Hi guys. A few weeks ago i was looking into changing my cooler master ma410m tuf into an aio. Was looking at the corsair h100i pro xt as it's the only thing suggested that's available at the moment. My question is is the change to aio worth it? Im mostly gaming and i just want to keep the temps low. also looking into overclocking it a bit. Tia!
[SOLVED] Is the change to an aio worth it?
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siaan312
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Well an AIO is 100% aesthetic. the best aio does not perform better than the best air cooler, nor is it quieter.
but it looks much better.
and the difference is quite small.
but it looks much better.
and the difference is quite small.
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If there's no thermal throttling present, then there's no real benefit to changing your current cooler. If you're not seeing over 80-85C in game, there's no point, unless you're rocking a Ryzen 3000 cpu; they're temp sensitive.
Besides, if you do have excessively high thermals, I'd question your chassis airflow first. Any cooler is only going to be as effective as the air moving through the chassis.
Besides, if you do have excessively high thermals, I'd question your chassis airflow first. Any cooler is only going to be as effective as the air moving through the chassis.
- Dec 26, 2012
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Gotta love a partner in life who'll do that for you 😍
Boy, you really, really need an education, and I'm not talking about getting it from the 'Rumor Mill'. You are so wrong on every front it's not even remotely funny.
siaan312
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Actually, no im not.
an nh-d15 performs better than any 360mm aio, and i'd bet you money its better than 480mm aios too.
its also less noisy since it has 2 fans, unlike 3+pump of the 360mm.
im talking about AIOs, not custom coolers and i also said the difference is slim. it might only be a temperature or 2.
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That statement needs clarification, as it's not true in its current form:
With high TDP cpus, the noise optimized 360mm models are outperformed by high end air and 280mm performance coolers because they sacrifice too much fan power to maintain the quiet profile.
With low TDP cpus, they'll perform roughly the same, because neither is being pushed to the limit; diminishing returns on going the 'overkill cooler' route.
480mm really can't be included here, because the kind of heat soak(450w, give or take?) needed to stress one of these - whether silence or performance type - will make the D15 tap out.
That's also needs clarification. I have both coolers and can voice my experience with both. [NH-D15S w/2 NF-A15 and a Fractal Design Celsius S36 mounted on the gpu with a Kraken G12. I sit about 5ft, or 1.5m, away from my PC.]
With the D15S' fans running at 1000rpm or lower and the pump speed at 100%(recommended), the pump is the most audible device. Going above that, the D15S becomes the louder unit.
Same deal with the Celsius' Dynamic X2-GP12 fans.
So no, it is not less noisy in all scenarios.
Yeah. she even held the water block and tubes while i installed the radiator XD
Ran into some ram clearance issues and i didn't know the cable connecting to the SATA one was so short!
Resolved and still very thankful though.
siaan312
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I actually also have had both
I had an nh-d14 on my old i7 860, then moved to an i7 8700k, then swapped the nh-d14 to a corsair h150i.
i also swapped to a much bigger case with 2 more intake fans. (old case was a coolermaster k380 with 1 intake and 1 added noctua redux 12cm as exhaust, and the new case is an nzxt h700i with 1 140mm exhaust, the h150i as top exhaust and 3 120mm intake fans)
my temps on the i7 8700k got 2 degrees higher with the h150i and bigger case, and i definetly can hear it more.
i dont use any self adjusted fan curves or similar, i have all the fans and pump powered through the motherboard on default.
- Dec 26, 2012
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You do realize that you intentionally made a very broad based statement about aircoolers vrs aios based on Noctua fans vs Corsair fans. That's the entire issue. Aircoolers and aios do not make noise, the fans do.
Kraken X61 silent mode, i7-3770K @ 4.9GHz p95 70°C. Replaced (after the stock fans died) with Cryorig R1 Ultimate had to drop the OC to 4.6GHz to maintain the same temps, and the fans are audibly much louder.
