Question Is liquid cooling worth it compared to air cooling?

[brandonmacleod21]

My computer has a Ryzen 9 7950x CPU and I'm using the Noctua NH-D15S air cooler to cool it. When I browse the internet, the fan speed is usually at 100% and when this happens, the average temp is around 75 degrees. With how fast the fan is spinning, I'm wondering if there's anything I can do with my current cooler to improve the cooling performance or if liquid cooling might be better. I've seen people say it's far superior to air cooling and I've seen others say it's a waste of money. I'm willing to spend the extra money for liquid cooling but only if it will make a difference. I also recently bought a new case with good ventilation so I know that can't be an issue.

 

[helpstar]

Maybe optimizing the temperatures can help as well, liquid cooling will usually be not as loud as air cooler, but the temperature will not necessarily drop significantly

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in faster or more frugal: Gaming and workstation undervolting with light and shadow | igor´sLAB

Anyone who buys a new AMD Ryzen 7000, no matter which model, will certainly curse the high temperatures and thus also get annoyed about the usually high power consumption under full load. However…

www.igorslab.de

 

[Phaaze88]

Have you tried to customize a fan curve around the temperature spikes?
Did you manually spread the paste over the IHS

I've seen people say it's far superior to air cooling and I've seen others say it's a waste of money.

It's a personal thing. You have to take that journey yourself to get your own answer.
I say it's worth it... on gpus. On cpus, it's more situational.

 

[LordVile]

That’s very warm for just browsing considering it shouldn’t have any load on it at all. Did you forget to put thermal paste on it or something?

 

[brandonmacleod21]

That’s very warm for just browsing considering it shouldn’t have any load on it at all. Did you forget to put thermal paste on it or something?

The thermal paste was manually applied which was a single 4mm diameter dot in the center of the IHS. That's what the instructions said so I don't think that would be the problem.

 

[bill001g]

I would suggest you watch some videos from
https://www.youtube.com/@GamersNexus

The cpu you are using pretty much likes to run at high temps no matter how you try to cool it. A water cooler might run quieter but the default way that cpu runs is to keep increasing the clocks and temps no matter how much cooling you throw at it. I assume if you spend enough there is some cooling system that will be able to out do the CPU.

It seems like the high end intel chips the solution is to limit the power usage which then allows the cooler to keep up.

 

[alceryes]

My computer has a Ryzen 9 7950x CPU and I'm using the Noctua NH-D15S air cooler to cool it. When I browse the internet, the fan speed is usually at 100% and when this happens, the average temp is around 75 degrees. With how fast the fan is spinning, I'm wondering if there's anything I can do with my current cooler to improve the cooling performance or if liquid cooling might be better. I've seen people say it's far superior to air cooling and I've seen others say it's a waste of money. I'm willing to spend the extra money for liquid cooling but only if it will make a difference. I also recently bought a new case with good ventilation so I know that can't be an issue.

That temp doesn't seem right with that cooler.
I've got 7 tabs currently open and am watching Gamers Nexus YouTube, at 4K, on one of them. My 7950X CCDs are peaking at 35ºC. I'm using the Dark Rock TF 2 air cooler.

 

[candymancan]

been water cooling since my Duron and Athlon xp's back in the early 2000s back when we used dangerden maze blocks and heatercore car radiators and pong pumps and we made out own reservoirs out of containers or bottles.... I havent had a heatsink in like 20 years minus the north , or south bridge, and heatsinks for ram lol.. I will never go back to a heatsink

 

[alceryes]

I would suggest you watch some videos from
https://www.youtube.com/@GamersNexus

The cpu you are using pretty much likes to run at high temps no matter how you try to cool it. A water cooler might run quieter but the default way that cpu runs is to keep increasing the clocks and temps no matter how much cooling you throw at it. I assume if you spend enough there is some cooling system that will be able to out do the CPU.

It seems like the high end intel chips the solution is to limit the power usage which then allows the cooler to keep up.

Agreed. 95ºC for full CPU benchmarking/load is normal. Browsing the internet (even watching YT vids) shouldn't raise the CPU to 75ºC though. Some of the better performing water coolers are able to keep the 7950Xs in check, under load at stock settings, but you need one of the larger ones (360mm+).

@candymancan, I wasn't suggesting he go back to air cooling. Just showing that, even on air cooling, my temps are great when just browsing.

@brandonmacleod21, a good quality water cooling kit will beat the best air cooler, hands down, but I would first correct whatever cooling issue you have going on. Those temps are unacceptable - even for air cooling.

