Has anyone else given up on AIO's

AIOs definitely have some nice benefits over an air cooler, but it's mighty hard for a chunk of aluminium or copper to fail, and the price/performance of some recent air coolers is unbeatable. Only reason I would go with an AIO now is because of a demanding cpu, or for aesthetics.
 
I just got my first one recently, Arctic Freezer iii 240 and it's way quieter than my Scythe Mugen 5 was. Keeps my 9800x3d at around 40 degrees idle and I haven't got around to undervolting it yet.
 
WARburton said:
i personally think the Kolink brand is total *****, but would OCUK risk the cost of a full system RMA to save a few ££'s
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OCUK's parent company (Caseking) has some sort of deal or connection to Kolink as far as I'm aware, it's why you see them pushing their power supplies and what have you into prebuilds.

Some of their cases are alright, I wouldn't touch anything else made by them with a ten foot pole.
 

Has anyone else given up on AIO's​

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Cant say i have, I've had some really beefy Air coolers in the past few builds and while they're great, I always end up going to an AIO.

Prefer AIOs because its so much easier and quicker to swap out ram, Change paste etc.
Currently have an MSI AIO and its probably the best AIO I've ever owned...very quiet.

I cant believe the price of some of them though, For example the "Corsair Hydro Icue" at £300+..proper ripoff.
 
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Gray2233 said:
OCUK's parent company (Caseking) has some sort of deal or connection to Kolink as far as I'm aware, it's why you see them pushing their power supplies and what have you into prebuilds.

Some of their cases are alright, I wouldn't touch anything else made by them with a ten foot pole.
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Wouldn’t touch them based on what?
 
I never have used AIO's but been happy with Noctua, although I agree AIO takes lot less space up, with RAM and more space up to the graphics card.
 
I've owned two AIO's and both had pretty loud pumps at idle but that was ~8 years ago. I've had only air coolers since and can't really see a reason to switch back, even for high end CPU's.
 
Bassmansam said:
Wouldn’t touch them based on what?
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Based on their power supplies being awful quality for the bronze, and uncompetitive price and warranty wise for the higher end, while still having questionable quality. We've had more than one person come to the forums with issues directly related to kolink power supplies, I don't trust their aios either. They're very much a "budget" brand, and not in the good way.
 
Gray2233 said:
OCUK's parent company (Caseking) has some sort of deal or connection to Kolink as far as I'm aware, it's why you see them pushing their power supplies and what have you into prebuilds.

Some of their cases are alright, I wouldn't touch anything else made by them with a ten foot pole.
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Always wondered why they put them in very high end custom build systems they sell.

I’ve never had an issue with an AIO apart from the software side of one or two.
 
Gray2233 said:
Based on their power supplies being awful quality for the bronze, and uncompetitive price and warranty wise for the higher end, while still having questionable quality. We've had more than one person come to the forums with issues directly related to kolink power supplies, I don't trust their aios either. They're very much a "budget" brand, and not in the good way.
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Oh right, my ocuk build has their regulator 1000 80 gold plus psu, so far so good.
 
My main gaming PC has run a Corsair H70i since about 2013 and had a H50i (I think?) before that. No issues, not noisy above the rest of the fans. Still works.Earlier I had a number of air coolers, even a Noctua NH-D14 which was amazing but massive.

Just going ITX now and the case I’m using is best suited to AIO and I can get more cooling potential that way, which is important in small cases I think. However air cooling is more reliable in theory and usually cheaper. These AIOs with screens and RGB etc are unnecessary and expensive.
 
Gray2233 said:
Some of their cases are alright, I wouldn't touch anything else made by them with a ten foot pole.
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Gray2233 said:
Based on their power supplies being awful quality for the bronze, and uncompetitive price and warranty wise for the higher end, while still having questionable quality.
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the kolink cases are pretty good quality for their price tbh. having used some in the past i would not have any hesitation recommending them for a budget/mid-range build.
i've also used their kolink enclave gold psus before (i bought a couple b-grade in 2020/2021 for builds) and they're still running fine with no issues, although they're not running super-high end specs so that may be why :cry:
 
tamzzy said:
i've also used their kolink enclave gold psus before (i bought a couple b-grade in 2020/2021 for builds) and they're still running fine with no issues, although they're not running super-high end specs so that may be why :cry:
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i had one of there 750w's just stop working on me with a 5700x3d and a 7800xt so not pulling massive power
 
tamzzy said:
the kolink cases are pretty good quality for their price tbh. having used some in the past i would not have any hesitation recommending them for a budget/mid-range build.
i've also used their kolink enclave gold psus before (i bought a couple b-grade in 2020/2021 for builds) and they're still running fine with no issues, although they're not running super-high end specs so that may be why :cry:
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I've seen a couple of people with the gold units taking out systems, it's anecdotal for sure but at the same time they're not known for quality and often cheap out, so much so they tried to launch an entire line of PSU's without a power cable.

The only reason that has changed on OCUK is because of public outcry, the shop for a good while advertised the cable as a freebie even which I find utterly hilarious.

Efficiency ratings are not a standard of actual build quality, just how efficiently power is used. Technically a gold rated PSU might be worse than a bronze or the now defunct silver, I get where you're coming from bud but imo it's not worth the risk. They did release a platinum PSU at one point that did well in reviews, but again the cost/warranty vs competitors was tripe and not worth the risk.
 
I've had 2 Corsairs without issue, first one was a recon I bought from here, I used it for 7-8 years, before switching to AM4 and i've had this one for 5 years, nearly 6. I'll definitely be getting another one for AM6.
 
Kolink cases are fine, have had to upgrade a 750w psu though as it couldn't handle a 3090.

In terms of AIOs I was using a custom loop, but jumped to a corsair aio and it's been fine (touch wood) with a yearly compressor hit to clean it out!
 
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