You cannot compare a Granny Smith apple to a Mandarin orange and then say apples suck because they are sour and oranges are sweet. Doesn't work that way.
240mm aios have @ 250w capacity, same as a NH-D15. 280mm are 300w, 360mm are 350w and there's no such thing as a 480mm aio. Capacity and thermal performance at any given load are not the same thing. There's plenty of aircoolers that get better results at some loads than the NH-D15. And when it comes to cpus with upwards of @ 200w outputs, any 280mm/360mm gets better temps based simply on capacity vs output. It's not a linear scale, it's logarithmic, the closer to saturation you get the more 1 watt affects temps.
Having the same capacity, a 240mm has the same cooling potential as a NH-D15, the difference is in the efficiency of the fan vs the properties of the heat exchanger. Some fans are not only better suited for rads but fall into better ratios. The best fan for the fpi and thickness and flow rate of an aio rad was the original Scythe Gentle Typhoon. It had mediocre cfm, mediocre static pressure, but the combination of both was the perfect ratio for an aio radiator. Higher sp or higher cfm or higher rpm fans had slightly different ratio, and resulted in less than perfect results.
Like I said, get an education. Basing your entire hypothesis on 2 different coolers you owned does not mean every other cooler has similar properties and characteristics.
Kraken X61 silent mode, i7-3770K @ 4.9GHz p95 70°C. Replaced (after the stock fans died) with Cryorig R1 Ultimate had to drop the OC to 4.6GHz to maintain the same temps, and the fans are audibly much louder.
You cannot compare a Granny Smith apple to a Mandarin orange and then say apples suck because they are sour and oranges are sweet. Doesn't work that way.
240mm aios have @ 250w capacity, same as a NH-D15. 280mm are 300w, 360mm are 350w and there's no such thing as a 480mm aio. Capacity and thermal performance at any given load are not the same thing. There's plenty of aircoolers that get better results at some loads than the NH-D15. And when it comes to cpus with upwards of @ 200w outputs, any 280mm/360mm gets better temps based simply on capacity vs output. It's not a linear scale, it's logarithmic, the closer to saturation you get the more 1 watt affects temps.
Having the same capacity, a 240mm has the same cooling potential as a NH-D15, the difference is in the efficiency of the fan vs the properties of the heat exchanger. Some fans are not only better suited for rads but fall into better ratios. The best fan for the fpi and thickness and flow rate of an aio rad was the original Scythe Gentle Typhoon. It had mediocre cfm, mediocre static pressure, but the combination of both was the perfect ratio for an aio radiator. Higher sp or higher cfm or higher rpm fans had slightly different ratio, and resulted in less than perfect results.
Like I said, get an education. Basing your entire hypothesis on 2 different coolers you owned does not mean every other cooler has similar properties and characteristics.
- Dec 30, 2016
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~Oh no... now it all makes sense how you came to that conclusion; you left in too many variables and made some major miscalculations...
Lets start with the old chassis setup:
1)A single front intake and 1 rear exhaust? That's it? Was that actually the best fan setup for your hardware - did you test to be sure?
2)I'd bet the NH-D14 wasn't getting enough front intake - if the chassis does not flow enough cool air to the cooler, then the cooler reuses it's own heated exhaust air and cannot cool properly and resulting temps will be subpar.
If the rear exhaust fan isn't as strong as, or stronger than the D14's NF-P14 fan, then it was just getting in the way. There are multiple Redux 120mm models; below the 1700rpm model would've been worse and would not have helped.
3)This is related to the 'overkill cooling' remark in my last post: An i7-860 isn't going to stress a high TDP cooler like the NH-D14.
Conclusion: A beefy cpu cooler that wasn't getting enough air, but it wasn't dealing with a hot chip either + whatever the gpu was at the time = thermal results were whatever they were at the time.
The new setup:
1)Is that the best fan setup and radiator location for your hardware - did you test?
2)8700K? Now an overclock on that would've been a more worthy opponent for the old NH-D14 than the i7-860 was.
