You get some nice + of lower ambient noise so its more of a trade off in FD cases (not all of them but things like the Define etc)
I still have a working v1 and v2. wOrKs On My MaChInE
I am firmly in the full custom loop or air cool camp now.
NH-D15 would be my pick for air.
Do you want to cool your GPU too? or leave it on air?
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Having custom looped a gpu its a rough deal with how little gain you get and how quiet the AIB cards are these days (I guess blower cards are can be cheap enough to make it worth while in terms of AIB card vs adding block to blower card)
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yeah I dont really know because I never ran mine on air but I’m sure I gained nothing in overhead since the card was never maxed out in the first place.
The main gain I see now is if you can make it a single slot card and need the slot next to it.
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well seeing its stupid expensive for a air cooled flat heat pipe quiet systems, a massive thermal mass and surface area like my aluminum liquid passive cooling build are far cheaper then the cheapest heat pipe cooling option.
like trying to passively cool at ambient temps or just above is not possible on a air tower because it cant spread its thermal energy and it needs a air current to pull heat away
‘passive air’ systems kinda all move some ‘fluid’ anyway heat pipes normally have a gas in them that i think helps* and some flat heat pipes actually use a fluid to help speed heat transfer over the plate-pipe
It kinda depends indeed.
In certain scenario’s liquid coolers can have a benefit over Air coolers.
For example when space is limited, or very hot environments.
However in general an Aircooler will be sufficient.
I’m personally not really a fan of liquid cooling solutions at all.
Because they have a higher failing risk.
Aircoolers are simply way more reliable.
And when it comes to CLC’s the few degrees difference compared to decent aircoolers,
isn’t generally significant enough to me, to take the risk of leaks and pump failures.
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If you’re going for TR4 and what the very best air cooler and are prepared to wait (not sure for how long though) Noctua showed an NH-D15 for TR4 at Computex 2019.
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also it looks neat.
also you can swing your dick about it.
big pp energy.
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Every day my patience wanes.
Gonna leave it on air, as I’m not going be to using an AMD card 
I’ll check it out, thanks.
All this talk about water cooling and no one is talking about novec.
Just put the PC in a tank of mineral oil, that’ll keep it cool.
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If you set a condensing system it is pretty damn efficient.
And an older video when I first looked it up.
Since Novec is also a cleaning fluid, it comes with the nice advantage of not needing to leave the part out to drip dry after taking it out of a system like mineral oil.
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I would say that it is primarily an art form that allows the builder to express him/her self. Have a look at the Singularity Computers YouTube channel and you’ll find numerous builds which are genuinely things of beauty.
Having said that these builds can be extremely effective. With enough radiator surface area, your fans only need to turn an inaudible 500RPMs, while still keeping your expensive bits at 40C, rather than heat throttling.
Then again, you could always just use conventional air coolers and then spend the savings on a nice painting to hang over your computer. It’s your choice.
I will throw in for air cooling, but will also add I have never water cooled.
Rational being, unless it is custom loop AIOs are not much better than Air Towers if at all in almost any test I have seen.
They take longer to do their job and then finish doing their job wit all the heat soak and then later cooling the liquid after the load is gone.
There is risk of failure.
They are not always quieter than air towers with rab fans typically be closer to the outside of the case and then pump noise too.
Liquid has been known to evaporate out of the tubes.
Your GPU will typically be louder than either Air Towers or AIOs anyway which negates any benefit for noise on either side.
Air towers are easier to fix and can usually also limp along still doing their job if needs be when a fan dies, when if a pump dies it is an entire new AIO and no PC in the downtime.
Really it comes down to if you don’t mind having a big case with a potentially ugly tower cooler inside or if you want a smaller build. I assume with all you have mentioned the PC will not be lugged in and out of a back seat of a car regularly so air towers mass is not a problem there.
And just from a personal point on aesthetics, I don’t care for RGB and specifically matched parts because even though I have a side window I don’t spend my time staring in it. I personally like the way an air tower fills out the space rather than a large case with nothing going on but the rent.
Edit: oh yeah, I have been using a D14, yes 14, since I built my PC a long time ago now with an every day OC of 4GHz on an FX 6100 and it has been great.
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Depends on your priorities. A high-end AIO can beat high-end air, and custom water cools better than either. If you push your overclock, that can help.
For me, the fact that air coolers never degrade and there’s no risk of leaking makes them a much better choice. I exclusively use high-end air (Noctua, obviously). I do overclock but I don’t go crazy with voltages so this works great.
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Just like everyone else said it really depends. AIOs are useful if you don’t have much space to work with since they can displace the heat and not just dump it into the case.
When I build my PC my thought process on the cooling was: I want less failing points as possible and I want to make a mini “investment” and not having to upgrade the cooling for multiple generations of CPUs I might be going through. So then I ended up buying a Noctua NH-D15 and I’ve been very pleased with it.
In my opinion if you have room in your case I’d buy a big air cooler. It might make your CPU run 1 or 2°C warmer than an AIO (compared to a 360mm radiator) but you’ll be absolutely sure that it will never fail and you’ll keep it basically until the manufacturer stops making mountings for it.
A couple things to make sure of when buying a big air cooler are tall memory sticks and interference with the PCI slot nearest to the socket.
Regarding portability: I think Tom’s Hardware is referring to the fact that’s is much safer having an AIO in a system you’re carrying around rather than a big air cooler that might rip your CPU socket out of the board.
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a e s t h e t i c
Liquid cooling is all about the a e s t h e t i c of the build.
Windowed PC case = AiO or Custom Loop for a e s t h e t i c
No Window PC case = Air cooler
I’m simple like that and have I mentioned the a e s t h e t i c ?