2 hours ago, vortex681 said:

as I said in my earlier post, fit what you're happiest with.

Stop being sensible. You're spoiling the whole game.

13 hours ago, vortex681 said:

About as bad an idea as the earlier post which said they are "prone to early pump failure". Incidentally, abundance is also a bit of a woolly term. I don't want to get into a water/air argument - .

 

Are you referring to something I said or someone else? But yes, "early" is a relative term. If the term was used it was used in that context. Corsair AIO coolers have a 5 year warranty. Pumps failing before or after that warranty period would certainly be considered "early" when compared with an air cooler that  doesn't have a pump to fail at all and effectively last forever.

 

Quote

as I said in my earlier post, fit what you're happiest with

 

Well yes, all in this thread would agree with that. I installed an AIO in my daughters Mini ITX rig. It was the right cooler for the job.

 

I should add, that they are probably less prone to leaks these days, but Corsair recently have recalled an entire batch of H100i RGB coolers due to leaks. If you have one, check your batch codes guys.

 

lot code 1852 on the packaging and radiator

 

https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/cooling/corsair-recalls-leaky-h100i-rgb-platinum-se-coolers/1/

 

 

Edited May 5, 20197 yr by martin-w

20 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

Stop being sensible. You're spoiling the whole game.

Sorry, I promise I won't do it again!

13 hours ago, martin-w said:

Are you referring to something I said or someone else? But yes, "early" is a relative term. If the term was used it was used in that context. Corsair AIO coolers have a 5 year warranty. Pumps failing before or after that warranty period would certainly be considered "early" when compared with an air cooler that  doesn't have a pump to fail at all and effectively last forever.

I was referring to a post from Jethro. I suppose it all depends on your definition of early but 5 years is way past early to me. Curious why Noctuas also only have a 5-year warranty if there's effectively nothing to fail. My EVGA PSU has a 10-year warranty and there's a lot inside it with the potential to fail.

6 hours ago, vortex681 said:

I was referring to a post from Jethro. I suppose it all depends on your definition of early but 5 years is way past early to me. Curious why Noctuas also only have a 5-year warranty if there's effectively nothing to fail. My EVGA PSU has a 10-year warranty and there's a lot inside it with the potential to fail.

O'h pleeeease, Vortex you concede "Yes" on all points but size, which isn't really an issue if buying an appropriate case, you agreed as the video stated "pumps can fail" a problematic issue deciding if it is an impeller or electrical failure. Either way Closed Loop AIO would require the whole pump / rad and hoses replaced as a unit, economically this makes less sense, for out of warranty user and/or warranty provider.
AIO's are still Air coolers (complicated ones) the RAD serves as a heat exchange module just as the tower cooling fins /heatpipes do on a Noctua tower, only that the Custom Loop & AIO's need to introduce a liquid interface heat transfer and water in proximity to an electrical device, and a means of circulating the liquid, the wet part is pretty much solved, very few leaks reported now with modern tech, but pump longevity may never be totally eliminated or underestimated. In general pumps work less hard when at the same or lower level than the resovior (RAD) which brings up the subject of mounting rads above the pump, is it measureable maybe, maybe not, the fact that heat rises and cool sinks could assist in the direction of flow. Maybe this can help a pump to out last a huge chunk of metal copper pipe fins & fans.
Noctua heatsink towers, the clear winner on comparative mid/high overclock vs low noise. More extreme overclocks well that's another thing altogether.  Baring issues with oversized RAM heatsinks and potential blocking of the PCIe16 slot solved with D15s offset tower. Blowing a little more air around the VRM can't hurt either. 
Noctuas work best in a high airflow environment. Air coolers need slightly more time to transfer heat from metal heatsink to air. I have a huge HAFX 942 Ugly case, 190mm width clearance between CPU & side panel, 10mm to spare. There's still enough room to swing a cat, meow meowww hearing echoes LOL.

Long Warranties are a mark of technical excellence / manufacturing confidence, or competitive marketing. I wonder if Noctua made their products lifetime warranty would that make them any more reliable than they already are and could AIO's offer the same long term confidence.
I do not worry about additional points of failure, just like a fan is an electrical component subject to failure a pump is equally so, efficient quiet reliable fans make perfect sense, pumps make noise have more moving parts.
Noctua fans are designed to reduce subsonic noise at the leading and trailing edge of the blades. From an engineering perspective, uncomplicated out of mind low noise reliability.
If it competes with my Flight Sim sounds then there's an obvious problem, but that will never happen (Quad stereo with 2xSubWoofer).

aahh but that's just me being sensible.

9 hours ago, vortex681 said:

 

5 years is way past early to me.

 

As I said.... it's relative! Relative to a Noctua that has no pump at all to fail, it's early. Even if your AIO pump fails after 10 years, it's early relative to an air cooler that has NO pump. 

 

Quote

Curious why Noctuas also only have a 5-year warranty if there's effectively nothing to fail.