3)Corsair H150i. This one's exactly what I was referring to with the noise optimized 360mm: they are worse than big air and 280mm performance.
The weaknesses of AIOs/CLCs is the cold plate and the pump speed, but the silence-focused H150i adds another one: weak fans, which is necessary to keep the silent profile.
You should've kept the D14...
4)Bigger chassis doesn't always translate to better, but hey, I shouldn't have to tell you that...
5)"i dont use any self adjusted fan curves or similar, i have all the fans and pump powered through the motherboard on default."
That's just adding another variable of error to testing...6)"my temps on the i7 8700k got 2 degrees higher with the h150i and bigger case"
With all the mistakes you made, I can see why that happened...
- Dec 26, 2012
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Hate to break it to you but mATX cases have the best airflow in general. Small volume internally. Does not take all that much cfm to totally replace the entire volume.
My case is 12litres. Standard ATX is 45litres. With just 2 fans moving air in/out i get far better airflow than 3 fans in/ 2 fans out in atx. 2x50cfm vs 12litres or 5x50cfm vs 45litres. You do the math.
Moving upto a bigger case got you worse airflow ability, got you greater chances for hot-zones where no air moves, got you a change in fans that were inadequate for the job. Got you worse temps.
My case is 12litres. Standard ATX is 45litres. With just 2 fans moving air in/out i get far better airflow than 3 fans in/ 2 fans out in atx. 2x50cfm vs 12litres or 5x50cfm vs 45litres. You do the math.
Moving upto a bigger case got you worse airflow ability, got you greater chances for hot-zones where no air moves, got you a change in fans that were inadequate for the job. Got you worse temps.
siaan312
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In the small chassis i had 1 barely working intake, and 1 exhast.
While both the coolers are overbuilt for an 8700k or 860, the 860 obviously cannot overclock, and i do overclock my 8700k to 5ghz, but the testing was done on stock clocks.~Oh no... now it all makes sense how you came to that conclusion; you left in too many variables and made some major miscalculations...
Lets start with the old chassis setup:
1)A single front intake and 1 rear exhaust? That's it? Was that actually the best fan setup for your hardware - did you test to be sure?
2)I'd bet the NH-D14 wasn't getting enough front intake - if the chassis does not flow enough cool air to the cooler, then the cooler reuses it's own heated exhaust air and cannot cool properly and resulting temps will be subpar.
If the rear exhaust fan isn't as strong as, or stronger than the D14's NF-P14 fan, then it was just getting in the way. There are multiple Redux 120mm models; below the 1700rpm model would've been worse and would not have helped.
3)This is related to the 'overkill cooling' remark in my last post: An i7-860 isn't going to stress a high TDP cooler like the NH-D14.
Conclusion: A beefy cpu cooler that wasn't getting enough air, but it wasn't dealing with a hot chip either + whatever the gpu was at the time = thermal results were whatever they were at the time.
The new setup:
1)Is that the best fan setup and radiator location for your hardware - did you test?
2)8700K? Now an overclock on that would've been a more worthy opponent for the old NH-D14 than the i7-860 was.
3)Corsair H150i. This one's exactly what I was referring to with the noise optimized 360mm: they are worse than big air and 280mm performance.
The weaknesses of AIOs/CLCs is the cold plate and the pump speed, but the silence-focused H150i adds another one: weak fans, which is necessary to keep the silent profile.
You should've kept the D14...
4)Bigger chassis doesn't always translate to better, but hey, I shouldn't have to tell you that...
5)"i dont use any self adjusted fan curves or similar, i have all the fans and pump powered through the motherboard on default."
6)"my temps on the i7 8700k got 2 degrees higher with the h150i and bigger case"
With all the mistakes you made, I can see why that happened...
The small case was suboptimal, but the for the h700i, the 4 exhaust (3 on radiator) and 3 intake is the best i can do, since its the most balanced.
