Today i sold my Scythe Ninja 5 air cooler, sole reason was the price, too good to pass up.
However, i’ve fallen into a dilemma, do i buy a thick rad 120mm aio or another air cooler?
The reason for me considering an AIO is due to convenience, i really dislike removing the fans inside the case to clean the heatsink, often times i cut myself on the fins as well, but i can live with that.
And i also like the packaging of thick 120mm AIOs better than larger AIOs like 240mm or 280mm, thus why i’m not considering any larger AIOs.
The AIOs i’m interesting in are the Riotoro Bifrost 120TI (~US$70) and the well known Corsair H80i V2 (~US$100), and the only air cooler i like is the Scythe Fuma 2 (also ~US$70).
Its job is to cool my R5 3600x @4.2ghz and 1.325v, and that’s about it.
What do you guys think, do i pick one of the AIOs, or the air cooler?
Big air. No competition.
It’s simple. I own a 240mil AIO and my Noctua D14 still shows lower thermals than the AIO… So no matter the thickness - 120 doesn’t stand a chance.
And stay thaphoque away from Corsair. Corsair are making good ram and that’s all. Everything else is either garbage or not made by them.
My opinion as well, i avoid it like the plague, but the AIOs are Asetek, so i thought it didn’t matter.
Stick with big air. Most of them compete or even outperform 240mm AIOs/CLCs.
Yet Corsair are more expensive than other AIOs also made by Asetek…
It’s up to you really. But I stay away from all ASUS and Corsair stuff… Waaay too expensive for what they are.
Now maybe think about dust filtration if you have issues with dust.
I prefer big air because if something breaks you don’t have fluid leaking all over your components. And there’s no pump to die. Although neither really happen all that much with modern AIOs.
The Scythe Fuma line makes for a great value, so that would get my vote.
Definitely can’t deny that, i’ve witnessed my Ninja 5 almost catch my (now my friend’s) 280mm Water 3.0 on a test.
The market down here works in mysterious ways, the Corsair AIOs are the second cheapest on the market, only beaten by the bottom of the barrel Deepcool AIOs.
Not a lot of issue with dust, my case has 2 140mm fans as intakes protected by a filter, they get mildly dusty about 6 months or so, and i usually don’t let the filter clog, i clean it every month or so.
Just for the sake of discussion, does anybody know the OEM on that Riotoro?
The pump design reminds me of a LEPA aio i saw sometime ago.
Also, correction:
Deepcool is no longer the cheapest AIO brand in Brasil, AIGO took its spot with these tacky things.
In the past I’ve always run big air coolers. For my current build, a 3600X, I went with a NXZT Kracken x62 280mm AIO. I thinnk that if you want to spend the extra for an AIO, I would look at a larger Arctic Cooling model or just a big air cooler. The advantage of the AIO is lower noise levels while the big air is usually a little cheaper. It depends on what you can find, like Black Friday Deals wise.
Down here i’m limited by availability and price.
The max i’d like to spend is around R$570 (~US$100), there aren’t really any nice other nice air coolers in the market in this price range other than the Scythe, a Noctua NH-D15 costs around R$980 down here since there aren’t official importers of the brand, this store called “WAZ” brings them in at a premium.
In the AIO wc the options are limited as well, like i said above, Corsair is one of the major brands and therefore one of the cheapest, Riotoro is catching up in price and products on offer, some seem to be a better deal than the Corsairs, specially since they’re offering a 5 year warranty.
The only deals in watercoolers, at the moment, are the Riotoro Bifrost 240mm, for R$480, and the new Cooler Master ML240L for R$390, but i have no idea how good or bad these two are.
If warranty is a major point for you (and for AIO/CLC it should be), pick the one that offers the better one. AND a brand that is easy to claim warranty in your country. Many importers simply bring in brands with no real support for that brand’s warranty, so you are stuck with whatever warranty the store offers.
I don’t know how it is in Brazil, but here in Mexico if the brand you buy things from does not have an official branch in the country, you are usually stuck with the crummy warranty the store has (usually 1 year tops unless you pay extra).
Custom loop an option?, there are some nice new blocks that make it somewhat reasonable (to make basically your own aio and not need to mount pump etc)
Such as borrow cpu pump block
Corsair offers 2 years, Riotoro offers 5 years and Scythe offers 1 year (not that it matters, its an AC).
As for RMA claims, Corsair has offices down here and Riotoro is backed up by Terabyteshop (the store i linked), they both generally handle RMA requests pretty well, specially Terabyte.
Could be, but with chinese parts like Barrowch and Bykski.
You think its doable for under 100? I already have the fans.
Probably would be a bit more , but would last a lot longer and you could resize rad if needed.
Pump/Block is like $125 ish ebay or ali express (not sure if cheaper for you if you are not US market)
I’ll take a look, Aliexpress and the like are better for me, i don’t pay taxes if i buy from it.
@mutation666 yeah man, unfortunately too expensive, just the Bykski pump/block setup is already the price of a full H80i v2, plus a rad and fittings will set me back at least US$200.
RIP, was worth a shot
First off, that is literally the cooler I have iny system.
Second off it’s not new at all. Mine is 3 years old, living it’s 4th.
3th - the fans are absolute garbage, the LEDs on the pump work whenever they feel like it, the tubes are tough, the performance is at the point where my super old Noctua D14 have lower thermals using the same fans.
Just go air dude…
Sorry, I meant to say this version is new, it has no leds and the fans are the new Sickeflows