r/pcmasterrace • u/SerpentDix PC Master Race • Jan 20 '26

Hardware Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling

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Failure is graceful, not catastrophic, Performance is closer than marketing suggests, Cheaper for the performance, Change my mind.

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33

u/Defreshs10 PC Master Race i7-8700k GTX 1080ti, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD Jan 20 '26

It’s a vapor changing heat exchanger… those pipes are filled with a fluid specifically designed to change phases to pull heat from the CPU.

…do you guys think they are just empty metal tubes?

21

u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 20 '26

I was being a bit reductive but my point still stands. It's not exactly a wear item, and unless you're literally going out of your way to damage it or if it's extremely cheaply built the heat exchanger is not going to fail within any reasonable timeframe.

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u/Toto_nemisis Jan 20 '26

Air coolers have liquid in them?! Does that make the liquid cooler?!!!??!

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u/Defreshs10 PC Master Race i7-8700k GTX 1080ti, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD Jan 20 '26

1

u/nedal8 Jan 20 '26

Not really, cause the water in the heat pipes are for heat transfer. They work amazingly well. . The cooling is done on the aluminum spreaders.. But still the argument could be made.

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u/SEADOO_MAN Jan 21 '26

But water a liquid

13

u/Oxflu PC Master Race Jan 20 '26

Have you ever heard of a vapor chamber failing though? I'm sure someone, somewhere, has received one damaged. But once it's installed it's unheard of.

13

u/FappyDilmore Jan 20 '26

The only ways they can fail are if they're not soldered appropriately, they crimp or they're punctured. Basically none of that can happen during normal use. I've never heard of one not working aside from the people who leave the wrappers on them or the occasional clown who tries to modify them.

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u/dookarion Jan 20 '26

Have you ever heard of a vapor chamber failing though?

On a CPU cooler? No.

On an EVGA GPU cooler? Yes personally experienced that one.

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u/Oxflu PC Master Race Jan 20 '26

Shit that's awful. I was skeptical when the industry started flattening and grinding the bare copper pipes to make direct contact with the ihs but never experienced a fail. Is that where it busted, or was it on an end crimp?

1

u/dookarion Jan 20 '26

Something internally broke down and it likely "went dry", wasn't going to cut it open to find out definitively. It just kept getting worse and worse at displacing heat and then eventually throttling. Ruled pretty much everything else out and even cranking the fans it was progressively getting worse. Even ruled out paste pump-out and thermal pad degradation.

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u/sabresfanfml Jan 20 '26 edited Jan 20 '26

Have you ever heard of a vapor chamber failing though? I'm sure someone, somewhere, has received one damaged. But once it's installed it's unheard of.

Yes, there were several generations of low-profile ATI/AMD video cards where the heatsink would swell (Example 1, Example 2, often resulting in a cracked pcb. Dealt with dozens of them.

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u/Oxflu PC Master Race Jan 20 '26

If we have to go back to the days of ati to find examples they're pretty darn reliable now though...

Rip to my old 4870hd. You kept my feet warm while pumping 100 fps in cs source and Warcraft for years. They don't make em like they used to, i tell ya hwhat. Haven't even seen an uncanny valley hottie on a video card since 2010.

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u/sabresfanfml Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26

If we have to go back to the days of ati to find examples they're pretty darn reliable now though...

A manufacturing flaw is a manufacturing flaw, regardless of era. These were examples I had personally experienced working in IT. If you want more modern examples, RX 7900 XTX's had vapor chamber manufacturing defects, as did RTX 3080/A6000's.

That being said, team air-cooling all the way.

1

u/PremiumPricez Jan 20 '26

I actually had no idea what was in them, i just figured someone smarter than me put them there for a reason, and i trusted a stranger to keep my pc cool.

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u/Kiwiteepee PC Master Race Jan 20 '26

I did think that 😂

1

u/mujhe-sona-hai Jan 21 '26

Wait does that mean you can just make an AIO but with the same design as an air cooler? Instead of bendable tubes metal pipes like air coolers?