I could put the radiator in the front for better cpu temps, but gpu temps are more important since this cooler is pretty beefy anyway. and the difference would be a degree or 2 at best probably.
As for the comment of not enough heat for the cooler:
yes that cooler is well above what you need, but both the 8700k and 860 are enough of a heatload to not have diminishing returns. its not like the heat is not enough for you to not notice a major difference between a hyper 212 and an nh-d14
I guess my testing and personal experience could be flawed, since i didn't do extensive testing and didn't check every single variable to make them perfect, but this is somewhat of a real world scenario, and i think we can both agree that neither of the coolers are much better than the other, and that for most people besides the price, the h150i is better looking, hence better, with minimal performance lost.
- Dec 30, 2016
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It still wouldn't have hurt to check to be sure - physics does some weird crap sometimes, but oh well...
With my current hardware, I put aside time to test different fan setups, and found that:
-top exhaust fans are actually worse in my chassis by a couple degrees overall.
-I even did a top panel mesh mod for my chassis, but that turned out to actually be a little worse to my surprise... so I swapped the original acrylic panel back in.
-top radiator placement isn't possible to test because the tubing isn't long enough.
-NH-D15S yields the best thermals with 3 fans, eliminating the need for a rear chassis fan, but the 3rd fan creates an annoying, audible 'whirr' over 1000rpm+, so I removed it.
-I have another cooler, Thermalright's Silver Arrow IB-E Extreme Rev. B, that I found to not need rear or top exhaust fans at all in my current chassis; they just get in this cooler's way - it does need lots of intake though, or it ends up running on its own exhaust.
You've got what, a 2070/2080 Super? Have you seen how often and how easily that card pulls 200w+ of power?
The i7-860 comes nowhere close to that.
The 8700K would struggle to pull that kind of power unless you ran it through Prime95, Occt, Aida64, etc.
I don't agree. The D14 was better suited for testing your 8700K overclock, with the H150i not really offering anything over it.
'Better looking' is purely subjective. I'm totally fine with, and like the look of big air coolers Vs a water block, 2 extending tubes, and an extra long heatsink(radiator), fans, and rainbow vomit - which I'm not a fan of, thus the Celsius S36.
Why do I have one though? Simply to gain some experience using one, and it makes more sense to use it on the gpu. NOTHING beats direct die cooling.
Cpu IHSs are a cooler limitation. Too bad cpu direct die cooling isn't more popular... I'd have done that instead of delidding it.
'Hence better', better what???
Oh right, it LOOKS better, so it's better. Just what...
'With minimal performance lost', even though I covered the weaknesses of that cooler, you just kind of tossed it aside...
Okay, fine. It's your money; as long as you're happy...
I'm not trying to attack you, but I'm against you spreading half-truths and subjective opinions(aesthetics) as truth, to others, which is what you did starting with your first post.
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digitalgriffin
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This is a very complex question. But with 99% of AIOs you really wont get much temps and not much better over clocking.
What you get is usually quieter operation and better ability to deal with quick thermal spikes as there's more coolant mass there to absorb the heat (longer time before heat soak). This may lead to better dynamic clocks on the short term.
- Dec 26, 2012
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I prefer liquid vs air, but then again I've been messing around with liquid for over 15 years, and pc's in general for about 40 years. So I've had plenty of time to accumulate an opinion over which I prefer, and not just for looks. Looks are personal. I like tasteful case lighting, be it led strips or cathode tube, even had a 'night light' bulb setup in the early days. But thats me. And my pc. And my wiring. I've seen plenty of hack jobs, especially in liquid cooled pc's, where the owner would have been far better off with aircooling, just to clean up the look.
Just as opinions differ, case designs differ too. Understanding airflow patterns didn't used to be a thing, nobody cared back then. They do now.
A fan works by moving a pitched blade through air. This creates a low pressure void behind the blade. The more blades and faster they move, the stronger the void. The void is not directional, it's everywhere, strongest nearest the fan and extends over 180° from the face.