 

[candymancan]

Agreed. 95ºC for full CPU benchmarking/load is normal. Browsing the internet (even watching YT vids) shouldn't raise the CPU to 75ºC though. Some of the better performing water coolers are able to keep the 7950Xs in check, under load at stock settings, but you need one of the larger ones (360mm+).

@candymancan, I wasn't suggesting he go back to air cooling. Just showing that, even on air cooling, my temps are great when just browsing.

@brandonmacleod21, a good quality water cooling kit will beat the best air cooler, hands down, but I would first correct whatever cooling issue you have going on. Those temps are unacceptable - even for air cooling.

I wasnt replying to you as for air or water.. i was answering his posts question air or water.. i just mentioned ive never done air in 20 years.

As for heat on my water. I have an older EK Supremacy Evo but i have two 360mm radiators running through a gpu and cpu block. 1 360mm or even a 280mm is probably enough for a cpu.. but with my 6900xt running at 100% i do feel warm air outa both radiators. Hense why i went two. Plus i wanted to splurge anyway.

Anyway on topic. My 5800x 3d with arctic silver 5 was hitting 78 package-82c VDD and 75c core.. with liquid metal it dropped to 72 package 74 VDD. And 72 core. This is running multicore cinebench.

Idle dropped from 39 to 36. Same night same room temp. So liquid metal deff helps ALOT over that older AS5 i was using.

Even with water on a cpu the main problem is the die and everything else with the vcache are so small these days that it isnt really if water is better or nit the heattransfer is the same.. (poor).

Water lost its main ability to be better than air cooling around when the E8400 wolfdale and first ryzen cpus came about. The main advantage of water now is you can a neat clean setup with flexible or hard tubing. A radiator thats pretty much hidden on top or bottom or side.. versus a giant ugly heatsink thats the size of my head.

Now water on a GPU ? Air cooling is comoletetly trash utter trash when it comes to water.. ive dropped multiple recent (within last 5 years gpu temos from 70s using aircoolers from strix and so forth to 40s using water.

So if youre going to do watercooling i dont suggest AIOS as temps wont be DRASTIC versus an air cooler. I suggest you go custom and get a gpu and cpu block.

 

[geofelt]

Worth is something only YOU can determine.

As to your particular question, you can add a front 120mm fan to the NH-D15s which tests show may give a 2% improvement.

What is the make/model of your case, and what is the fan arrangement?
Getting good case airflow really helps air cooling.

To do better than the NH-D15s, you would need to look to an aio with more radiator volume, and that would be with a 360 or larger aio.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The problem with Ryzen and cooling is the CPU temperature reported is usually the hottest part of the CPU, not the average temperature which is something the heat sink would feel. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any fan control system that can work on the average temperature.

As far as the whether or not water cooling is better than air cooling, keep in mind that all water cooling does is add thermal mass to the cooling system. All this really does in the grand scheme of things is makes it harder for the temperature of the cooling system to change. This is why to properly test a cooling system, you have to let it run long enough to reach a steady state temperature. So anyone who reviews an AIO, say runs one instance of Cinebench on it (well, R23 might be worthwhile) and records the temperature afterwards is doing it wrong.

The comparisons in https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/deepcool-ak500-review/2 is telling me that overall, AIOs don't offer as much value as air coolers for the article's particular scenario, even when you take into account fan noise.

If you want a cheap, as in free, method of taming the Ryzen 7950X: set a power limit of 125W. You barely lose any performance but the cooling requirement gets significantly cut. See https://www.anandtech.com/show/17641/lighter-touch-cpu-power-scaling-13900k-7950x

 

[candymancan]

Setting power limits defeats the point of buying the cpu to begin with.. Might as well downgrade to the model under.

Water for GPUs is significantly better than any heatsink. Even with thermal equalibrium. Water can be 20-40c lower.. Its cpus with their tiny dies that water/air doesnt have too much of a diff. Because mainly the sink or block cant absorb the heat fast enough. In the end though water is still better.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Setting power limits defeats the point of buying the cpu to begin with.. Might as well downgrade to the model under.

If your goal is performance at all costs, then sure. But sacrificing single digits of performance for nearly a quarter drop in power consumption doesn't seem like a waste to me.

Water for GPUs is significantly better than any heatsink. Even with thermal equalibrium. Water can be 20-40c lower.. Its cpus with their tiny dies that water/air doesnt have too much of a diff. Because mainly the sink or block cant absorb the heat fast enough. In the end though water is still better.

I'd like to see your data then.

 

[Karadjgne]

Air or liquid, there's no difference in their respective brackets.

A Corsair H60i is the same thing as a CM Hyper212 EVO. Both in the 140w-150w class of cooler.

A Noctua NH-D15 and a 240mm are the same. Both in the @ 250w class of coolers.

