Liquid cooler vs air cooler

Jonathan Parker · 30 Oct 2019 at 14:55

I am thinking of getting a new cooler for my cpu and these are the two I have narrowed it down to:
Cooler Master ML120L RGB AIO cooler
Or
Raijintek Leto Pro RGB air cooler

I know that there are a lot better coolers out there but I am only after a budget cpu cooler for my sons first pc build.
Specs. are:
B450 gaming pro carbon mobo
Gtx 1050ti gpu
Ryzen 5 2600x cpu

Which one would be the best to get for performance or if anyone could reccomend a different one for roughly the same budget £40-£50.....cheers

Ross Thomson · 31 Oct 2019 at 21:56

consider the arctic cooler freezer II AIO's if you want to go down that route

Minstadave · 31 Oct 2019 at 22:02

I'm not sure I'd bother with liquid cooling. It's not a hard chip to cool, you're not going to get massive clocks out of it. Air will be cheaper, as quiet if not quieter, more reliable and cool perfectly well.

Ross Thomson · 1 Nov 2019 at 16:34

Minstadave said:
I'm not sure I'd bother with liquid cooling. It's not a hard chip to cool, you're not going to get massive clocks out of it. Air will be cheaper, as quiet if not quieter, more reliable and cool perfectly well.

arctic freezer II 240 is cheaper, quieter and cools better than air from the reviews I've seen. reliability is unknown at this point.

Armageus · 1 Nov 2019 at 16:46

AMD Wraith Prism seems a fairly obvious choice if you are on a budget

My basket at Overclockers UK:

1 x AMD Wraith Prism AM4 CPU Cooler= £19.99

Total: £28.69 (includes shipping: £8.70)

Reppyboyo · 1 Nov 2019 at 17:33

Good cooler but it can be pretty loud.
Mine has a tendency to ramp up just opening chrome tabs which can become annoying.

Safetytrousers · 1 Nov 2019 at 17:38

Reppyboyo said:
Mine has a tendency to ramp up just opening chrome tabs which can become annoying.

Can't you set a fan profile?
Asus Ai Suite for instance lets you set a delay time for a fan to react, which will stop lurches.

Reppyboyo · 1 Nov 2019 at 17:58

Aye can set a profile in the BIOS but no delay to my knowledge.

Minstadave · 1 Nov 2019 at 19:38

Reppyboyo said:
Good cooler but it can be pretty loud.
Mine has a tendency to ramp up just opening chrome tabs which can become annoying.

I replaced mine for the same reason. Seemed to ramp up and down all the time.

Relentless81 · 2 Nov 2019 at 10:25

Ross Thomson said:
arctic freezer II 240 is cheaper, quieter and cools better than air from the reviews I've seen. reliability is unknown at this point.

I think I'm going to pick one of these up, I've been on air for ages but fancy a change and these do look interesting

doyll · 2 Nov 2019 at 20:19

OcUK has Matterhorn White B Grade for £34.99
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/liquid-cooler-vs-air-cooler.18868884/

and Matterhorn Blac B Grade for £26.99
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/b-grade-alpenfoehn-matterhorn-black-cpu-cooler-bg-016-al.html

Both are 158mm tall so check your case CPU clearance is 158mm or more.

I suggest calling or emailing OcUK to be sure they have AM4 mount. Alpenfohn website says they come with AM4. OcUK website does not show AM4 mount but I'm guessing they just haven't updated website.