So when you mount a fan at rear exhaust, it's pulling air from all directions, you add a giant hole in the top, that's subject to 14.7psi outside air pressure, guess what's filling a good chunk of the air that's trying to fill the rear exhaust void. Not case air.
You changed the airflow pattern of the case by opening it up. Prior, the heat generated from the gpu exhausts, chipsets, cpu cooler etc rose to the top of the case and was trapped there. Rear exhaust provides a void, air from the front intakes moves to fill the void (nature abhors a vacuum) and moves the heat with it. With the top vented, heat is trying to escape upwards and out, the rear is sucking fresh air in from the top and nothing really moves out. Temps got worse.
What's the best cooler for Op? The one that fits the need. You can't ever over-cool a cpu but it's far too easy to under-cool one. The benefits of over-sized cooling are in audible volume. You do not need to run the fans at maximum. Fans on my aio never got beyond 600 rpm unless I stress tested. For all intents and purposes, consider that dead silent. With the aircooler lack of surface area, the same (actually 300MHz lower output) output gets me fans that average 800-1000 rpm. Much louder.
Was forced to replace the baffles on top. Which lowered temps and volume by giving the rear exhaust case supply air, not top-in outside air.
Tastes differ, opinions differ, cases differ, coolers differ, fans differ. Stating that aios don't change very much and are just for 'aesthetics' ignores every other variable. All of which make a difference.
You base everything on the assumption that cooler is better. It's not. A cpu will perform exactly the same at 40°C as at 60°C. There's Zero difference to the cpu, only your perception. Changing coolers or fan curves or airflow or case fans to get a 2°C to 20°C drop in temps is meaningless if the cpu is under @ 70°C. It doesn't care, only you do. I'd be far happier with a full custom loop that ran a constant 50-60°C no matter what the workload, than an aircooler turned up to maximum speed just to see ranges of 32°C to 70°C. Changing coolers or arguing that a certain aircooler gets you 2°C better temps is pointless and meaningless, cpus change workloads and temps so often in gaming especially that that becomes moot.
The only thing that's of any importance is keeping the cpu cool enough to stay within safe operating ranges. Everything else is just fluff.
Just as opinions differ, case designs differ too. Understanding airflow patterns didn't used to be a thing, nobody cared back then. They do now.
A fan works by moving a pitched blade through air. This creates a low pressure void behind the blade. The more blades and faster they move, the stronger the void. The void is not directional, it's everywhere, strongest nearest the fan and extends over 180° from the face.
So when you mount a fan at rear exhaust, it's pulling air from all directions, you add a giant hole in the top, that's subject to 14.7psi outside air pressure, guess what's filling a good chunk of the air that's trying to fill the rear exhaust void. Not case air.
You changed the airflow pattern of the case by opening it up. Prior, the heat generated from the gpu exhausts, chipsets, cpu cooler etc rose to the top of the case and was trapped there. Rear exhaust provides a void, air from the front intakes moves to fill the void (nature abhors a vacuum) and moves the heat with it. With the top vented, heat is trying to escape upwards and out, the rear is sucking fresh air in from the top and nothing really moves out. Temps got worse.
What's the best cooler for Op? The one that fits the need. You can't ever over-cool a cpu but it's far too easy to under-cool one. The benefits of over-sized cooling are in audible volume. You do not need to run the fans at maximum. Fans on my aio never got beyond 600 rpm unless I stress tested. For all intents and purposes, consider that dead silent. With the aircooler lack of surface area, the same (actually 300MHz lower output) output gets me fans that average 800-1000 rpm. Much louder.
Was forced to replace the baffles on top. Which lowered temps and volume by giving the rear exhaust case supply air, not top-in outside air.
Tastes differ, opinions differ, cases differ, coolers differ, fans differ. Stating that aios don't change very much and are just for 'aesthetics' ignores every other variable. All of which make a difference.
