Why AIO over Tower Cooling

[Zberg]

2 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Firstly, the average Joe uses the term 'water cooling' and thinks of 'AIOs' whether they know thats what they are called or not.

When an enthusiast or any PC user is the know says 'water cooling' generally they are talking out custom loops, and will state 'AIO' when talking about an AIO.

So, they , the average joe, also unfortunately believe that 'water cooling is just better' and 'water cooling is cool' (referring to AIO's) . both an epeen thing and misguided belief that they are outright better. This alogn with marketing has allowed the wide spread adoption of AIO's in many build regardless of their relative poor price:performance vs air coolers.

 

The fact of the matter is, only 360mm AIO's have any significant improvement over top end air coolers, and they are far far more expensive.

One should really only use a smaller AIO in SFF builds were a big heatsink wont fit.

The only other scenario is in a purely cosmetic build where a person really hates the look of heatsinks, and thats a subjective choice.

 

Unless you can get a 240/280mm AIO significantly cheaper than something like a DRP4 or D15, from a performance and money standpoint its almost always better to get the later.

Ya I forgot about the marketing angle as well.  I remember (a few systems ago) I was looking at the pre-built / SI sites.  The option to upgrade to "LIQUID COOLING" was a huge deal at the time, and they would try to sell it and upcharge a good bit to just add in an AIO .  They certainly market to the pc naive (or used to) that it is this massive upgrade you need for max CPU performance.