Why do people pick air over AIO ?

[SebastianEP]

Went with Corsair H90 (with Noctua 140mm fan - stock is horrible) to begin with on my current rig - as this was the most quiet AIO I could find.

Pump "buzz" was an issue and therefore switched to NH-D15. This thing is simply awesome.

TBH mounting of either was no problem so that was not really a deciding factor for me.

AIO looks awesome I must admit. But with the Corsair 500r and the PC under my desk - looks aren't that important to me, noise is!

[coen113]

price. its much cheaper to get a 30 dollar aircooler, than to get an 80 dollar 120m AIO, that performs less good

[Admire]

Consistency and aestetics. If I buy 10 of the same high quality aircooler, then I will get almost the exact same performance and noise....there will be very little difference....

 

AIOs on the other hand seems to be extremely prone to all kinds of problems since there are just more things that can go wrong. Look at the amount of topics on all kinds of tech boards with annoying pump noises or bad fans.....

 

With an aircooler, you get what you pay for.

 

 

I wish people took into consideration sub-ambient cooling (this is not LN2/Helium). Far riskier than anything else, much more expensive in every way, and requires quite a bit of modding/prep. It can't look pretty unless you're a god at modding and have space/options but it's so amazing.

 

15C on your heavily overclocked components is quite nice.

 

I don't know what you are talking about but I would love to see a topic explaining it.

[Muzicfreq]

Pump fails... Warranty hassle

vs

Fan fails, go buy a new fan at your local store to hold you till better fans come in.

 

Seriously though with my Bitfenix Phenom I cannot see my Thermaltake NiC C4 tower cooler at all so it bothers me none really

Also like I said,

Fans are much much faster to replace than a pump on an AIO.

 

Another point is if it leaks (It has happened to some before) and you're out of a whole PC till you either buy the parts again or go through corsair warranty and inspects the cause of the leak and damage.

[D3MON]

less points of failure mostly,

I must mention, others have said that some air can outperform AiO's but thats only in terms of temps and/or noise..... they completely ignore the ease of access to ram slots, ease of mounting/fitting (part dependant), upgradability (again part dependant) e-peen, relocated heat source (rad at the back vs heatsink in the middle), the fact that they work in most orientations equally well (go read about heatpipes) and other benefits i mgiht of missed AiO's can provide, just playing devils advocate, i like all cooling types, AiO, air, water, phase, liquid helium..