 So you're building a brand new PC and it's time to choose a cooler for your CPU. There are so many options out there, but before you even really get into the weeds, you've got to make one choice. Do you cool your PC with a large air cooler or with an all-in-one liquid cooler? Now if we can trust the marketing, AIOs are the clear choice. Water transfers heat so much better than air, right? But is that the entire story? Maybe, actually. I don't know. Alex has been working on this in isolation, and I don't know the test results. So I'm just as eager to find out as you guys are. Now before you run out and buy a new CPU cooler, you need to first figure out if your CPU is going to get any benefit from additional cooling. Now in the old days, inadequate cooling was a recipe for instant catastrophic failure because the modern protection or throttling mechanisms that prevent them from exceeding the generally accepted maximum of a hundred degrees Celsius didn't exist yet. But just because both Intel and AMD seem to agree that their processors will last at least through their warranty period at that temperature, doesn't mean having it there is a great idea. The hotter an integrated circuit runs, the more power it will consume and the shorter its lifespan will be. And furthermore, when your CPU does approach its limit, you can experience greatly reduced performance. That throttling mechanism that I alluded to before. So if your only goal is not sacrificing performance, then temperatures that don't exceed 90 degrees is honestly a good spot to start with 65 to 75 under full load being the conventional wisdom target as well as contributing to a quieter computing experience overall. So finally getting to our PC then. In here, we've got an RTX 2070 and an Intel Core i7 9700K. But since any decent cooler can keep the stock 95 watt 9700K at bay, provided you don't live in the Sahara, of course, we cranked it up to a blistering 5 gigahertz on all 8 cores at a voltage of 1.33 volts bringing it up to 160 watts. Now we definitely need something a bit more robust. Or do we? This overclock was actually achieved using just Anoktua NFU 12S, a mid-range air cooler coming in at just $60 and with just one fan, it was able to keep us at a max of 84 degrees. Now that is a little toasty and with our fan at full blast, it was a little loud at least by Anoktua standards at 45 decibels. So well, now it's time to go water cooling then, right? Maybe. But not until we've adjusted our test setup. The thing is 43 decibels is clearly audible and bordering on annoying to have right next to your head. But for context, the average office is 50 decibels. So because noise is just as important as cooling performance, we had to create an environment where we could properly evaluate both. Okay, so why don't you show me what you've done here? Yes, welcome to my room of quietness. This used to be an office, you know. Yes, but now it's uncomfortable silent. So we know this is kind of ghetto, but it works via the same principles as our recent server room sound deadening video. Basically, if you take a bunch of loosely packed permeable mass and you put it all around where you're trying to block the sound, you don't get any standing waves. It ends up absorbing a lot of the sound that's trying to come in and preventing any reflections and bouncing. So basically, because we can easily control the HVAC, this room has its own dedicated thermostat. And because we've got all these beanbags set up, we're able to achieve, what was it? 26 decibels. A 26 decibel noise floor in here. That means that we can comfortably measure devices like this computer that are not much above 30. Now this computer has been modified from our original configuration a little bit. So it's running four of Noctua's NF-A12x25 FLX fans with their ultra low noise adapter coming off the power supply. So these are at just 900 RPM. That power supply is a prime fanless titanium from Seasonic unit, so it's not making any noise. The graphics card, there's not much we can do. Your system is gonna have a graphics card in it, but... It does have a silent mode. It does have... Oh, it does. Oh, the fans are off. It has a switch on it. Perfect. Thank you, ROG Strix. So what this means then is that our only variable is our CPU cooler. Now, some of you have probably noticed that the spot where we mounted the radiators is in the top, because we've got case fans in the front here, and that was for a reason. So on the one hand, yes, drawing in fresh air for your radiator is going to give it an advantage versus drawing in warmed up air and exhausting it out the top of the system. However, what we found was that the disadvantage from an acoustic standpoint of having it right there in the front of the case was much greater than the advantage it gained from having access to fresh air flow. Especially because you guys got to consider, this is not exactly a little tiny mid-tower chassis. We've got three intake fans, so the ambient temperature inside the case is really not that much warmer. So to keep things as real-world as possible, we're using the blender classroom test. So that takes about 17 minutes, and that's enough time to heat up most AIOs. And we were having issues where the whole room was heating up two to three degrees, and given that's more than the variation between all of our coolers, we had to have HVAC on and the door open, and then run in at about 16 minutes, turn the HVAC off, measure the acoustics, and boom. So with that out of the way, we're ready for the results. That we are. Are you excited? I actually am. Which one of these do you think is the best? Cooling, purely cooling. Am I supposed to play devil's advocate, or am I... Actually guess. Actually guess. I would guess that it's gonna be the triple 120 millimeter red from a sheer mass and surface area perspective. Not even in second. This guy here. Really? Yep. Which one do you think? So hold on, we're talking raw performance at a given noise level. Just raw performance. Straight up raw performance. Yep. This beats this. 78 degrees, 81. Wow, that's not even that close. No. Okay. And guess what sound level they were both at then. Oh man. Okay, this one right here was at 36. Okay, 36 decibels? Yep. Okay. I would say this with only two fans is gonna have to be a little louder. 