Modern CPUs need effective cooling in order to reach their full potential since they are power-hungry and produce a lot of heat. However, the decision comes down to traditional air cooling and liquid cooling depending on your workload, which might include gaming, video editing, or just surfing the internet.
When choosing, a number of considerations come into play, such as price, noise levels, performance, compatibility, dependability, and even upkeep. Therefore, in today's article, we've evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers and air coolers to help you make an educated choice.
How Does CPU Cooling Operate with Liquid vs. Air Cooling?
Heat pipes on the baseplate of air coolers come into direct physical contact with the CPU. For effective heat conduction, thermal paste is placed between the CPU and the CPU cooler. Those heat pipes heat up along with the CPU, and the heat from them is transported to the heatsink.
Air is used by the cooling fans to lower the temperature. Multiple fans of different sizes, such as 90mm, 120mm, or 140mm, may be found on air coolers.
When fitted, the baseplate of a AIO liquid cooler also comes into direct touch with the CPU via the customarily grey-colored goop, as both solutions need one of these best thermal paste alternatives.
However, the heat transmission and cooling procedure is carried out differently in the case of a CPU that is cooled by a liquid cooler. A pump, radiator, and liquid substance are included in the liquid cooler. existing inside the pipelines. The fluid, referred to as coolant, circulates continuously around the pipes and is actively cooled by the radiator's fans.
What Produces More Noise, Liquid Cooling or Air Cooling?
In terms of noise levels, if they have comparable cooling capacities, an air cooler with a larger TDP capacity (e.g., 250W) will be louder than a liquid cooling solution. You should get a liquid cooler if you would prefer a quiet PC design over a loud one. The liquid cooler will, of course, also have fans that, when operating at high speeds, will spin and produce some noise.
As a result, a user might choose a liquid cooler with a large radiator size to enable more fans to be used for quieter cooling. A high-end AIO liquid cooler that has a 360mm radiator, for instance, may operate at a lower noise level than one that has a 240mm radiator.
In general, the answer to the question of whether liquid cooling is quieter is YES. Nevertheless, there are plenty of respectable low-noise air coolers in the high-end market, including models from companies like Noctua and Deepcool.
Comparing Air and Liquid Cooling: Performance
Watts (W) are a unit of measurement for the maximum cooling capacity of any AIO liquid cooler or air cooler. For instance, the maximum cooling performance I calculated for the Lian-Li Galahad II Trinity ($178.99 on Amazon) that I'm using on Adibri's Test Bench for CPU reviews, such as the 14th-Gen Intel Core i9-14900K, is ~338W while maintaining the CPU temperature under 101 degrees Celsius.
Since this is a 360mm AIO liquid cooler rather than a 420mm one, AIOs may operate at even higher peaks. Nevertheless, the Lian Li Galahad is capable of handling some of the most powerful desktop CPUs on the market right now.
Because they can handle the power consumption, chipmakers AMD and Intel often suggest a 360mm AIO liquid cooler for higher-end desktop CPUs like the Ryzen 9 and Core i9, respectively.
Speaking of air cooling, I've tried the Deepcool Assassin IV, a stylish, high-performing CPU cooler with a 280W TDP, on a friend's setup. Considering that our review's tests revealed the Core i9-14900K has a boost TDP of 253W and can go up to ~279W under constant load. Even with an air cooler, this top-tier Intel 14th-Gen desktop CPU performs well.
Both liquid cooling and air cooling provide high-performance alternatives that can handle high-end CPUs with significant power consumption. If the customer want even better cooling performance, they may spend even more money on a custom liquid cooling solution while creating a PC.
In general, liquid cooling is superior than air cooling and has the potential to be more effective due to its lower noise levels. It's not like air cooling can't meet the needs of high-end CPUs, despite this.
Compatibility of Air and Liquid Cooling Systems
One of the most important things to look for when purchasing a CPU cooler for your PC build is compatibility . A few things need to be kept in mind. The cooler's ability to provide the necessary thermal performance for your CPU comes first. Your desktop Intel or AMD processor's power consumption may be found in the TDP part of the specs page. You may now choose between air-based and liquid-based compatible CPU cooling choices.
Afterwards, you must determine if the cooler provides sufficient space for other installed parts on your motherboard, including the RAM modules, the VRM heatsinks, or even a M.2 SSD with a heatsink. To be honest, things became very confusing while I was choosing a CPU cooler for my ASUS ROG B760i LGA 1700 Intel motherboard. The motherboard I purchased seemed to be more designed for AIO liquid cooling, but for reasons I'll go into in the following part, I really required an air cooler.
AIO liquid coolers are more broadly compatible than air coolers in terms of compatibility. High-performance air coolers are large, therefore it's possible that one too large won't fit within your PC casing. Eventually, a lot of components, such tall heatsinks or larger RAM modules, may not work with the dimensions.
For even a 14th-Gen Intel Core i5 desktop CPU to operate at the claimed rates, you need a CPU cooler with 181W of cooling power. However, depending on what their PC can handle, most users find that an AIO (40mm or 360mm) is a better choice than an air cooler.
Liquid coolers are often more compatible as long as the radiator can fit inside your PC case. Unlike many air coolers, the water block that is mounted on your CPU is designed to not interfere with the height of your RAM or the VRM heatsink. However, as previously noted, you should double-check everything and perhaps look into other users' setups to further ensure that the CPU cooler is compatible with the rest of your build before choosing one.
Air vs. Liquid Cooling: Dependability & Upkeep
An AIO liquid cooler's dependability may vary depending on the manufacturer, but for the sake of this discussion, let's assume that it is a contemporary model made by Corsair, Arctic, Deepcool, or Lian Li. In terms of extended assistance, manufacturers provide a guarantee that ranges from 3 to even 5–6 years, depending on the model.If the AIO liquid cooler has any purposeful damage during this time, any of its parts (such as the pump, radiator, lights, etc.) ought to be covered under warranty in the event that it malfunctions.Reliable pumps are another feature of modern AIOs, and coolant spills spillage are quite uncommon these days. Your CPU cooler shouldn't malfunction as long as you don't move the PC about too much while the AIO liquid cooler is mounted. All things considered, AIOs provide a respectable degree of dependability. There are also several excellent models that I personally suggest that come with a lengthy warranty that lasts up to five years.However, bear in mind that liquid coolers contain more moving parts than air coolers, which results in an overall lower level of dependability (less) for liquid coolers.The fans are the sole component of air coolers that may fail. Both the heatsink and the heat pipes have a very long lifespan. To be more precise, several makers of CPU coolers produce mounts for recently released motherboard sockets (such AMD AM5 and Intel LGA 1700) so that users may use their rather antiquated CPU coolers with their modern setups.If you move your PC around a lot, I would also suggest air cooling over liquid coolers. After my PC unexpectedly died from a liquid cooler while I was away, I have only ever used air-based cooling systems for my builds. In my experience, at least, they have shown to be more dependable.
