What is your favorite AIO cooler?

[BagelMonster]

Which fans would you guys suggest replacing the stock AIO fans with if I value noise slightly more than thermals? I want a good ratio of both, but a quiet system is more essential to me. Noctua P12's?

 

[Hiya!]

12 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I don't like AIOs simply because the pumps fail by design usually towards the end of the warranty period. If you must have one then I prefer one that isn't an Asetek pump, but units without Asetek pumps are hard to come by.

o..kaayy?? so what is a good AIO pump then?

[STRMfrmXMN]

8 hours ago, Hiya! said:

o..kaayy?? so what is a good AIO pump then?

Well none of them IMO. So few are made with decent quality pumps it's kind of pointless. I think one of the older EK AIOs had an in-house pump and that was OK but more recent one apparently were prone to leaking so....

 

The Noctua D15S cools as well as an AIO and doesn't have any real point of failure apart from the super high-end fan so I'd always go for air.

[Damascus]

18 hours ago, Hiya! said:

o..kaayy?? so what is a good AIO pump then?

The ddc included in EK's Phoenix line and alphacools in house solution for the eisbaer line are good pumps

18 hours ago, BagelMonster said:

Which fans would you guys suggest replacing the stock AIO fans with if I value noise slightly more than thermals? I want a good ratio of both, but a quiet system is more essential to me. Noctua P12's?

Noiseblockers give a really good ratio of noise/performance 

10 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Well none of them IMO. So few are made with decent quality pumps it's kind of pointless. I think one of the older EK AIOs had an in-house pump and that was OK but more recent one apparently were prone to leaking so....

EK used Laing ddc pumps, considered to be the second best pumps for custom cooling.  Only beaten out by its larger, more efficient brother the D5.

 

The leak issues were (IMO) mostly people who didn't understand how to respect/maintain a custom loop leading to issues when they were dealing with a premise custom loop.

 

On 12/3/2017 at 2:54 PM, ChiefRobb said:

Thanks, I think I've decided I'm going with the h115i.

I'm a bit late on this but I recommend you avoid the H115i unless you are planning on replacing those fans

[ChiefRobb]

4 hours ago, Damascus said:

I'm a bit late on this but I recommend you avoid the H115i unless you are planning on replacing those fans

Planning to replace the fans.

[Damascus]

1 minute ago, ChiefRobb said:

Planning to replace the fans.

Kk, in that case go for it.  If you want dat aesthetic (ie rgb fans) the only ones that are worthwhile right now are ml120/140

[Hiya!]

9 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Well none of them IMO. So few are made with decent quality pumps it's kind of pointless. I think one of the older EK AIOs had an in-house pump and that was OK but more recent one apparently were prone to leaking so....

 

The Noctua D15S cools as well as an AIO and doesn't have any real point of failure apart from the super high-end fan so I'd always go for air.

Say if u want an AIO for your system which will u pick?

[STRMfrmXMN]

30 minutes ago, Hiya! said:

Say if u want an AIO for your system which will u pick?

I don't want an AIO, that's my point entirely. If I were forced to for some reason then I'd get a non-Asetek pump unit.

[keavlar]

WHY NO ONE mentioned EKWB ????

Are they so bad , that no one would take them ?

[The Benjamins]

EK Phoenix hands down the best AIO.

[epic_ziver_D]

14 hours ago, ChiefRobb said:

Planning to replace the fans.

Once again I recommend Mag Levs from Corsair because they are silent and very good.

 

6 hours ago, keavlar said:

WHY NO ONE mentioned EKWB ????

Are they so bad , that no one would take them ?

 

4 hours ago, The Benjamins said:

EK Phoenix hands down the best AIO.

EK's "AIOs" arent really AIOs and are a bit more complicated than something like Corsair's Hydro series and while they do offer the possibility for a different loop in the future it's still not worth it if all you want is just connect the CPU because it's more complicated and you can get it wrong earlier.

[PETRGangKing]

Corsairs have the best warranty, in my experience though the EVGA CLCs slightly outperform Corsair CLC of the same size. EK's new modular AIO system looks pretty sweet, although you could build a budget loop for the same price.

[PETRGangKing]

On 12/3/2017 at 2:55 PM, Damascus said:

Wat? swqpping out my 2 stock corsair fans with a single noctua high pressure fan dropped my temps 11c and more than halved the noise output.

