High end air cooler vs liquid cooler

Zygor91

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Dec 9, 2014
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Hi guys,

I'm very curious for the best cooler you can get on the market that can make you overclock much higher (I'm aware that it depends on chip, case etc).

Some people tell me that high end air cooler is better than high end watercooler, I always thought any cpu cooler that contain liquid is a better choice.

If I would buy h100i would that outperform any air cooler on the market?

My questions is, how reliable are liquid coolers vs air coolers, does high end air cooler outperform any liquid coolers?

My goal is to reach a high overclock on my cpu but stable in a same time
 
Solution
A high end air cooler will run you up to $200 MAYBE.
A high end water system can easily hit $1,000.

The H100 is as good or better than the best air cooler, but it's miles off a custom system.

My empty 120mm radiator off my custom system is heavier than the entire H100 system including 240mm rad, fans, hoses, liquid, cpu block etc.

Accordingly, that 120mm rad would EASILY cool both cpu and gpu better than the H100 cools just the cpu.
A high end air cooler will run you up to $200 MAYBE.
A high end water system can easily hit $1,000.

The H100 is as good or better than the best air cooler, but it's miles off a custom system.

My empty 120mm radiator off my custom system is heavier than the entire H100 system including 240mm rad, fans, hoses, liquid, cpu block etc.

Accordingly, that 120mm rad would EASILY cool both cpu and gpu better than the H100 cools just the cpu.
 
Solution


Thanks for your quick answer, very informative and instructive. Never thought of that you could make your own custom system with liquid cooler :O
 
It depends on what your talking about, with liquid cooling.

There are two types of liquid cooling, All in ones and custom. Custom is much more flexible than all in ones because you can add a infinite amount of radiators and cool multiple chips. While AIOs only cool the cpu (and/or GPU sometimes).

The main advantage of AIOs is that they are closed (meaning you don't have to fill the pump with liquid every 6 months). And easy to install, where as custom is a lot more expensive, and way more difficult to install.

If you have a custom loop that has multiple rads, then it will defiantly out perform an air cooler. Where as a typical 240mm AIO and a very high end air cooler perform pretty much the same.
 


Thanks, didn't expect to get replies that fast :O I will make my own custom system with liquid coolers
 
It does depend on your cpu. If you reach the chip's limitations, you could very well hit a voltage wall before temperature becomes an issue. Heat isn't the only factor in an overclock. If you're well within the safe voltage limits but reaching maximum thermal limits then a better cooler will help. If your temps are ok and the chip is becoming unstable at higher voltages or increasing vcore isn't producing much gain in terms of speed, it won't matter if you have 5 480 radiators linked in series it won't help.

The reason I say this (and again depends on the processor you're using), my cpu is a perfect example of this. I'm using a dark rock pro 3 which is a larger tower style air cooler. Temps aren't my limiting factor, my vcore has to be pushed from around 1.275v to 1.33-1.34 to go from 4.6 to 4.7ghz on a 4690k. Requiring that much additional vcore for the very small gain of 100mhz tells me that my chip's physical limitations are being reached. My temps under load during stress testing still stay around the upper 60's and low 70's at 4.7ghz - if I pushed it harder with more vcore I won't be risking thermal damage but voltage.

Liquid coolers can be reliable, they can also have issues. More so than air coolers tend to have. Air coolers don't leak and while it's not overly common, any liquid cooler can leak as an inherent risk. Sometimes there are problems getting the software that comes with some liquid coolers to work properly, sometimes pumps are faulty or can go out. As a general rule in just about anything, the more moving parts the more chances for problems. A water cooler, the fittings can leak, the hoses can leak, the radiator can leak, the fan(s) could fail or the pump can fail. In an air cooler, the fan(s) could fail since they're really the only moving part.

Here's a good write up by 4Ryan6 here on tom's.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2196038/air-cooling-water-cooling-things.html

Another article on tom's..
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/h100i-elc240-seidon-240m-lq320,3380.html

It depends on what you're after. If noise isn't a problem most aio coolers do a decent job and the larger they are (dual rad over single) the better they cool. They're not always the quietest solutions and even though they tend to outperform larger air coolers by a couple degrees the air coolers pretty well keep up with less noise. Water cooling doesn't have to be loud and can be quieter, but usually that's if using slightly larger (over rad) designs with a custom loop and multiple fans run at lower rpm's. It's hard to just say 'water cooling' as a blanket statement, that could be a single h55/h80i with a single noisy fan, an h100i/h110 dual fan radiator clc cooler or it could mean separate water block(s), pump(s), reservoir and a any number of custom radiator configurations on a full blown water cooling loop.

Then there's cost to be considered. A noctua nh-d14/d15, phanteks tc14pe, dark rock pro 2/3, cryorig r1 etc run around $75-$90 - an h100i/h110, thermaltake water 3.0 or kraken x61 run around $100-140 or so. Full blown custom water cooling can run $200-300 or more.
 


Have fun! Make sure your read some guides also. Since it is a lengthy process and you can risk leakage if your not careful.
 
Yeah, custom can be very difficult and risky. Had a massive leak while on holiday, soaked the mobo and gfx card. Using the right water and additives there was no damage even though the system was running at the time.
Also didn't change the water for ~6 years and it was all good.

With today's current Intel (and upcoming AMD) cpu's producing much lower heat, along with the efficient Nv 9xx GPU's, I shelved my custom loop in favour of the H100i. While my case means it's installed in a very bad location, it still performs ok.
 
True, things have changed a lot. Cpu's used to be much hotter, air coolers have improved a lot with the addition of active heat pipes compared just a chunk of metal with cooling fins and a fan blowing over top and water cooling used to be only custom loops prior to more recent smaller scaling of single/dual clc's. It's really narrowed the gap between lower thermals, more efficient air cooling and less efficient water cooling solutions in the aio's.

I'm sure plenty of people leave their water loops running all the time like overnight, while away etc. If I were to go the water route, it's not something I'd be comfortable with but that's just personal paranoia not really anything based on hard evidence. I love the look of a slick custom loop, just can't get past visions of springing a leak and hosing my internals.