The difference in temps between the coolers is a direct result of efficiency in the heatsink to fan. Noctua is basically king of the air coolers because they put the work into the R&D and maximized the effectiveness of the 140mm fans and heatsink fin design.

The real difference is that's where air stops. 250w class. Above that is only the 280/360/420mm radiators, 300w/350w/400w class cooling. Air simply cannot touch that heat load, or the resultant lower thermal curve or fan speeds.

Air is not better than liquid, liquid is not better than air, both have advantages, both have drawbacks. What's better for you personally is whichever has the advantages that are to your wants/needs and also has drawbacks you can live with.

 

[candymancan]

If your goal is performance at all costs, then sure. But sacrificing single digits of performance for nearly a quarter drop in power consumption doesn't seem like a waste to me.


I'd like to see your data then.

been doing water for 20+ years, i dont need to show you anything other than its what ive experienced for 2 decades. show me a aircooled 6900xt that gets to 43c max, when overclocked or a 1080ti, or a 4090 or any top of the line card ? there is a reason the top cards are even becoming watercooled with AIOS these day. even a 6900xt toxic aircooled cant get there, look at this list of various ca rds all nitro +, or reference coolers.. all above 70c.. except the toxic which is s till 14c higher than me. I dont need to argue or show anyone anything. Thats all people's arguments are these days on computer forums. (show me i dont believe you bleh bleh) and why at near 40 years old, i dont care to show kiddies the facts anymore. Watercooled GPU's are vastly better than aircooled ones.. VASTLY.. sometimes double digit decrease in temperatures...


https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/147354-sapphire-radeon-rx-6900-xt-toxic/?page=9

 

[Phaaze88]

Oh wow...

 

[hotaru.hino]

Well, I see the person got banned but I want to point out some things with regards to their response:

The reason why the video card has a large advantage difference in cooling performance is because of two primary factors:

• The hot air is getting ejected out of the case. Air cooled video cards have the exhaust air recycled. This isn't really a problem for CPU air coolers because cases are designed to have the exhaust air from them blow out of a conveniently placed hole.
• The water cooler is only cooling the GPU (see this teardown video), whereas air coolers have to also cool down the VRAM and VRM. It's from a while ago and I'm too lazy to find anything recent, but Igor's Lab took a look at what might be the GPU's actual TDP since any power consumption listed is total board power. So if we took the figures for the RTX 2080 and RX 5700 XT, Igor's Lab theorized a TDP of ~156W out of the 225W TBP. This works out to be about 70% of the TBP is the GPU's TDP.
  
  Tom's Hardware reportedly got about 300W TBP (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-6900-xt-review/4), and assuming the 6900XT in the Hexus review is basically the same, the Sapphire Toxic only added 70W. So if we put the Sapphire Toxic at a 370W card, and using the values theorized by Igor's Lab and assume this carried over, the water cooler is only dissipating 260W. Whereas an air cooler has to contend with 300W, plus the fact it'll be using recycled air.
• EDIT: Also wanted to add that air coolers have to be designed to fit within a certain volume. People are already face palming at 3-slot cards with the potential for 4-slot cards. This limits what kind of fans manufacturers can use which most of the larger cards seem to use 92mm ones that have to fit a thin profile. And here's a water cooled one that can fit 3 120mm full thickness fans on its radiator... so it gets to blow more air through the heat exchanging area for the same RPM.

So yeah, water cooling video cards does make sense, but only because air cooled video cards have so much stacked against them in the first place. It doesn't make air cooled designs generally and grossly inferior as being suggested.

 

[BogdanH]

...show me a aircooled 6900xt that gets to 43c max, when overclocked...

-and the point of that is? To show off?
Graphic cards (and CPU's) are designed to work perfectly fine at 80..90°C. One doesn't need 20+ years of experience to know, that the most effective cooling solution is the one, which is able to keep GPU/CPU just within that temperature range at full load. Further cooling down doesn't increase performance -such cooling solution only consumes more power, adds noise and simply cost more than actually needed.

Bogdan

 

[Karadjgne]

The water cooler is only cooling the GPU (see this teardown video), whereas air coolers have to also cool down the VRAM and VRM. It's from a while ago and I'm too lazy to find anything recent, but Igor's Lab took a look at what might be the GPU's actual TDP since any power consumption listed is total board power. So if we took the figures for the RTX 2080 and RX 5700 XT, Igor's Lab theorized a TDP of ~156W out of the 225W TBP. This works out to be about 70% of the TBP is the GPU's TDP.

