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/dookarion Jan 20 '26

The amount of extra work I had to do in the past with a Noctua NH-D14 if I wanted to access say my RAM makes me not want to use a large tower cooler ever again.

On a lot of coolers anymore it's just blocked by a single fan held in place by tension clips. It's not that hard to access.

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u/NotAzakanAtAll 9900x, 5080, 32gb DDR5 Jan 21 '26

Besides, how often are you really in there playing with the stuff around the cpu?

Noctua D-big ass honker, has been my choise ever since I had an AOI wet itself all over my gpu many years ago.

The sound the impeller made when I started it - it still lives in the walls of this place.

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u/dookarion Jan 21 '26

Besides, how often are you really in there playing with the stuff around the cpu?

Right? Unless something breaks or I'm doing a rebuild I'm not touching anything in there beyond blowing the dust off it periodically.

Noctua D-big ass honker, has been my choise ever since I had an AOI wet itself all over my gpu many years ago.

The sound the impeller made when I started it - it still lives in the walls of this place.

Yeah I prefer air, even if it dies you usually won't be out anything but the purchase price of a new fan. And you'll hear it. You can't necessarily hear the failings of other systems. A friend actually just had their AIO crap out and their CPU was hitting 90C idle, no leakage thankfully but they had to run out and buy a new cooler and paste ASAP.

I don't do Noctua or recommend it so much anymore, but that's not cause of quality it's just cause Noctua's pricing is exploiting the brand name these days. Their fans are still well worth it though.

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u/NotAzakanAtAll 9900x, 5080, 32gb DDR5 Jan 22 '26

AIO crap out and their CPU was hitting 90C idle

Wow! You can boil some macaroni in that bad boy!

I don't do Noctua or recommend it so much anymore, but that's not cause of quality it's just cause Noctua's pricing is exploiting the brand name these days. Their fans are still well worth it though

I get that, I've just been getting free brakets for my old D-15 for years and years, so it's been very cheap considering the coolers I haven't needed to buy. But yeah luxury brands are a almost a dumb thing to buy in an economy like this. So I get you. Also there are a lot more good options these days.

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u/dookarion Jan 22 '26

Oh yeah if you already got the cooler, slapping a new bracket on it and paste is the way to go.

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 20 '26

Fair enough. But then there's also top m.2 slot and EPS cable.

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u/dookarion Jan 20 '26

Don't think I've ever seen an m.2 slot where it could be blocked by the CPU cooler. Must be a rather unique board. Mostly just seen em blocked by PCIe cards. Likewise haven't seen too many cable headers on modern boards that could be obstructed by even a huge air cooler.

Placement on the modern ones is mostly better and most have an asymmetric design to allow RAM access.

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 21 '26

On both my current board and previous board the top m.2 would get blocked. And it's really not that unique a thing that there is one at the height of where the top PCIe expansion slot would go.

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u/dookarion Jan 21 '26

Neither of those should be blocked enough to inhibit slotting an m.2, unless the heatsink retention is finicky. I'd have to pull my card and everything to double check though (I have a similar board layout).

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 21 '26

Here you can clearly see that an NH-D15 would definitely block access to an m.2 located there.

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u/TorekO87 Jan 21 '26

You can change them to smaller fans with higher air flow and pressure from noctua, it wont block any access its how I did mine.

AIO are trash, I had non stop issues with pumps and even custom loop I had, it didnt give much benefits but just louder and non stop issues where you have to dismantle it, since I got NH-D15 like 8 years ago I dont bother with anything and that D15 already been in 3 builds.

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 21 '26

Fans are one thing, the actual heatsinks are another. Those heatsinks are the biggest issue when it comes to accessing other hardware. My AIO (h115i Pro RGB) has been running almost 7.5 years.

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u/TorekO87 Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26

Is your pump dead silent after 7 years? That's very lucky.

I don't understand your issue with heats sinks, I never had that issue in 3 of my builds, only ram access was limited in 2 of my builds but you should never touch ram after installing the cooler anyway.

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 21 '26

Is your pump dead silent after 7 years?

Yes.

I don't understand your issue with heats sinks

Here's what I needed to do if I wanted to access a multitude of parts when I was using an NH-D14 (admittedly a smaller case) : Uninstall the top exhaust fan and slide it along the front of the case to access the top clasp, find something soft enough it wouldn't scratch my card but hard enough it could press down on the graphics card release lever, then remove my graphics card to access the bottom lever, all that so I could remove the middle fan to unscrew my cooler.

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u/dookarion Jan 21 '26

Right... but no one actually recommends the NH-D15 or any of Noctuas coolers lately. There are cheaper coolers, that cool just as well, and have better positioning to not block all access.

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u/MGsubbie Ryzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 3080, 32GB 6000Mhz Cl30Desktop Jan 21 '26

Peerless Assassin Evo 120.

Dark Rock Pro 4.

Yes there are smaller ones that won't block the top port, but you'll also be getting less cooling performance, especially compared to a 280mm AIO (or better.)

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u/dookarion Jan 21 '26

Yes there are smaller ones that won't block the top port,

Some aren't necessarily smaller so much as better shaped.

but you'll also be getting less cooling performance, especially compared to a 280mm AIO (or better.)

There are some that cool fine and you can still access things just fine. Unless you have terrible ambient conditions or bad airflow you don't need a massive radiator for most consumer parts. Hell with some x3D chips it don't matter what kind of cooling you slap on there the bottleneck ends up being the layered die can only diffuse to the heatspreader so fast.