Why do people pick air over AIO ?

[phillrulz]

Apart from price and maybe mounting why do people pick high end air cooling over an AIO ?

[Prodigydeadeye]

A good air cooler can outperform an AIO. 

 

[Askew]

One less point of failure is why I do, and as prodigyninjaeye has just posted, there are behemoth air coolers like the Noctua NH-D15 that match and even outperform AIO coolers.

[PassionFruit]

Silence.

[Nineshadow]

Price.

Compatibility.

[TheMcSame]

Some people don't want a liquid inside their PC.

[phillrulz]

A good air cooler can outperform an AIO. 

 

But for the size needed they are ugly

 

One less point of failure is why I do, and as prodigyninjaeye has just posted, there are behemoth air coolers like the Noctua NH-D15 that match and even outperform AIO coolers.

i do agree on the failure points

 

Silence.

surely only silence is in a passive, i have a h100i and cant hear the pump all i hear is my nf f12s

 

Some people don't want a liquid inside their PC.

In my room PC inside liquid.

[Askew]

 

 

slick gots himself a brotha from anotha motha up in here.

[TheKDub]

I prefer AIO over Air as they typically give a cleaner look and take up less space on the motherboard.

[Sauron]

Convenience, better integration with the rest of the system and sometimes even better performance. Liquid cooling is good if you don't want hot air in your case.

[phillrulz]

-snip-

:L indeed linus facebook page shared my picture a while back so i think hes seen it

 

I prefer AIO over Air as they typically give a cleaner look and take up less space on the motherboard.

same having the pump unit makes it look so more streamlined not like having a big lump of aluminum filling 90% of your case

[ShearMe]

AIO's are only good if the rad is 240 or bigger, and not everyone likes having behemoth cases.

[Ren]

AIOs are generally pretty ugly looking. Starting your post with "aside from price" is strange to me as it's one of the biggest reasons why you'd avoid an AIO over air. If you're talking about when money isn't a problem, you should be building a custom loop, not buying cheap/overpriced hardware that isn't even remotely aesthetic.

 

Aside from that, air works well for what it is. Buy a decent cooler and you have something that'll outperform or match (at the least very closely resemble) the performance stats of any AIO. AIO liquid coolers' prices have yet to come down at all and I don't understand why people want to pay double for equal, sometimes worse, performance. Oh the H100i/H110 runs at 1.4dB lower and 2C cooler than a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock cooler or Noctua NH-U14S?.. Amazing, totally worth the extra $40+.

[phillrulz]

AIOs are generally pretty ugly looking. Starting your post with "aside from price" is strange to me as it's one of the biggest reasons why you'd avoid an AIO over air. If you're talking about when money isn't a problem, you should be building a custom loop, not buying cheap/overpriced hardware that isn't even remotely aesthetic.

 

Aside from that, air works well for what it is. Buy a decent cooler and you have something that'll outperform or match (at the least very closely resemble) the performance stats of any AIO. AIO liquid coolers' prices have yet to come down at all and I don't understand why people want to pay double for equal, sometimes worse, performance. Oh the H100i/H110 runs at 1.4dB higher and 2C cooler than a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock cooler or Noctua NH-U14S?.. Amazing, totally worth the extra $40+.

as price is an obvious reason i wanted to know other reasons, yes custom loops are better but you are saying how its over priced look at a custom loop, you need to spend a few hundred dollars on a custom loop for it to be good and safe also reducing the temps by say 10c plus possibly more fans due to multiple rads.

[TheMcSame]

AIOs are generally pretty ugly looking. Starting your post with "aside from price" is strange to me as it's one of the biggest reasons why you'd avoid an AIO over air. If you're talking about when money isn't a problem, you should be building a custom loop, not buying cheap/overpriced hardware that isn't even remotely aesthetic.

 

Aside from that, air works well for what it is. Buy a decent cooler and you have something that'll outperform or match (at the least very closely resemble) the performance stats of any AIO. AIO liquid coolers' prices have yet to come down at all and I don't understand why people want to pay double for equal, sometimes worse, performance. Oh the H100i/H110 runs at 1.4dB lower and 2C cooler than a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock cooler or Noctua NH-U14S?.. Amazing, totally worth the extra $40+.

Looks are more of a personal thing though. Some people might not want a heat sink+ at least 25mm of fan visible through their case window (if they have one)

[TheRetiredSlave]

The performance of the high-end air coolers can come close to or even beat many AIOs, and the lower-end air coolers offer good performance at an extremely low price.

 

I have an NH-U14S just out of convenience and ease.. I will never have to worry about a pump dying, I'll never have to worry about anything clogging the coolant lines, I'll never have to worry about leaks, etc. As long as the fans are spinning, I'm good to go.

 

And let's be perfectly honest here; if no one sees the inside of my PC, who's going to say it's ugly? Sure, it could look a lot cleaner if it was watercooled, but frankly I don't care about the internal looks of my system.

[phillrulz]

Looks are more of a personal thing though. Some people might not want a heat sink+ at least 25mm of fan visible through their case window (if they have one)

 i agree i have the windowed white corsair c70 all i see is the CPU block my 780ti and the tubes going up to the top rad spot, i wouldnt like seeing a lump of metal covering 90% of it.

[KemoKa]

If you don't have the necessary vents in your PC (like me) a large air cooler is the way to go, because I simply can't fit a 120x240mm rad in my case. It's a bog-standard, no-frills case, so it's not made for advanced cooling. All that aside, your price to performance ratios go through the roof when you use good air cooling. Case in point, the 212. That's a brilliant cooler because you have a ton of overclocking headroom with it and it fits comfortably into even the tightest budgets.

That said, my 212 sticks too far out of my case to install my modded side panel.

 

[TheKDub]

AIO's are only good if the rad is 240 or bigger, and not everyone likes having behemoth cases.

 

Some 120mm rads are just as good as 240mm.

[Cookie Monster]

Some 120mm rads are just as good as 240mm.

If they are really thick and/or have extremely high fin density. Fans that provide sufficient static pressure for those rads are typically quite loud.

[Dredgy]

Loads of reasons for my choosing:

1. Prefer the aesthetics of air cooling. The pipes just don't do anything for me, makes things look empty.

2. If I'm spending thousands of dollars on computer hardware, I don't want there to be any chance of liquid escaping. Reliability is the most important thing. A 0.001% chance is too high! especially on my workstation - which I can't afford to be without, or afford to replace.

3. Talking of reliability, no pump failure in air coolers.

4. Better performance in a lot of cases. Much better price to performance.

Reasons I'd choose AIO:

1. Case is too small for high profile air cooling and need to mount the cooler somewhere else.

[harrynowl]

I can only fit a single fan rad in my case but I can fit a reasonably large air cooler. Air cooling offers me better performance for my money.

 

However I'm looking at having a 2nd rig and thinking of an aio.

[IrshaadH]

Air coolers are far more reliable: the only point of failure is the fan which can be easily replaced. They're quieter, and, as most people have mentioned, they can perform better than an aio.

[Ren]

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.

[Lord Pantaloons]

There are many factors that would lead one to choose air over and AIO.

 

My own personal reasons are:

 

-Easy Installation(specific hardware scenario for me)(varies from cooler to cooler)

-High end Air coolers can match and outperform AIO's

-Air coolers are simple and will last forever with no maintenance needed beyond cleaning

-Air coolers have one failure point, the fan, AIO's have several(Pump, seals, tubing, fan/s, coolant)

-Air coolers can essentially be used over the extended lives of several systems, whereas an AIO will just quit one day after a few years.