Are AIOs inherently unreliable? I'm beginning to reconsider...

[Schoolofmonkey]

I've had 2 AIO's in my lifetime, a Kraken x60, this is has been treated roughly, my 2yo carried it around for a day and yet I can plug it in now and it works, no leaks, no dead pump.

Had it on my ROG GTX780ti Matrix and this was after all the abuse, cooled perfectly and no issues.

 

Running a H110 in my 4790k rig now, 12 months on and it hasn't missed a beat, 4.5Ghz temps never go over 68c when running a AIDA64 stress test with FPU on.

Gaming I'm lucky to see 60c, though I did slap some of those awesome industrial Noctua fans on it, made a big difference in noise and temps, allowed for lower RPM's on the fans without sacrificing temps.

 

The only issue I have with air cooling is if you're running a custom cooler on your GPU all that nice warm air gets sucked in through the fans and effects CPU cooling, with a AIO it's not as noticeable or you can front mount it.

[KWelz]

I don't do air cooling anymore.  This is not to say there are any problems with it, there isn't  However Closed loop systems give you more flexibility.   You don't have to worry about Ram clearance and you don't have a 4lb weight hanging off your Mobo.   Also Air coolers dump keep more of the warm air in the case.   

[NeatSquidYT]

 you don't have a 4lb weight hanging off your Mobo.

But you do have a huge res on the top of your case that could fall off any second, and tubes that could possibly leak if the fittings aren't applied properly.

[Ganz]

But you do have a huge res on the top of your case that could fall off any second, and tubes that could possibly leak if the fittings aren't applied properly.

If your rad falls off the top of the case that sounds like a user error which isn't fault of the AIO. 

 

Yes, AIOs have been known to fail, however they are improving.  Keep in mind you only will really see people saying their cooler failed as not many people make a post to say: "My product is working as intended."  The AIO vs High End Air Cooling will be a debate for awhile yet, as each side has its pros and cons like everything else that sparks a debate.

[Guest]

Eh, I'd say stick with Arctic Cooling, Noctua, Be Quiet!, and Cooler Master, for all of my cooling needs.

[jrok96]

Pretty much if you look up any pc component your going to find posts about the problems with them. Thats just human nature To complain about something when It doesn't do what you expect. When said product does as expected why would you compliment them for giving you what you paid for? I've had my h240x for 4 months and so far no problems. I'm sure if it acts up I will be on the Web complaining tho!

[asquirrel]

So why the hell is this so popular?

A few reasons:

1. Good air coolers are a recent development. I built my system back in 2009, and back then the best CPU cooler for the super-hot LGA-1366 socket (130W TDP) was the Noctua NH-U12P. That cooler was massive compared to most other coolers of the day and got you a 55-ish degree delta (if the room was 20C, you're CPU would be around 75C).
2. Most people who air cool are only cooling 85W TDP cores. Even with high overvolts and clocks they don't touch the raw heat output of the LGA-1366, so the fact that the coolers have gotten even larger than they used to be, combined with years of know-how on how to make them better, means air cooling is more viable than it used to be. Caveat: The Integrated heat spreader on some recent intel chips (I7-4690K, and others) is inefficient compared to the LGA-1366 spreader, so even though there is less heat to dissipate, it's harder to actually get the heat out. This is known as a lower thermal conductivity, and a larger radiator is one way to deal with that problem.
3. There's a sort-of stigma surrounding custom loops. It used to be *really* hard to build your own custom loop because things weren't designed to be used in a computer, or if they were, they weren't designed to work with anything else (this is kinda true, and kinda not...). You'd get a pump with a 3/8" ID output barb welded onto the endcap, but then have a pump that only had 1/2" ID barbs. Well crap, now you've gotta have a size adapter, two different sizes of tubing...*it was a pain!* Thus, the people who had custom water setups were seen as 'manly men', except with computers ('super wizards?' I don't know...) who could make hardware bend to their will. That stigma still exists and having an AIO allows someone to say 'I have watercooling' and get the stigma label without going through all the :effort: to actually earn it.
4. If you live in a hot place, and are ok without air conditioning, your room could easily be 30-40C. Well, at that temperature a massive air cooler with a 40C delta (the Noctua NH-D15 has ~40 degree delta) means your CPU, under load, is now running at 80C. Processors chemically break down after 70C {it takes a while, but it happens after 70C}, so that's not ideal, thus water cooling is the only (practical) way to get more surface area dedicated to heat removal and get back below that magical 70C number. I mean, the NH-D15 is already 2.5 lbs of copper hanging off a relatively thin motherboard PCB...you can't well make it larger without problems. Water cooling allows the surface area to be bolted to the case itself, which removes stresses from the motherboard PCB.

So...there are reasons why. Some silly, some practical.