@hotaru.hino you missed a point in that. Liquid coolers on a gpu have to contend with TBP, not just the gpu TDP, that only applies to things like the nzxt G12 etc where an aio is dedicated to just the gpu itself, and not the entire board. A standard liquid block also comes into contact with not just the gpu, but also the VRM's, memory chips etc even to the point where some 3090 blocks were actually double sided, just to get at the memory on top of the pcb as well as the memory on the bottom with the rest of the circuitry.

A liquid block comes into the same contact points on a gpu that an air-cooled heatsink does, sometimes more depending on the design, some air cooler heatsinks only hit the gpu, leaving the VRM's and memory at the mercy of other cooling methods.

And there are mono-blocks for the cpu that contact not only the cpu, but also the VRM's, even some motherboards that also have the capability of including ram, PCH, Southbridge.

Liquid cooling Is far more efficient and effective than aircooling, but it's implementation is also far more complex than aircooling. It's Far easier and cheaper to aircool ram with a simple heatsink than it is to liquid cool that same ram, especially considering that ram itself has no need to be liquid cooled unless you are doing something stupid crazy extreme like dumping 3v into it and OC'ing a 2400MHz kit to 8600MHz etc.

 

[hotaru.hino]

@hotaru.hino you missed a point in that. Liquid coolers on a gpu have to contend with TBP, not just the gpu TDP, that only applies to things like the nzxt G12 etc where an aio is dedicated to just the gpu itself, and not the entire board. A standard liquid block also comes into contact with not just the gpu, but also the VRM's, memory chips etc even to the point where some 3090 blocks were actually double sided, just to get at the memory on top of the pcb as well as the memory on the bottom with the rest of the circuitry.

The Sapphire Radeon 6900 XT Toxic's water cooling block is only touching the GPU.

The person was using this specific video card to try and prove why water cooling is vastly superior. It's not exactly a fair comparison when the water cooling block is only touching the GPU while air cooled designs still have to cool off everything. And a quick glance around say EVGA's water cooling video cards also suggest that the water block is only touching the GPU.

But overall the person used the Sapphire 6900XT Toxic as the data point to prove to me that water cooling was somehow vastly superior. And in this specific implementation yes, I can't deny that. But I'm not going to blindly believe that it was simply because the cooling medium switched to water. The card (and it seems like other factory water cooled cards) had three advantages that I'll reiterate:

1. The exhaust air is pushed directly out of the case
2. The water block is only cooling the GPU
3. Better performing fans can be used because there's no more constraint on the space taken up by the card.

Liquid cooling Is far more efficient and effective than aircooling, but it's implementation is also far more complex than aircooling. It's Far easier and cheaper to aircool ram with a simple heatsink than it is to liquid cool that same ram, especially considering that ram itself has no need to be liquid cooled unless you are doing something stupid crazy extreme like dumping 3v into it and OC'ing a 2400MHz kit to 8600MHz etc.

Again I would argue that the only thing liquid cooling by itself does is increase the thermal mass of the cooling system. Which only means that it takes longer for the cooling system to reach a steady state temperature. To me that doesn't necessarily mean it's better at cooling. If the steady state temperature is the same or within a range where it doesn't really matter, whatever that means to you, then it's not exactly better in the grand scheme of things. Also because of the higher thermal mass, it takes longer for the part to reach the idle temperature because the cooling system now has to cool off that water. I guess a silver lining here is that it lessens thermal shock, but how often is thermal shock a failure point?

I also want to bring up the point that regardless of what it's cooling, another main advantage to water cooling is that it shifts the heat exchanging part elsewhere, and when you do that, a lot of mechanical requirements no longer apply. Take the amount of material from a 360mm radiator and try to make say a CPU air cooler out of it. The closest we've gotten is the Noctua NH-15, but I'm sure few people have the patience to install one of those and cognizant enough to check for clearances (and the heat from the first heat sink tower is being pushed onto the second heat sink tower, lowering its cooling efficiency).

Overall, my point isn't to deny that water cooling is better than air cooling. The point I'm trying to make is that there are factors that lead up to what makes water cooling systems a better performer, and simply looking at the primary method to transfer heat away from the part (be it water, heat pipes, or vapor chambers, since few designs directly interface the fins to the part) while ignoring the rest is not productive to the discussion. To me, it's not enough to just look at a number and call it a day.

I'll just take what Gamer's Nexus goes with:

 

[Crosslhs82x2]

Definitely Agree that only You can determine whether it Worth it.

My wallet is definitely thinner then what it was BUT My System is Loving the Custom Loop!!!!

After the H150i currently on my son's rig gives up the ghost No more AIO's.

