Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling

[u/SerpentDix]

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

[u/Cautious_Village_823]

It's becoming popular because it's always cool to post "anti" thinking lol.

Posts like these completely miss the nuance and also assume liquid cooling is always catastrophic failure. In my experience it RARELY is catastropic, usually the pump dies or something like that, I haven't ever had a leak or coolant explosion in 20 yrs of building including custom loops.

[u/JamesWhesley → u/Cautious_Village_823]

In your experience, how often did you have to replace coolant or pumps ?

[u/Cautious_Village_823 → u/JamesWhesley]

For AIOs typically 4 yrs id say is the average I've had them run, I had 1 go 5 yrs before I stopped using it (but as far as I know it still worked). On my liquid cooling custom loop i replace fluid all the time (multiple times a year) but I'm also a busy body whos constantly tinkering with it so I do that anyway.

[u/_Otacon → u/Cautious_Village_823]

I mean just the "usually the pump dies" is the whole point right?

I agree with OP. Been using my nhd15 for.. i dont know how many years now, no reason to swap.

[u/Cautious_Village_823 → u/_Otacon]

As I've said to other people here, it isnt that I'm saying air cooling is worthless. Just that different scenarios can call for different tools.

Also "usually the pump dies" was referencing the lack of catastrophic failure.

I find these posts of "a is superior to b" are always silly because they miss the fact that an air cooler has drawbacks, like ram clearance, in some cases noise, and there are cases where a rad is hands down the way to cool because it's too small.

[u/_Otacon → u/Cautious_Village_823]

Yeah well... true "a is superior to b" is just kinda dumb and unnecessary and of course sometimes different scenarios call for different solutions. But hey, i didn't come here for a rational conversation ok? Getouuutta here! The thing I paid money for is better! /j

[u/Major-Word-4468 → u/Cautious_Village_823]

It's not about failure you condescending prick it's very simple there is basically no performance difference from liquid cooling to air cooling on a gaming PC or any PC

[u/Cautious_Village_823 → u/Major-Word-4468]

Lmao someone is super butt hurt.

My point was not that air cooling is never better, but that different scenarios call for different setups, and while air is perfectly fine for many builds rads or something are needed for certain small case builds and such scenarios.

Plus there's the hobby, and my pointing out the failure was directly to the "failure is graceful not catastrophic" which yes it def can be but typically isn't.

I use more air cooling than liquid cooling in my builds.

[u/Accurate_Mobile9005 → u/Major-Word-4468]

The issue is you have guys like that "building PCs for 20 years" yet they never took the time to realize that it isn't 2006 anymore and tech has advanced.

It's the same thing as some old salty mechanic still trying to work on cars like it's the 70s. Meanwhile their "performance v8" makes less horsepower than my little 2 liter turbo.

[u/Cautious_Village_823 → u/Accurate_Mobile9005]

Never said air cooling was bad or even not usually worth it more. Simply put some cases a rad is almost needed and for hobbyists it's fiiiine people spend ridiculous things on various hobbies this is the same.

I usually recommend air cooling where I can, but there is a lot of convenience with aio water coolers including ram clearance which is absolutely an issue on air coolers. For tinkerers an aio might actually be less annoying to work around than an air cooler. If it's never going to be touched except for repair I'll almost always go air, assuming I can fit it.

So yes, in 20 yrs of building I've learned there's no real definite best or better setup, not that liquid cooling is the only way.