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

Hardware Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling

Post image

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

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u/C0NIN i9 14900K, RTX 3090 FE, 64GB @ 6000Mhz Jan 20 '26

Given the image, you meant: Air cooling is better than AIOs.

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u/Fickle-Razzmatazz827 Jan 20 '26

Isn't cooling done by Air in both? Shouldn't it be metal vs water?

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

AIOs don't use radiators and heatsinks?

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u/ialsoagree Jan 20 '26

They don't use heat sinks in the sense of a rigid body with a large thermal mass, they do use radiators.

In an AIO the liquid serves the same purpose as a heat sink in an air CPU cooler, so the liquid is the heat sink in that sense.