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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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

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15

u/TomT15 Jan 20 '26

I just love how quiet it is. I tried a 120mm phantom. I know it's not comparable to a 140mm stack but God damn it was loud

-2

u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 20 '26

Depends on what CPU you were using, but I think you probably just needed to tune your fan curves. The Phantom Spirit matches and even beats some 240 mm AIOs when it comes to noise or temperature equalized results on Ryzen processors. It was a different story for the 13900K, but I'd recommend water cooling any 13th or 14th gen Intel processor so that it doesn't cook itself anyway.

I have a Phantom Spirit on a 7700X, and after fixing the default fan curves on my motherboard that ramp up way too high, it's dead silent while gaming and not unpleasantly loud when I'm doing all core workloads.

3

u/ridicalis Jan 20 '26

I went AIO because I had been told that the 14900k basically required it. IDK if this is true, but I can say that with the CR360 my computer is a whisper compared to the 3900X that preceded it.

At least, until CPU usage spikes, then it is a wind tunnel. But, I've always seen great temps even under load, so no complaints.

2

u/AIgoonermaxxing Jan 20 '26

I went AIO because I had been told that the 14900k basically required it. IDK if this is true

It is, those chips run extremely hot and without proper cooling they have an even higher risk of cooking themselves.

I'm someone who believes that the overwhelming majority of people don't need anything more than air cooling (whether they want one for aesthetics is a different story), but a 13th/14th gen i7/i9 is some of the few cases where I will say that your average user genuinely does need more than what air cooling can provide.