38. 34. Really, it's quieter too. Yeah. And the worst part is that this right here... Yeah. Outperforms the 360. And isn't the 360 the one that comes with their new redesigned cold plate? Yeah. So the Asetek one, it's only a two degree difference, but also like 79, 81. So... So it's quieter as well. Yeah, and this right here garbage 86 degrees. This guy fair pretty well. So... Okay, well now let's talk price to performance then. So we know this is our least expensive offering. This was like our mid-tier air cooler. Yeah. This is probably more like 80 bucks, right? 70 bucks. The one that I really don't understand is how this performs so well. I guess this is really a testament to how well heat pipes perform then. And also just Noctua. Like they... They just kill it. They know their shiz. But if you think about it, like yes, water transfers heat very quickly, but heat pipes are also fluid heat transfer. So this is actually phase change cooling on a certain level. So then one point of clarification though, do you think this is unique to Corsair's AIOs? Like are they just bad? No, I think they're pretty good. They're just like the largest company for AIOs and they all use basically the same design. So it's the most representative. Right, because that's what people are probably going to buy. I'm going to get you to take these two away since they're done. So things don't look great for our water coolers, but there is more to the story than performance, noise levels, and price to performance. Let's run through some more pros and cons. So one big problem, an additional problem for water coolers is actually the pump. Not only does that add additional noise and cost, it also adds a point of failure and a nasty one too. Since not only are pumps more likely to fail than a fan, but when they do, it's more catastrophic for your cooling and it's harder to detect. Now, if your CPU fan dies, then you can probably see that it isn't spinning and then slap a case fan on there until a new one arrives. With a pump, you better hope that you have your software monitoring enabled. And then when it does bite the bullet, you pretty much just need to pony up for an entire new unit. An unattractive prospect since AIOs, like I said, extra components tend to be more expensive than heat sinks with similar performance. But that doesn't mean that AIOs don't have some advantages. Because it's full of water, an AIO has greater thermal mass than a heat sink. That means that even though after a long load, its performance might not be as impressive during short bursts, like while your CPU is turboing up, that extra heat can be absorbed then dissipated later without such stark swings in temperatures. Also, if you regularly move your PC, like to LAN parties in search, transportation is arguably much safer with an AIO. I mean, we are talking for this guy, 12 points of contact versus just two for this. Big bulky air coolers have a lot of weight hanging directly off of your CPU socket, which in some extreme cases can actually lead to motherboards bending or even breaking. Now, this isn't as much of an issue with brands that have good mounting hardware, which is one of the reasons that we so strongly recommend Noctua. But even with Noctua mounting, if I needed to entrust my PC to an airline or a parcel carrier, I would equip it with an AIO. Another good point for AIOs is the coolness factor, not coolness for your CPU, or even for your motherboard's VRM, which can benefit from incidental airflow that bleeds away from the heat sink. But I mean coolness for showing off your PC. Now, naturally, this comes down to personal preference. Some people really like the look of big air coolers. Yeah! Thank you, Alex. But most of the time, it's easier to get a cleaner PC. A cleaner overall look to your build with water. Now, one thing we haven't mentioned yet is custom liquid cooling. With a top-of-the-line block from EK or AlphaCool, a huge radiator, and a D5 pump, you can get measurably better performance than what is possible, even with the beefiest of air coolers. The thing is, at that point, it isn't really a fair comparison anymore, since a custom water cooling setup is only for very advanced users, requires regular maintenance, and is incredibly expensive. Like, just the CPU block alone can cost more than our NH-12A. That's not to say custom water cooling isn't awesome, and that we don't love it for ourselves. It's just not the kind of thing that we're comfortable recommending to people who, well, enjoy using their computer as opposed to tinkering with their computer. So thanks for watching, guys. If you disliked this video, you can hit that button. But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed, and maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description. Also down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our water bottles. They're so cool. And our community forum, which you should totally join. We're doing something on that? Nope. You know what's funny is I remember back when these 120-millimeter Asetek units first launched like 10 years ago or whatever it was, the initial reviews for the Asetek LCLC, go find reviews for it, overwhelmingly negative. But then when the Corsair H50 turned up, which was literally exactly the same product with a different fan on it, the reviews get positive. And I'm not accusing, I know the people at Corsair very well. I know for a fact they didn't pay off anybody. But like, it's just funny how a brand can, like the brand name and brand loyalty might subliminally influence people. Like with the Asetek ones, people would be like, yeah, it's not great. And then of course, they'd be like, yeah, it's like, it didn't perform as good, but like, here's all these other benefits. I don't know, it's a funny thing.