This was most likely coincidental or due to something else. Fans shouldn't make that big of a difference, especially going from a pretty good fan to a really good fan. When I was running a H110i, I swapped stock fans for 4 noctua high pressure fans and only seen a 4C over 2 stock fans , ands thats with 4 noctuas.

[Damascus]

11 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

This was most likely coincidental or due to something else. Fans shouldn't make that big of a difference, especially going from a pretty good fan to a really good fan. When I was running a H110i, I swapped stock fans for 4 noctua high pressure fans and only seen a 4C over 2 stock fans , ands thats with 4 noctuas.

For me it was with an H80i (v1) and I changed nothing but the fans.  I swapped out the two (pull/push out of the case) for one noctua scavenged from my Nh-d14 pulling out of the case.

[PETRGangKing]

37 minutes ago, Damascus said:

For me it was with an H80i (v1) and I changed nothing but the fans.  I swapped out the two (pull/push out of the case) for one noctua scavenged from my Nh-d14 pulling out of the case.

That makes it even less likely to be due to the performance of the corsair fans, as the H80i has considerably less total cooling capacity to start with, so to be able to make an 11c delta between two fan configs, when there isnt a lot of possble thermal performance to be achieved in the first place, is highly unlikely. Chances are it was either mostly coincidental, with a slight increase coming fron the fan swap, or completely coincidental. 

[Damascus]

17 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

That makes it even less likely to be due to the performance of the corsair fans, as the H80i has considerably less total cooling capacity to start with, so to be able to make an 11c delta between two fan configs, when there isnt a lot of possble thermal performance to be achieved in the first place, is highly unlikely. Chances are it was either mostly coincidental, with a slight increase coming fron the fan swap, or completely coincidental. 

Trust me, this was in a massive case with optimal airflow, literally nothing changed other than the fans.  When I swapped the corsairs back on to check my temps went right back down. Swapped in and out 3 times to be sure

[PETRGangKing]

11 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Trust me, this was in a massive case with optimal airflow, literally nothing changed other than the fans.  When I swapped the corsairs back on to check my temps went right back down. Swapped in and out 3 times to be sure

Its not that I don't trust you, it is that  Ihave built 30+ rigs with the just the H110i alone, and I'm very familiar with the thermals and performance of both Corsair AIO coolers, and AIO coolers in general, as I utilixe them on a very regular basis  at work. You dont see a 11C delta from swapping stock fans, esp not to just one fan from two. It just doesnt happen. The fans that come with corsair rads really arent that bad. When I say it was coincidental there could be any number of things that would askew your results to make it seem like temps got 11C cooler due to swapping the fans, all the way from air bubbles that had not yet worked their way out of the line, all the way to possible fluctuations with temp sensor readings. 

 

Anyways, regardless of why you seen 11C higher temps with a noctua fan then you seen with two stock fans, that is by no means the norm, as the fans that come with corsair rads are pretty decent, and most of the time going from the stock corsair fans to Noctua static-pressure fans are going to net about 2-3C in better performance. 

[Damascus]

3 minutes ago, PETRGangKing said:

all the way from air bubbles that had not yet worked their way out of the line, all the way to possible fluctuations with temp sensor readings. 

Considering I was able to repeatedly recreate the same temperature delta by swapping the fans in and out 4 times I doubt it was water bubbles.  I think that if it was an error in testing it could have only been temps sensors, though I sincerely doubt that.

[PETRGangKing]

1 minute ago, Damascus said:

Considering I was able to repeatedly recreate the same temperature delta by swapping the fans in and out 4 times I doubt it was water bubbles.  I think that if it was an error in testing it could have only been temps sensors, though I sincerely doubt that.

I cant say for sure how you were able to get these numbers, I guess it is possible you could have had faulty corsair fans, all I do know is this is not the normal. This is more than three times the delta typically seen in moving from stock corsair fans to noctuas. In fact, I just removed the 6 noctua fans from my 360mm EKWB rad and replaced it with three stock corsair fans, and only seen 2C warmer temps. Which even though it is one extra fan, there is much more surface area to cool than in one of corsairs AIO rads, as it is about twice as thick. And I am coming from 6 as well.