs to go for, not your run-of-the-mill Asetek jobs.
Ands it’s clearly been shown that these are not any better. ↑
Except for decent AIO's from water cooling companies the likes of Alphacool and EK. IMO, are the AIOs to go for, not your run-of-the-mill Asetek jobs.

Ross Thomson
~ said: ↑
Ands it’s clearly been shown that these are not any better.Ands it’s clearly been shown that these are not any better.

AIOs that are not CLCs are better than AIOs that are CLCs. CLCs are a sub-group of AIOs. AIOs have fill ports, threaded fittings, etc. so can be added to and/or repaired and usually have copper radiators while CLCs are factory sealed with aluminum radiators and no way to repair or add components to them. Hope that clears it up for you.

b00merang69 said:
Yet he used to be the resident AirCooled fanboy.
Click to expand...
Still am. Even though AIOs are more capable of keeping up with top tier air and likey to last longer than CLCs they are still be bottom of the barrel of component H2O costing much more than top tier air cooling and not lasting near as long.
 
doyll said:
Even though AIOs are more capable of keeping up with top tier air and likey to last longer than CLCs they are still be bottom of the barrel of component H2O costing much more than top tier air cooling and not lasting near as long.
Click to expand...

Thanks for extra info/insight. I'm looking to buy a new cooler and am torn between water and air, as many others are. I get that water has greater risk/implications when it fails compared to air, while having advantages in terms of offering more free space in your case, avoiding clearance issues with RAM and PCI. The options I'm looking at at the Dark Rock Pro 4 and NH-D15 (obvious choices) and the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280, which is pretty much the same price as these air coolers, and performance is also comparable (using data from Tom's Hardware, performance NHD15>Arctic>DRP4, quietness DRP4>Arctic>NHD15).

I've started my own thread regarding the Arctic Liquid Freezer II, but I mention it here because it appears to give comparable performance to the top air coolers for the same price rather than costing much more than top tier air cooling.
 
Stu said:
Thanks for extra info/insight. I'm looking to buy a new cooler and am torn between water and air, as many others are. I get that water has greater risk/implications when it fails compared to air, while having advantages in terms of offering more free space in your case, avoiding clearance issues with RAM and PCI. The options I'm looking at at the Dark Rock Pro 4 and NH-D15 (obvious choices) and the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280, which is pretty much the same price as these air coolers, and performance is also comparable (using data from Tom's Hardware, performance NHD15>Arctic>DRP4, quietness DRP4>Arctic>NHD15).

I've started my own thread regarding the Arctic Liquid Freezer II, but I mention it here because it appears to give comparable performance to the top air coolers for the same price rather than costing much more than top tier air cooling.
Click to expand...
Top tier air cools about the same as AIO & CLC with similar noise levels, but AIO/CLC start having failures after about 3 years while air is still running like new 6-10 years on with maybe needing new fan/s. Combine how much longer air cooling functions to how much more expensive CLCs and that AIOs are even more expensive and air cooling is a win/win. Liquid Freezer II is same price as air, but it still won't last as long, so air cooling is still better choice.
 
Top AIO's can use the their performance to allow higher thermal headroom than air coolers. Price, noise, longevity is something you'll have to determine for your use case.

Want to leave your machine overnight rendering for blender/handbrake etc? On a chip like the 9900k, the AIO will give you the thermal headroom as such programs will hammer the CPU continuously.

Want to only play games and use normal desktop apps? air cooling will be fine.

Your use cases and the thermal budget you need for your chip should determine what cooling you need.
 
In my experience and that of many others AIO's / CLC's don't have more 'thermal headroom' than top tier air. Both max out at basically the same total TDP of heat removal. AIO/CLC contain very little coolant, like maybe 4-6oz. compared to custom loops with much higher coolant capacity. So while it can take a custom loop 30-40 minutes to equalize coolant temp, AIO/CLC take only a few minutes.

AIO/CLC have higher failure rates than top tier air so leaving your machine running overnight rendering for blender/handbrake etc. is actually safer with air cooling than with AIO/CLC.
s.s
I agree 100% with looking a methodology of testing, what temps are monitored and when, what software is used for load runs, etc. are key to having accurate results. Air temp into cooler/radiator needs to be monitored & recorded at same time as CPU temp is, because if it is not test results don't have air temp reference point for accurate CPU delta temp.
 
