The BEST Cooling Solution - Air or Water - FINAL ANSWER

[Emily Young]

AIO water cooling is considered the best for cooling efficiency short of a custom loop, but is it really? Or can air cooling give it a run for its money?

 

 

Buy an H80i v2:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/pKu4id
On Newegg: http://geni.us/vBSoh8
 

Or buy an H100i v2:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/QB819
On Newegg: http://geni.us/ft6wApE

 

Or buy an H115i:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/uObqhK
On Newegg: http://geni.us/N5eBE

 

Or buy an NH-U9S:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/80qghg
On Newegg: http://geni.us/kb36

 

Or buy an NH-U12S:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/ALfl
On Newegg: http://geni.us/eIiW

 

Or buy an NH-U14S:
On Amazon: http://geni.us/ZZIi
On Newegg: http://geni.us/CqKf

[zwirek2201]

Does the "First" ban also apply here? Well, what the heck... Fi.. Fir... Firs... nooo, I can't.

[Daniel644]

seriously is Unlisted Squad gone forever now? I'm gonna stop watching videos if we don't get the bonus of the unlisted squad.

[Emily Young]

1 minute ago, Daniel644 said:

seriously is Unlisted Squad gone forever now? I'm gonna stop watching videos if we don't get the bonus of the unlisted squad.

The upload was a bit late, so I set it live "early". I usually try for about 5-10 minutes of "exclusivity"  

[Bouzoo]

16 minutes ago, GabenJr said:

AIO water cooling is considered the best of the best for cooling efficiency, but is it really?

Custom water loops? 

 

I would also like to see Cryorig R1 and Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 3. Afaik they both should be compatible. Someone will correct me if they are not. 

[Daniel644]

Just now, GabenJr said:

The upload was a bit late, so I set it live "early". I usually try for about 5-10 minutes of "exclusivity"  

same thing happened yesterday, thats 2 days in a row without unlisted, maybe more, I wasn't near my computer the other days this week to know how the other days where.

[RollinLower]

6 minutes ago, Bouzoo said:

Custom water loops? 

axactly what i thougth. whoever said AIO's are widely considered the best?

[Emily Young]

3 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

axactly what i thougth. whoever said AIO's are widely considered the best?

Fixed. Brain fart.

[Guest]

I appreciate all the work that went into this, but it is so far from final answer territory. Especially for a platform in its infancy. I get the tongue-in-cheek nature of the statement (unless it isn't), but when someone comes to a channel for info, I feel its a disservice for it to be in the title.

[Daniel644]

should have been a Workshop video with how the results turned out, LOL

 

also AIO's where rendered nearly pointless the moment EK released the Fluid Gaming custom loop kits, better performance at similar pricing and support for expansion. I will likely be swapping out my AIO for a Fluid Gaming kit down the road once I settle on my final case.

[RGBLEDCPU]

EK has a block made for Threadripper. However I understand why the custom loop solution was left out (just the radiator selection alone... 120, 240, 280, 360; all of them in different thicknesses).

 

What I missed really is the Noctua D15.

[dexT]

Common knowledge but interesting as these Noctua's aren't even considered big air. What's worse is you know the AIOs are louder!

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I think there's an error either in the graphs or the script. In the first comparison, at stock clocks, Linus says

 

Quote

With similar temperatures and package power.

The graph shows 178W vs 168W - a 10W difference in package power.

 

Then we move to OC and he says

Quote

Overclocked, on the other hand, shows again similar numbers, but markedly low package power for the H80i GT

The graph shows 175W vs 167W - an 8W difference.

(Interestingly, package power doesn't move much, and it doesn't move in the same direction for both coolers, when the CPU is overclocked).

 

So... a 10W gap is "the same", but an 8W gap is "markedly low"? 

[idiocracy]

Why isn't he using ΔT over ambient?

