Air vs AIO cooler

stimpson

I’m currently upgrading from an i5 9600K to an i9 9900K and was wondering if it was worth going AIO. I’m running a DeepCool Lucifer v1 cooler and it has seen me through 4cpus and 3 motherboards.

The machine is running a 3070 FE card and can take a 240mm rad (actually 2 of them). It’s mainly used for MS Flight Sim.

Would something like a Kraken X53 be worth the spend?

Citrus_8

stimpson wrote: »

I’m currently upgrading from an i5 9600K to an i9 9900K and was wondering if it was worth going AIO. I’m running a DeepCool Lucifer v1 cooler and it has seen me through 4cpus and 3 motherboards.

The machine is running a 3070 FE card and can take a 240mm rad (actually 2 of them). It’s mainly used for MS Flight Sim.

Would something like a Kraken X53 be worth the spend?

Ah, old good air vs AIO Firstly, I'm interested why go with Intel in 2021 when AMD is way much better.

Intel is generally running hotter than AMD and from 8 core and above I'd take AIO for performance. Just make sure getting a reliable AIO, not the cheapest.

stimpson

Citrus_8 wrote: »

Ah, old good air vs AIO Firstly, I'm interested why go with Intel in 2021 when AMD is way much better.

Intel is generally running hotter than AMD and from 8 core and above I'd take AIO for performance. Just make sure getting a reliable AIO, not the cheapest.

It’s just a CPU upgrade so no change to the board or RAM. FS isn’t properly multithreaded until DX12 support so clock speed is more important than the number of cores.

Citrus_8

stimpson wrote: »

It’s just a CPU upgrade so no change to the board or RAM. FS isn’t properly multithreaded until DX12 support so clock speed is more important than the number of cores.

Ah, sorry, overlooked... Still... I like air more and would recommend Noctua.

Nibs05

I was also in the same predicament, done research in the pros and cons and settled on a Noctua NH-D15 on my 9700k, runs near silent no chance of pump failures or any if that, jazzed up with some chroma bits.

Luck100

Running 9900K on air cooler here (Grand Macho). Dead silent for light work. Under heavy load, any reasonable case & gpu fans will be much louder than the Macho. (My case fans/gpu are relatively quiet under load, and I still can't hear the Macho). I'd say the Noctua would be similar. You need to set fan profiles on all these anyway to get good noise vs cooling.

I messed around with overclocking the 9900k, but it's mostly pointless. You just want to overclock the memory (XMP at 3200 is fine and usually works out of the box) and set reasonable power limits. Intel spec power limit (95w) is very conservative and will cause throttling under load. Any good air cooler + well ventilated case can handle 150w sustained no problem.

Cuddlesworth

Been doing water cooling for 20 years. Go with good large air cooler like the Noctua.

stimpson

Luck100 wrote: »

Running 9900K on air cooler here (Grand Macho). Dead silent for light work. Under heavy load, any reasonable case & gpu fans will be much louder than the Macho. (My case fans/gpu are relatively quiet under load, and I still can't hear the Macho). I'd say the Noctua would be similar. You need to set fan profiles on all these anyway to get good noise vs cooling.

I messed around with overclocking the 9900k, but it's mostly pointless. You just want to overclock the memory (XMP at 3200 is fine and usually works out of the box) and set reasonable power limits. Intel spec power limit (95w) is very conservative and will cause throttling under load. Any good air cooler + well ventilated case can handle 150w sustained no problem.

Yeah, case cooling is a really good point. I have 3 fans, but it will take 3 more. The Lucifer is huge so I’m not sure if the Noctua will make that much of a difference. I can even strap a second fan onto the Lucifer for push-pull.

RAM wise I’m running Ballistix 3600 without issue.

I think I’ll buy some 140mm PCW case fans and see how I fare.

As for overclocking, it seems delidding is the way to go on intel.

Jo Satan

I don't think you'll get much improvement from replacing the cooler.
Maybe look at replacing the fans with Arctic P12s or P14s to push more air into the case and more air through the cooler

You could also consider undervolting the cpu

_CreeD_

Assuming equal long term thermal performance AIOs have 2 advantages imho. The first is how well they deal with medium bursts of max heat (say 10-60 seconds), an Air cooler will typically saturate faster, AIOs generally take longer but that is also dependant on the reservoir and overall liquid volume. This is probably not a major concern if you have decent case cooling and long term loads will only mean a difference of minutes before both are in the same state. The other and to me more important aspect is you get custom control of where you want your intake/exhaust. An air cooler has no choice unless you build custom venting, you can compensate to an extent with good planning on your case fans but you have to deal with at least some heat from the other components regardless of other factors, and of course contributing back to it. Again you can compensate to an extent with well planned and efficient case cooling but (depending on your case) have more explicit options with an AIO.

Cuddlesworth

That makes little to no sense.

WC will either put heat back into the case, rad in, or have the latent heat from the case decrease the temp differential, case out. Fans in the same position, have the exact same effect on airflow, so its odd you talk about it like it gives you "more" control then you already have.

They are bulky, harder to install, un-reliable in comparison to a hunk of metal and a fan, far more dangerous to the components, provide no airflow to the surrounding motherboard components unless equipped with their own fan and have been shown repeatedly to show no real world thermal benefit over a good air cooler, like the the OP's case, where his 100watt CPU will never come close to actually needing watercooling.

A good air cooler will last a decade easy with new mounting kits, a AIO will be lucky to make it 3 years.

Aodhan5000

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

That makes little to no sense.

