Are AIOs worth the risk?

L

LuvOverTheWall

Beginner
Been doing a lot of research on this topic for my first pc build and I've found out that, although rare, AIOs always have a risk of of leaking.

Watched hardware canucks' 240mm aio round up video tonight and saw that even the worst aio on their list performed around 7-10° better than the air coolers available in indian market.

It's safe to assume that 240mm AIOs in the 6-8k price bracket will at least perform 6-8° better than comparable air coolers.

Back to the main question, is the extra performance worth the extra 1-2k in price and the potential risk of a leak.

Here are the coolers I'm considering.
Air:Deepcool ak620 , Thermalright peerless assassin 120
Aio: Corsair H100, Deepcool Lt520

For context, i have an intel i5 13500 and lian li lancool 2 mesh.
I'm aware that an air cooler will be plenty for my 13500, but considering the above mentioned coolers so that i have some headroom for an upgrade.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Afxal and LuvOverTheWall
ibose said:
At least do a search before posting -

CPU/Mobo - AIO Water coolers : What advantages do they have these days? is it worth the leak-risk / shorter life?

I've seen benchmarks of common AIOs against tower coolers with heat pipes. The thermal capacity advantages (if any) aren't much for the AIOs. I understand that maybe they put less stress on the motherboard mounting points BUT are there any other advantages to them? My take is that air coolers...
techenclave.com techenclave.com
Click to expand...
I did.. Couldn't find anything, or maybe idk how to use the search function properly yet.

Edit: just went through the entire thread, and it did help a lot, thank you so much .
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: ibose
The risk is very very low. I've built 4-5 pcs with aios, both new and second/third hand. And it looks really unlikely for an aio to leak unless something gets damaged.

Aios are (personally) the number one cooling solution to go to if your budget can accomodate.

BUT, for the price of an aio or similar, you can also get very good quality air coolers which perform very close to aios and are very quiet.

For which one to get, watch comparison videos on YouTube. They've helped me the most.
 
I recently switched to my first AIO, a Deepcool LS 520 Se, and I'm pretty happy with it. Aesthetically, it looks way better than an air cooler. I haven't used the Peerless Assassin or any of the beefiest air coolers for comparison, but it does perform better than any I'm used to. Other benefits to consider with an AIO include the ability to use the radiator as your primary intake/exhaust fans, more free space near the cpu/dimm sockets and the ability to fit them more easily in mff/sff builds.

Only thing I regret is not going for a 360mm. The 240mm is already close to its thermal limits with my overclocked ryzen 7600 running at ~100W.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LuvOverTheWall
variablevector said:
Only thing I regret is not going for a 360mm. The 240mm is already close to its thermal limits with my overclocked ryzen 7600 running at ~100W.
Click to expand...
Latest gen processors are designed to run near 90-95C all the time as long as appropriate load & thermal headroom is there. If you go with a 360mm & run some cpu benchmark for half an hour then processor will reach 90C there too but this time its clock speeds will be higher than on 240mm.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LuvOverTheWall
guest_999 said:
Latest gen processors are designed to run near 90-95C all the time as long as appropriate load & thermal headroom is there. If you go with a 360mm & run some cpu benchmark for half an hour then processor will reach 90C there too but this time its clock speeds will be higher than on 240mm.
Click to expand...
Noted, so over time my system will slow down under sustained loads... My primary usage will be digital art and video editing, i believe that latter will benifit from more cooling.
 
variablevector said:
I recently switched to my first AIO, a Deepcool LS 520 Se, and I'm pretty happy with it. Aesthetically, it looks way better than an air cooler. I haven't used the Peerless Assassin or any of the beefiest air coolers for comparison, but it does perform better than any I'm used to. Other benefits to consider with an AIO include the ability to use the radiator as your primary intake/exhaust fans, more free space near the cpu/dimm sockets and the ability to fit them more easily in mff/sff builds.

Only thing I regret is not going for a 360mm. The 240mm is already close to its thermal limits with my overclocked ryzen 7600 running at ~100W.
Click to expand...
7000 series has been notorious for being difficult to cool, but i didn't think the 7600 would saturate a 240mm aio .. 100w should be relatively easy to cool.
 
guest_999 said:
Latest gen processors are designed to run near 90-95C all the time as long as appropriate load & thermal headroom is there. If you go with a 360mm & run some cpu benchmark for half an hour then processor will reach 90C there too but this time its clock speeds will be higher than on 240mm.
Click to expand...
True, PBO2 and Intel's boost algo do aim for 95c by default.

But I'm targetting a lower temperature with my static overclock because you can run higher clocks at the same voltage *provided* that the temps are kept lower. This is the same reason why LN2 is used in extreme overclocking, if you can keep a chip cooler, then it will be more stable at a wider range of points on the ghz/mV curve. For example, my 7600 runs at 5.4 ghz fine at 1.2V -- as long as the temps remain below 85C, which they usually do, even after 20 mins of cinebench. But the moment you cross 88-89C, like clockwork the overclock becomes unstable and it soft crashes. The only workloads that do this are usually AVX heavy stress tests like P95 which causes my 240mm to spike to 90C+ within seconds. That's why you'd want it to run as cool as possible.

Even if you never overclock and keep the boost to stock, you can probably get higher sustained clocks and more life out of your cpu by optimizing the cooling to keep it under 80C. Or even lower.
LuvOverTheWall said:
7000 series has been notorious for being difficult to cool, but i didn't think the 7600 would saturate a 240mm aio .. 100w should be relatively easy to cool.
Click to expand...
It's perfectly fine for gaming and most tasks. CBR23 gets it to to a max of 85C and under gaming loads, I usually see a max closer to 60C. But looking at the prices for 360mm AIOs, they're not that much more expensive (like 2-3k) so if you can afford it, I'd personally get it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: guest_999 and LuvOverTheWall
Top Bottom