Stu said:
I'm confused... @Ross Thomson says that it’s clearly been shown that higher end AIO are not any better than higher end air coolers
Click to expand...

I didn’t say that at all. I was talking about current asetek and cool it AIOs and the units with slightly more powerful pumps/copper rads being basically equal. Air coolers when in cases are not as good as AIOs at full performance but for most uses there is no real difference in chip performance.
 
Personal taste, I guess.
A high end air cooler, if the fan's required to be almost at full blast will need cleaning quite often, depending how efficient your filters are. The AIO possible would suffer the same issues, as rarely are oversized radiator area, so a low speed fan, even at push pull may not be enough.
I would use an AIO without worrying about, same for air cooler, but neither would keep the temperatures as low as I like, reason I decided for a custom loop. Isn't cheap, practical or discrete, but is quiet, efficient and could cool down twice the heat without issues.
 
So equal and yet no one can point to an air cooler handling a 9900k dumping 150+ amps sustained.

Anyway, if/when I moved to an open loop, I’ll share those results using the same test suite and highlight the thermal limits of the 9900k there also.

Then we can have data points of air/aio/open on a 9900k
 
I guess the AIO, as is expected from liquid cooling, would "tolerate" few spikes in temperature before the coolant increase its temperature, under normal use, clearly.
Under load, a fair test is always long enough to allow the heat to "saturate" the coolant, then see how efficient the radiator and fans are cooling the coolant down. But you know that.
Custom loop, quite often oversized, so quite hard to saturate and reach the limit of the radiator's capabilities.
It's quite challenging to push this CPU with air or AIO, as any unnecessary voltage increase would likely hold back few MHz. Custom would allow a bit more room.
 
MrPotato said:
I guess the AIO, as is expected from liquid cooling, would "tolerate" few spikes in temperature before the coolant increase its temperature, under normal use, clearly.
Under load, a fair test is always long enough to allow the heat to "saturate" the coolant, then see how efficient the radiator and fans are cooling the coolant down. But you know that.
Custom loop, quite often oversized, so quite hard to saturate and reach the limit of the radiator's capabilities.
It's quite challenging to push this CPU with air or AIO, as any unnecessary voltage increase would likely hold back few MHz. Custom would allow a bit more room.
Click to expand...

Yeah. For me to run 5.2 daily and be comfortable, I’d want to drop between 8 and 10c off current. I can do that via direct die or custom loop.
 
Robert896r1 said:
Run blender. Run handbrake. Easily done. Do you have experience with a 9900k?
Click to expand...

it isn't normal if you overclock the **** out of the chip. The issue with that chip is getting the heat out to IHS not from the IHS to the cooler. If you are having to run such extreme cooling I'd suggest your OC is far too high for normal usage
 
Ross Thomson said:
it isn't normal if you overclock the **** out of the chip. The issue with that chip is getting the heat out to IHS not from the IHS to the cooler. If you are having to run such extreme cooling I'd suggest your OC is far too high for normal usage
Click to expand...

Do you actually have experience with a 9900k?

What's extreme about the 360 AIO I'm using?
 
Robert896r1 said:
Do you actually have experience with a 9900k?

What's extreme about the 360 AIO I'm using?
Click to expand...
Experience with 9900K is not needed to know your 18c temp change is not the result of changing from air cooling to 360 CLC. Whatever was making your system run so hot was not air vs CLC cooling. 360mm rad CLC or even 360mm rad AIO do not cool any better than top tier air when system is setup properly. This is has been proven time and again with even Swiftech AIO tests which is best AIO made and even it is only 1-3c better than top tier air when setup properly.
 
Swiftech have bigger/higher flow rated pumps than other AIOs have.

Swiftech X3 pump is rated 6W, 2.8m lift and 11 L/min .. that is 660 L/h.

Alphacool Aisbear Solo is rated 4W, 0.85m lift and 70 L/h.

Enermax LiqTech only gives power rating as 0.4A which is 4.8W, but there are lots of problems with them so shouldn't be considered at this time.

I don't know of any offical ratings for Asetek or CoolIT pumps, but ones I and others have checked didn't near as much as Aisbaer Solo does.
 
Last edited:
What Ross said, except Asetek are not as dependable as air and usually cost more .. so unless it's custom loop air (many times the cost of air) top tier air cooling has the beat performance to cost as well as best dependability of any cooling system on the market at this time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom