AIO or Air only ?

[Zeinone]

Hi everyone,

 

Basically I'm in the phase of gathering all the necessary intel of making my own rig and i searched and found out everything necessary besides a cooler. I'm looking for someone not with a limited budget but neither with a 'mile-high' price. I tend to trip that if i get a liquid AIO, it will just malfunction and cause leaks all over the PC and just ruin everything etc. Can someone just lighten me up on what to get for a pc like this:

Asus MAXIMUS VIII Hero
INTEL i7 6700K 4.00 GHz
Asus STRIX Gaming GTX 980 TI 6GB GDDR5
Samsung SSD 850 PRO 256 GB
HyperX 4*8GB Fury DDR4 2666 MHz
SEAGATE Barracuda HDD 2TB SATA III
CORSAIR RM Series 650W
and the case I'm looking to get is the NZXT Phantom 530, just looks beautiful. Thanks in advance for replying and helping me.

[Deli]

Leakage isn't a major concern for modern AIOs, at least the ones with better reputation, like Corsair.

 

High end air cooler such as Noctua D15 is as good in terms of cooling as most 240 AIOs.  Air cooler will always be more reliable than AIOs due to having one less point of failure, the pump in an AIO.

 

The rest is more of personal preference.

[Pachuca]

I was having this issue also and after doing research on the available options I came to a few conclusions. The AIO cooler leaking is like winning the lottery. Yes it can happen, but odds are it won't happen to you. In terms of performance the Noctua air cooler, according to some reviews online, did outperform slightly. The performance levels were mostly on par with each other and the differences were marginal. Basically it comes down to aesthetic preference and noise level. I went with a corsair H110i GTX, it's been working great. I'm very happy with it mainly because I like the look  and the noise level is not as low as I would like. I think that might be because of the stock fans on it. Now I'm going to ask around on forums which fans are the best for silence/look because the top of the line fans all perform about the same in terms of cooling so again the choice just comes down to looks/noise levels. I hope that helps.

[fuddinator]

Personally for me, I prefer the simplicity of air cooling. Mount the cooler and plug in your fan(s). I find it easier than having to also try and mount a radiator and deal with the tubing etc. Plus you really don't lose that much performance vs air really. Unless you really planning on pushing a hard OC air is fine. Both my rigs OCs were silicon limited not thermal. Plus air is reliable.

 

As I say this my main rig has a corsair h110i which is a good AIO. Both air and AIOs will do the job. Just go with what you want. Look at reviews and compare performance and go with what you like.