[Cyong]

The Enermax Liqtech TR4 would have been a nice addition to this comparison as they are an AIO that does have a block that matches the full IHS profile. And many people who have bought them say that it does run cooler than the aseteks that were identified in the comparison. Just doesn't feel right to have comparison of air with full coverage to liquid AIO with partial coverage. 

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Cyong said:

The Enermax Liqtech TR4 would have been a nice addition to this comparison as they are an AIO that does have a block that matches the full IHS profile. And many people who have bought them say that it does run cooler than the aseteks that were identified in the comparison. Just doesn't feel right to have comparison of air with full coverage to liquid AIO with partial coverage. 

 

Yeah. The video was probably in the works before that cooler materialized, but I still have an issue with how definitive these results claim to be.

And yeah, the Enermax is a hell of a cooler.

[gonvres]

I'm surprised by this. 

 

Also, lets be real, air coolers have a non mentioned benefit here. They don't leak.

 

If that is a real benefit or just a perceived mental one is another thing, but I was always under the impression high end air coolers lagged behind high end AIO water coolers, so this has been really informative.

[DontPeek]

Sooo what about the fact that the h115i's fan speed is 2000rpm and the U14S is only 1500? The h100i is even higher at over 2400rpm. Noctua should just start including industrial fans on all their coolers to hit the top of all these cpu cooler benchmarks. Am I missing something or is this never taken into account for a reason?

[iPolymer]

After the pin repair video and this, Linus seems to be remaking a lot of videos. These are the remakes most people would like to see not Fantastic 4. But their was a lack of memes in this videos. 

 

Interesting with my NH-D15 & 4790K is at 40C at 4.4gHz on load? and 25C on idle. 

[samcool55]

Imo the video is a bit misleading because noise isn't mentioned, or fan speed.

 

I have an H100i V2 and it performs quite well but my god is it loud during some loads.

 

During idle aircoolers are usually quieter but under load that gap might close but i have no idea if that was the case here...

 

Maybe a video in the future with those results would be nice.

[Boomwebsearch]

Air cooling and water cooling can be compared on some points such as appearance/look, sound (acoustics), etc. Although where liquid and air cooling can not really be compared is when it comes to which delivers better cooling performance, because that depends on what exact cooler model that you make the chioce to use. This is why Linus said at the end of the video that the final answer is it depends. 

[WMGroomAK]

I would have honestly liked for more of a discussion on the total fin density and area on all of the coolers in the video as that is probably the biggest factor (IMO) on how effective these coolers are overall... 

[Praxis727]

On 9/22/2017 at 7:44 PM, WMGroomAK said:

I would have honestly liked for more of a discussion on the total fin density and area on all of the coolers in the video as that is probably the biggest factor (IMO) on how effective these coolers are overall... 

Enermax Liqtech TR4 cooler Beats out the H115i potentially.  I would like this put to the test.  Claims that the complete surface area not being covered makes no difference is incorrect.  There is still heat transfer that can be done even at 35C on the outside of the die.  

[bcool15]

I would like to know whats the best motherboard (spacious, quality, easy to work with ) when the noctua fan is mounted NH-U14S

 

I am going to make a pc for work, this pc will stay on 24/7 and sometimes be under very heavy load (running multi desktop applications) and occasional gaming the choice of processor here will be intel i7 8700k

 

please advise

 

thanks in advance for everyones time snd response
 

[BillB]

On 9/21/2017 at 3:29 PM, GabenJr said:

AIO water cooling is considered the best for cooling efficiency short of a custom loop, but is it really? Or can air cooling give it a run for its money?

 

Engineer POV: The discussion of liquid-vs-air cooling is irrelevant, isn't it?

 

What matters is heat sink area and air flow. THOSE are the factors that allow heat transfer out of the system.

 

Noctua NH D15 has about 15% more heat sink surface area than a 280 mm radiator. Hence Noctua's slightly better performance.

 

Of course, custom water cooling allows for multiple radiators, which can easily have more surface area than even the best air coolers.

 

The bottom line is the same as your conclusion: Just a straighter line to get there.