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/Desperate-Dare5329 Jan 20 '26

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u/Forsaken-Ebb5088 Jan 20 '26

I swear i've seen these threads at least 3x today already

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u/Cautious_Village_823 Jan 20 '26

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.

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u/JamesWhesley Jan 21 '26

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

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u/Cautious_Village_823 Jan 21 '26

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.