Air is better than water
this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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I literally just installed an NHD-15 and it dropped my idle temps 10 degrees vs my old AIO. Load temps are about 5-10 degrees cooler, too.
IMO, if you aren't using at least a 360mm radiator there's not a lot of point water cooling.
The point of water cooling is that you can transfer the heat from the heat producing component out to a large surface area by physically moving the hot liquid. 2x 360mm radiators give you a ton of cooling capacity. 1x 240mm? You can do almost as well for much less money with a really nice air cooler.
I'd also offer that it allows you to dump all the heat outside the case and avoid warming other components (assuming you put the radiator on an exhaust fan). This is a benefit with any size of radiator.
An excellent air cooler does beat a shitty AiO.
But an excellent water cooler beats an excellent air cooler.
The inverse is also true, that an excellent AiO beats a shitty air cooler. It's obvious, I just wonder why it was omitted. For anyone reading, it's far cheaper and gets you the same, if not better performance (though I'd argue that your case's air flow properties, as well as ambient temperature and space around the tower also factor in tremendously!)
Are the differences noticeable? What constitutes an excellent air cooler anyway? Even the Peerless Assassin is like $40 - $60? I think you're just getting diminishing returns per dollar on water cooled setups. The performance really depends on whether you're using crazy liquids like coolants inside your loops, as opposed distilled water, for example.
Even cheaper models are incredibly capable.