120mm rad watercooling or huge Cryorig air cooler?

[Stumpy122]

I was wondering, what would cool a Ryzen 5 1600 better? A watercooling kit with a 120 rad or a huge air cooler? If it helps, my case is a Phanteks Enthoo Pro M (Tempered Glass). Here are the coolers:

Watercooling: Corsair Hydro Series H60 (120mm radiator, with one 120mm fan)

Air cooler: Cryorig R1 Universal (two aluminium fin stacks, 7 copper heatpipes, two 140mm (1300 rpm) fans)

If you know, let me know.

 

[GruntBlender]

That thing has a TDP of 65W. Either will be sufficient unless you're doing some serious overclocking.

 

[synphul]

Based off those two coolers, the r1 will be a better cooler. Single radiator (120mm) aio coolers compare generally to middle of the road air coolers, large air coolers can often compete quite well with 240mm dual fan radiators. A cryorig h7 will likely cool the same as an h60. Not to mention the air coolers will more than likely be quieter.

Water cooling can be pretty effective at cooling but the better coolers are usually custom loops with around $400-500+ worth of hardware. As water cooling gets smaller and smaller like with aio's down into the single fan 120mm radiators they've lost a lot of advantage. They're running smaller radiators, thinner with less surface area and the fans have to spin faster to keep them cool - translating to more noise.

The larger 240mm aio's improve a bit but they're still using lower quality inexpensive pumps and things to keep costs low. Figure on an h100i they're selling a pump, hoses, coolant, radiator and two fans for around $110 usd. Decent quality pump/reservoir combos for custom loops usually run around $100-150. Not including coolant, hoses/tubing, radiator, fans.

Some people have decent luck with aio's and others fight to get them working as they should. Weak pumps, air bubbles in the lines, proper connection to get the fans and pump working as they should. Lots of folks running into problems on the forums with them, rma'ing to get one that works, twisting and turning hoses to get flow running as it should etc. Given the lackluster cooling by comparison I tend to stay away from them personally. Unless you had a really small htpc case or slim case where air cooling wouldn't fit and an aio was the only option for something better than a low profile air cooler.

 

[CooLWoLF]

This forum always tends to have a bias against AIO water coolers. I have never had any bad luck here with AIO water coolers; nor has anyone else I know.

Personally, I find air coolers nowadays to be too huge and ugly; they take up a comically ridiculous amount of space in the case. And there absolutely are AIO water coolers out that there that will beat giant air coolers in performance.

Check out the Corsair H80i. Its only a few $$$ more than a Cryorig R1 and will absolutely outperform it.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181102&cm_re=h80i-_-35-181-102-_-Product