You base everything on the assumption that cooler is better. It's not. A cpu will perform exactly the same at 40°C as at 60°C. There's Zero difference to the cpu, only your perception. Changing coolers or fan curves or airflow or case fans to get a 2°C to 20°C drop in temps is meaningless if the cpu is under @ 70°C. It doesn't care, only you do. I'd be far happier with a full custom loop that ran a constant 50-60°C no matter what the workload, than an aircooler turned up to maximum speed just to see ranges of 32°C to 70°C. Changing coolers or arguing that a certain aircooler gets you 2°C better temps is pointless and meaningless, cpus change workloads and temps so often in gaming especially that that becomes moot.
The only thing that's of any importance is keeping the cpu cool enough to stay within safe operating ranges. Everything else is just fluff.
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digitalgriffin
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Its why as an aero engineer, i believed over pressurization superior to negative pressure. Negative pressure makes the exhaust fans run harder.
Think of it this way...if you had no exhaust fans and had .1 psi difference from inside the case to outside, you have roughly .55 pounds of force advantage over a typical 140mm fan opening. Thats without the fan running.
- Dec 30, 2016
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So is that why in all the testing I did so far with the H500P Mesh, I got better thermals overall running only intakes in the front? My setup needs no exhaust fans.
I tripped over myself in one of my earlier posts about taking the 3rd fan off the D15S and putting it as rear chassis exhaust improving temps - I've since edited it.
I understand that it may differ somewhat depending on the chassis design and hardware setup.
- Dec 26, 2012
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Case design. It means everything to airflow. Take the nzxt H500 case. Has room for 2x intakes and rear/top rear exhaust only. It's also got a very enclosed front facia so the intake fans are next to useless.
It's proven to be a negative pressure case. Even gpu temps are lower when not supplied by intake fans.
Pressure is a constant, it might vary a little with fan speeds, but once started it remains. The gpu ends up pulling air from the pci slots at the back of the case, which has outside air pressure forcing itself inwards. When you include front intakes, you remove most of that negative pressure yet can't add enough cfm worth of cooler front air to make up the difference. So the gpu gets next to no fresh air, all it gets is very slow moving case air that's consequently heated up by the gpu exhaust. Almost a 10°C difference.
The fans themselves don't have to work harder, they'll run just the same, the difference being the source of air. It's like water going down the drain, once it starts spinning, it'll stay spinning and drainage is good. Disturb the flow and the spinning water will not spin, and drainage slows. Spin it backwards to normal flow and it'll fight your efforts and drainage can come to a complete stop, held in stasis.
It's proven to be a negative pressure case. Even gpu temps are lower when not supplied by intake fans.
Pressure is a constant, it might vary a little with fan speeds, but once started it remains. The gpu ends up pulling air from the pci slots at the back of the case, which has outside air pressure forcing itself inwards. When you include front intakes, you remove most of that negative pressure yet can't add enough cfm worth of cooler front air to make up the difference. So the gpu gets next to no fresh air, all it gets is very slow moving case air that's consequently heated up by the gpu exhaust. Almost a 10°C difference.
The fans themselves don't have to work harder, they'll run just the same, the difference being the source of air. It's like water going down the drain, once it starts spinning, it'll stay spinning and drainage is good. Disturb the flow and the spinning water will not spin, and drainage slows. Spin it backwards to normal flow and it'll fight your efforts and drainage can come to a complete stop, held in stasis.
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It's not always obvious though. I was interested enough to still bother to test a bunch of fan setups to be sure.
So, here I am now, with push-pull intake 3x NF-A14 = Celsius S36 = 3x NF-S12A, and no exhaust fans. Still debating on 2 or 3(darn whirr) fan NH-D15S...
Screw tradition.
So, here I am now, with push-pull intake 3x NF-A14 = Celsius S36 = 3x NF-S12A, and no exhaust fans. Still debating on 2 or 3(darn whirr) fan NH-D15S...
Screw tradition.
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