Hey guys, I was wondering if people could share their opinions and experiences with all in one water coolers and aftermarket cooling options in general, pro's, con's, horror storys and shining recommendations, reliability, everything.
They are known to be fairly reliable and safe. They aren't the best thing for price to performance, but they minimize sound and cool fairly well. Currently the best for cooling statisticly is the NZXT Kraken x60 followed by the Corsair H100i, though I suggest just doing high end air cooling or a full custom watercooling loop unless noise is an issue, or you really like them.
AIO's are pretty good at what the do, the new Swiftech H220 is a corss breed, thats can be expanded and performs better than the H100i and is nipping at the heels of the X60 and H110, so if you were looking into getting one thats what id go for.
H220 is shit though, Don't get some weird hybrid, either do a x60 or just get a full on custom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPfLKkyIJOI
Thats the only review that is like that, and it wasnt really done well, especially the argument of it being louder while he ran the pump at 100% (which makes no difference in temps) as the pump could easily run at 30% and still have a higher flow rate than the Corsair.
Take a look at a real breakdown of the unit and what it can do
http://martinsliquidlab.org/2013/01/27/swiftech-h220-prefilled-2x120mm-water-cooling-kit/
and here are some other reviews just to add a broader conclusion then just one review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6716/closing-the-loop-ii-new-liquid-coolers-from-corsair-and-swiftech/4
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/cooling/liquid/32847-swiftech-h220?showall=&start=2
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5188/swiftech-h220-compact-drive-ii-cpu-water-cooler-review/index8.html
http://www.overclockers.com/swiftech-h220-lcs-all-in-one-water-cooler-review?utm_source=pr
In short the H220 is at least on par with the H100i but usually beats it, and thats with its fans being much quieter as the Swiftech fans only go to 1800RPM but the corsairs will ramp up all the way to 2700RPM
Thanks for the comments guys, I was just really wondering about it all in general since I had a all in one water cooling unit once (I think it was a cool IT brand) that was cooling my 1090T, all was great untill the thing literally exploded in my case and shorted out the Motherboard and fried the CPU, was left feeling pretty bitter about these all in one solutions, but since so many people recomend the all in one soutions for reaching pretty high overclocks I was wondering if I just had a lemon or if their really was reliabilty issues with them, I now have a 3770K with a thermaltake macho hr-02 air cooler on it.
I was also wondering what coolers are generally the best, weather it be air cooled, water cooled, cost/performance, how quiet a cooler is, size/performance, all sorts of information, testamonies or horror storys.
Best for Price vs performance would be large tower heatsinks, the best for extreme cooling is a custom loop, the best price vs performance for High end cooling is an AIO unit.
A lot of them are about as equally reliable, custom loops usually have pumps rated at 50,000 Hours MTFB and most fans are usually around the same, but towers are less prone to break something a custom loop is most likely and AIO's are right in the middle.
Although if an AIO goes on you the manufacturer will usually cover the cost of the damage caused.
I see, it seems I must of had a real bad one then for it to blow up on me and it be only just over 2 years old, I never got any kind of cover for the damage caused either.
so which cooler is best then in general for each type? air cooled, AIO, I understand custom water cooled solutions can be pretty pricey to?
A solid custom water cooling loop will cost at least $600, for a very simple one with an AIO bay reserviour. So although they may look amazing and cool like very little else, they are seriously cost inefficient. Usually air is your best bet, as the temps you can get with air cooling are sometimes more extreme than those returned from a liquid cooled system. The air cooled one just lacks the lag in response time that you get from liquid. By that I mean that the liquid cooled loop is able to take in and dissipate far more energy before it begins to grow warm.
For air the best your going to get is a NH-D14 or a PH-TC14PE, they will be a few degrees hotter than something like an H100i, best for AIO is going to be either the H110/X60 or the Swiftech H220 (whcih can be expanded into a full loop), as for custom you can go into the thousands, but for something that will perform similar to the Swiftech H220/ H110 a loop of that caliber will cost you around 250$, something that shows a drastic difference would probably be around 400$
I see, thanks for all the input you have given me :) would be nice if their was a buyers guide for these lol