I see many member talking about how AIOs/CLCs cool better than air when the reality is until recently they did not at similar noise levels. Even now they are a little louder when system is at idle because pump and coolant flow make a little noise often louder than idling fans.
Another point I would like to make is AIOs and CLCs are not the same. CLCs are a sub-group of AIO. AIOs that are not CLCs have copper radiators with threaded fitting on all components and a fill port. They can be surviced and repaired as needed. While still not near as good as most custom loops they are better quality than CLCs. CLCs have aluminum radiators with extremely low flow pump (flowrate is about as much as healthy adult's urine flowrate) all in a hermetically sealed unit with no provisions to service or repair.
When Asetek first patented CLCs and brought them to market they called the LCLC for Low Cost Liquid Cooling. If you were into computer at that time you will remember Corsair H100 reached consumer market before any reviews and had an extremely high / failur rate and lots of RAMs. So many that there were thousands of what they called "refurbished" being sold for over a year. I don't know if they were really all refurbished because many looked brand new. Some of use wonder if Corsair dumped them on the market as "refurbished" to limit warranty is a few months instead of years.
To add to the problem of which is better is the fact most reviews do their testing in case built systems using room ambient air temp taken at beginning and end of test session. Problem with this kind of testing is air temp into cooler and radiator are not the same, and with air coolers every degree different the air temp entering cooler becomes same degree different CPU temp is. Compound this with CLC radiators usually being mounted as intakes and 2x raditator fans adding 2x additional fans to case airflow (most stock cases with stock fans have terrible case airflow) greatly improves case's 1-3x stock fan airflow. So obviously air coolers were giving 3-12c hotter results than CLCs .. not because they didn't cool as well but because they were being handicapped with air 3-12c warmer than CLCs were using. I've notice a few more review sites using open bench testing, and it's helped show the problems.
Add to all of the above that air coolers last almost forever. Some of us are still running 10+ year old coolers like Thermalright Ultra, Ultima, Silver Arrow, IFX14, NH-D14, etc. Admittedly new fans, but often only because we wanted different fans, not because originals died. Only problems we have is finding new mounts for new CPU mount configurations.
But CLCs start degrading the minute they are put into use and start failing almost as soon. Some of the best cooling were gunking up and failing in a few months like original Enermax Liqtech did .. or just failing like original Corsair H100 by Asetek did.
Add to above aswell that when liquid cooling stops working system has no cooling, so cannot be used until cooler is replaced. With air cooling there is only the fan to go bad, and system still cools enough fo use for low load applicastions or any fan can be held on cooler with rubber bands until new fan is in hand. So no (maybe 5 minutes) down time with air coolng while CLC is at least an hour if user has a spare air cooler handy.
Another point I would like to make is AIOs and CLCs are not the same. CLCs are a sub-group of AIO. AIOs that are not CLCs have copper radiators with threaded fitting on all components and a fill port. They can be surviced and repaired as needed. While still not near as good as most custom loops they are better quality than CLCs. CLCs have aluminum radiators with extremely low flow pump (flowrate is about as much as healthy adult's urine flowrate) all in a hermetically sealed unit with no provisions to service or repair.
When Asetek first patented CLCs and brought them to market they called the LCLC for Low Cost Liquid Cooling. If you were into computer at that time you will remember Corsair H100 reached consumer market before any reviews and had an extremely high / failur rate and lots of RAMs. So many that there were thousands of what they called "refurbished" being sold for over a year. I don't know if they were really all refurbished because many looked brand new. Some of use wonder if Corsair dumped them on the market as "refurbished" to limit warranty is a few months instead of years.
To add to the problem of which is better is the fact most reviews do their testing in case built systems using room ambient air temp taken at beginning and end of test session. Problem with this kind of testing is air temp into cooler and radiator are not the same, and with air coolers every degree different the air temp entering cooler becomes same degree different CPU temp is. Compound this with CLC radiators usually being mounted as intakes and 2x raditator fans adding 2x additional fans to case airflow (most stock cases with stock fans have terrible case airflow) greatly improves case's 1-3x stock fan airflow. So obviously air coolers were giving 3-12c hotter results than CLCs .. not because they didn't cool as well but because they were being handicapped with air 3-12c warmer than CLCs were using. I've notice a few more review sites using open bench testing, and it's helped show the problems.
Add to all of the above that air coolers last almost forever. Some of us are still running 10+ year old coolers like Thermalright Ultra, Ultima, Silver Arrow, IFX14, NH-D14, etc. Admittedly new fans, but often only because we wanted different fans, not because originals died. Only problems we have is finding new mounts for new CPU mount configurations.
But CLCs start degrading the minute they are put into use and start failing almost as soon. Some of the best cooling were gunking up and failing in a few months like original Enermax Liqtech did .. or just failing like original Corsair H100 by Asetek did.
Add to above aswell that when liquid cooling stops working system has no cooling, so cannot be used until cooler is replaced. With air cooling there is only the fan to go bad, and system still cools enough fo use for low load applicastions or any fan can be held on cooler with rubber bands until new fan is in hand. So no (maybe 5 minutes) down time with air coolng while CLC is at least an hour if user has a spare air cooler handy.