 

[Karadjgne]

Agreed lol. Even with mITX, I went custom loop this time, it's quiet and cool, the Cryorig R1 I had on my 3770k was supposedly almost as good as D15, within 1° difference, but it forced me to drop 300MHz from the OC, just to not put the fans at 100% after my fans on my nzxt x61 kicked the bucket.

Many ppl prefer air, and thats OK, entitled to their opinion they are, but if at all possible I do liquid, just as I have done for the last 20 years.

And yes, I remember Danger Dan all too (Un) fondly and the Honda radiator mounted next to the case...

 

[Multyspeed]

-and the point of that is? To show off?
Graphic cards (and CPU's) are designed to work perfectly fine at 80..90°C. One doesn't need 20+ years of experience to know, that the most effective cooling solution is the one, which is able to keep GPU/CPU just within that temperature range at full load. Further cooling down doesn't increase performance -such cooling solution only consumes more power, adds noise and simply cost more than actually needed.

Bogdan

I guarantee that the custom loop on my 12900K is quieter than a high-end air cooler. The cost is quite high, I agree with that.
The two things that kill electronics are dust and temperature. The lower the temp, the more the lifespan of the CPU, GPU, or whatever the component is. However, The lifespan even in 80-90C is going to be so long, that it doesn't matter. With temps like 90C, you will use your CPU for 10 years maybe, and in that time it's going to be so old and slow that you are going to replace it several years before that so...
About the performance increase:
I'm going to use Nvidia for example. The higher the temps - the lower the clock. So a colder card means a bit higher clock speed, but the performance gain is not big, but it is there.
Is water cooling worth it? For me yes. For you - maybe not. This is a question that no one can answer for others. I'm not recommending a water cooling system to my friends because there is always a risk of leaks or died pump. The air cooler is much more carefree.
I like it because it looks good (for me) it is quiet and it's a hobby.

EDIT: @brandonmacleod21

And if you choose to go with a custom loop - please go for the big brands really - Alphacool, EKWB, Bitspower, and a few others. Don't buy cheap cr@p fittings, rads, and pumps from non-named companies for 0,5$ a piece. Every connection is a point of failure. This is just a piece of friendly advice.

 

[drivinfast247]

The Sapphire Radeon 6900 XT Toxic's water cooling block is only touching the GPU.

The person was using this specific video card to try and prove why water cooling is vastly superior. It's not exactly a fair comparison when the water cooling block is only touching the GPU while air cooled designs still have to cool off everything. And a quick glance around say EVGA's water cooling video cards also suggest that the water block is only touching the GPU.

But overall the person used the Sapphire 6900XT Toxic as the data point to prove to me that water cooling was somehow vastly superior. And in this specific implementation yes, I can't deny that. But I'm not going to blindly believe that it was simply because the cooling medium switched to water. The card (and it seems like other factory water cooled cards) had three advantages that I'll reiterate:

1. The exhaust air is pushed directly out of the case
2. The water block is only cooling the GPU
3. Better performing fans can be used because there's no more constraint on the space taken up by the card.

Again I would argue that the only thing liquid cooling by itself does is increase the thermal mass of the cooling system. Which only means that it takes longer for the cooling system to reach a steady state temperature. To me that doesn't necessarily mean it's better at cooling. If the steady state temperature is the same or within a range where it doesn't really matter, whatever that means to you, then it's not exactly better in the grand scheme of things. Also because of the higher thermal mass, it takes longer for the part to reach the idle temperature because the cooling system now has to cool off that water. I guess a silver lining here is that it lessens thermal shock, but how often is thermal shock a failure point?

I also want to bring up the point that regardless of what it's cooling, another main advantage to water cooling is that it shifts the heat exchanging part elsewhere, and when you do that, a lot of mechanical requirements no longer apply. Take the amount of material from a 360mm radiator and try to make say a CPU air cooler out of it. The closest we've gotten is the Noctua NH-15, but I'm sure few people have the patience to install one of those and cognizant enough to check for clearances (and the heat from the first heat sink tower is being pushed onto the second heat sink tower, lowering its cooling efficiency).

Overall, my point isn't to deny that water cooling is better than air cooling. The point I'm trying to make is that there are factors that lead up to what makes water cooling systems a better performer, and simply looking at the primary method to transfer heat away from the part (be it water, heat pipes, or vapor chambers, since few designs directly interface the fins to the part) while ignoring the rest is not productive to the discussion. To me, it's not enough to just look at a number and call it a day.

I'll just take what Gamer's Nexus goes with:

What you're showing is a hybrid design cooler. A full waterblock DOES cool the VRM and VRAM. EVGA waterblocks do cool everything aswell. I can't find a waterblock available in the aftermarket that doesn't cool everything.