WC will either put heat back into the case, rad in, or have the latent heat from the case decrease the temp differential, case out. Fans in the same position, have the exact same effect on airflow, so its odd you talk about it like it gives you "more" control then you already have.

They are bulky, harder to install, un-reliable in comparison to a hunk of metal and a fan, far more dangerous to the components, provide no airflow to the surrounding motherboard components unless equipped with their own fan and have been shown repeatedly to show no real world thermal benefit over a good air cooler, like the the OP's case, where his 100watt CPU will never come close to actually needing watercooling.

A good air cooler will last a decade easy with new mounting kits, a AIO will be lucky to make it 3 years.

Let's be honest though, AIOs look cool AF

Cuddlesworth

Aodhan5000 wrote: »

Let's be honest though, AIOs look cool AF

Nothing in comparison to proper hard tubing with the pastel fluids and good lighting.

_CreeD_

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

WC will either put heat back into the case, rad in, or have the latent heat from the case decrease the temp differential, case out. Fans in the same position, have the exact same effect on airflow, so its odd you talk about it like it gives you "more" control then you already have.
=

So to be clear you state that it is odd I talk about it giving you more control yet in the same paragraph you list the fact that with an AIO you can choose to pull fresh air in adding the CPU heat to the case, or exhaust air from the case potentially adding it's heat to the CPU loop. I never said it magically neutralised heat, the law of conservation of energy and fluid thermodynamics would kinda get in the way. I stated you have more control, you stated the same thing after saying it was wrong...

As for the rest I've only had one AIO fail prematurely, but I have a fairly strict (if resources allow) 3 yr rotation policy for my PC and components. MTBF on a lot of components is in around that aswell so I don't care if I'm picking up a new cooler alongside a new CPU, it's all part of pre-emptive maintenance imho. The additional 'bulky' install is a once off and the extra work in installing the rad is less than the common task of mounting to the CPU itself.
As for an aircooler providing additional airflow to other components that's what efficient case fan planning is for, and without that the air your AC is moving is pretty suboptimal anyway as you can benefit from it's intake current over RAM with most mbd designs but will be pushing heat across everything on the the other side.
Also since the current gen of GPUs are either directly or indirectly venting hot air right up into the space an AC occupies you can't help but have some of that on intake. On my main build I was able to place the AIO in exhaust in the front/side of my case, 2 larger front fans pulling fresh air in and over it. I could have put it in the front and added it's heat to the case, or at the top and added some of the GPU to it. This way while it pretty much nullifies front intake it is for the most part a zero impact while still having mostly room-temp airflow (there is some bleed from the nearby GPU when it's going full whack but it's minor). Bottom intake fans and top/back exhaust do a pretty good job of serving the flow to/from the GPU. If I didn't go with an AIO I wouldn't have those options.

Anyway each to their own.

Wonda-Boy

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

A good air cooler will last a decade easy with new mounting kits, a AIO will be lucky to make it 3 years.

In fairness I have had 4 or 5 good AIOs over the years all lasted well beyond 3 yrs with absolutely no degradation in temps at all, and never had a faulty unit either (touch wood)

Im not saying AIOs are better or worse but I prefer AIOs from an aesthetic point of view for a start and if it cools just as well then so be it. But its not as straight forward as one vs the other, alot of other factors like case, amount of fans etc etc.

I have a 3900x @ 4.5ghz all cores idle at low 40c and gaming at low 60c for hours...and I mean hours. And thats with a 3090 pumping extra heat into the case (which did rise after the install as temps were at least 6-8c lower with the old GPU) You dont have to buy a really expensive AIO either alot of good value ones around.

God I remember the days of the cutting edge Tuniq 120!!!! The thing was bigger then my car....not going back to that.

Cuddlesworth

I have two dead in the attic, mine and a friends. Might take the rads for parts if I bother to go full loop again.

Its not like AIO's dying is news or anything, its a pretty commonplace. Its not that hard to find recent examples of it in this forum. Same with fans dying, except its 10-20 quid to replace them and real easy to do so.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=114763736
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=113986693&postcount=11

Again, I just don't see the point. They don't add any real value, end of the day the real world difference between a AIO and decent air coolers is negligible compared to the added complexity and risk.

BloodBath

Gone back to air coolers after using an AIO for a while. AIO's can look better if you have fancy RGB ram and a nice board in a windowed case that you want to show off. (but end up covering with the ugly AIO tubes) Mainly aesthetic as mentioned already. An aircooler can look nice too though if you don't go ott with some behemoth that covers the top half of your motherboard.

A couple of RGB fans on a black air cooler can give good light for a windowed case as well. They also hold their value better and 0 chance of failure outside of easily replaceable fans. Also easier to clean an air cooler. The rad in an AIO can get clogged up and you will have to remove it and the fans to clean it unless you mount the fans in pull rather than push.

stimpson

So my new case fans arrived yesterday and it has made a fair difference. My CPU temps have dropped from low to mid 50’s to 40 under load. I’m doubtful there is much to be gained from an AIO now.

I have another 2 new fans and am deciding whether I should replace the existing fans (which are non PCM) or put one on the cooler for push-pull, and one on the bottom of the case.

EoinHef

I've been running a 9700K at 4.9Ghz/1.3v for a good few years now on a H115i rgb,no complaints about temps but now that I'm using it for college I do worry with the AiO being another point of failure.

I wouldnt be against AiOs in general,the H115i has so far yet to give me much to complain about but yeah next cooler will be air. Even thinking of changing during the summer as I just can't have it fail atm.

So honestly,not really much of an advantage to using them these days,more of a personal choice id say.