 

Because they have fans. The warranty period has to cover the fans. AIO's have fans too, but the AIO warranty also has to cover a pump running at up to 2700 RPM. 

 

Quote

My EVGA PSU has a 10-year warranty and there's a lot inside it with the potential to fail

 

That "lot inside" does not include moving parts. PSU electronic components can be manufactured to very high quality, thus have significant longevity. AIO pumps are small, and rotating at as much as 2700 RPM. Moving parts are prone to failure. But you know this already. 

 

Edited May 6, 20197 yr by martin-w

2 hours ago, Jethro said:

 Air coolers need slightly more time to transfer heat from metal heatsink to air. 

 

Not sure about that. Should be about the same if it has an equivalent surface area. Not sure what the difference is in surface area between, say a 240 rad, and a D15 heat sink. A very large, thick radiator might have more surface area than a large tower air cooler heat sink. 

What any water cooling setup does require is up to 40 minutes to get up to temp, as it has a very high specific heat capacity. Water absorbs a substantial amount of energy per unit mass, before it increases in temp. care has to be taken therefore when overclocking on water. It's possible to assume your overclock is within your temp expectations, only to find it creeping way over, over time. 

Edited May 6, 20197 yr by martin-w

12 hours ago, Jethro said:

Noctua heatsink towers, the clear winner on comparative mid/high overclock vs low noise.

Amongst air coolers, yes (but the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 gives it a good run for its money). When compared to AIOs (I use mine as an example), it's anything but clear:

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7320/corsair-hydro-h110i-gtx-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler-review/index7.html

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/corsair_h110i_gt_review,11.html, https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/corsair-h110i-gt-review,12.html

https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cases_cooling/corsair_h110i_gt_review/8

12 hours ago, Jethro said:

I wonder if Noctua made their products lifetime warranty would that make them any more reliable than they already are

Probably not, but it would be an indication of the confidence they have in their products - no more than Corsair have in their AIOs, it would appear!

9 hours ago, martin-w said:

That "lot inside" does not include moving parts. PSU electronic components can be manufactured to very high quality, thus have significant longevity.

I don't know about yours, but my PSU has a fan which moves when required.

I have nothing against the top air coolers, I just prefer an AIO. We've both had this air/water argument before and clearly we'll never agree, so probably best not to lengthen this thread unnecessarily.

Have  been using various AIO coolers for over ten years with no issues. Quiet and effective. Considered an air cooler for my latest build but put off by their large footprint - you would have to remove the cooler just to change a ram module.

bruceb

16 hours ago, vortex681 said:

 

I don't know about yours, but my PSU has a fan which moves when required.

 

 

 😉 A fan that runs at low RPM and often doesn't run at all if under minimal load. Hence it's expected longevity. 

 

Quote

 

 

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by martin-w

16 hours ago, vortex681 said:

 

Probably not, but it would be an indication of the confidence they have in their products - no more than Corsair have in their AIOs, it would appear!

 

 

Again.... Noctua air coolers have fans that can fail. Easy to replace, cheap to replace, but clearly the warranty must reflect that. There is no Noctua heat sink, that's the heat sink itself, that has failed anywhere on the planet that I know of. There are zero moving parts to fail. 

The other point is that warranties are often the industry standard, what others manufacturers of coolers  are doing. Not always a reflection of manufacturer confidence in the product. 

 

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by martin-w

15 hours ago, vortex681 said:

Amongst air coolers, yes (but the Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 gives it a good run for its money).

 

That depends on your definition of "good run for it's money". Dark Rock Pro is 5 degrees warmer than D15. And the D15 is  5 degrees warmer than the H110i GTX in performance mode. In which case the D15 is giving the H110i GTX a good run for it's money too. 

Acoustically the D15 is 6 DB quieter than the Dark Rock Pro 3. 

4 hours ago, brucewtb said:

Have  been using various AIO coolers for over ten years with no issues. Quiet and effective. Considered an air cooler for my latest build but put off by their large footprint - you would have to remove the cooler just to change a ram module.

bruceb

 

Depends on the air cooler Bruce. The new Noctua NH-U12 is performing as well as the D15, and with no RAM access issues as far as I know. 

I recall with only two modules in place, I can access them with my D15S. 

I have tested a lot of coolers Martin knows the Noctua i have a D15 for my AMD 1800X not any NH-U12 yet but is all creds to Martin.

Iam confused on all Asetek brands they all have same pumps and radiators the fans differ a lot and their software.

Did a tes a couple of years agot with Noctua fans (D15) on a NZXT 61 after that i bought a bunch of differnt noctua fans for AIO cooling custom water,

Yesterday i compared a Corsair H110i GTX with the old X61, run them with 3 differnt set of fans corsair, NZXT and Noctua 140mm 3000rpm beast ( but not loud at 2000rpm) differnce beetwen corsair and X61 was inside 1C with same fans and fancurve.

 In my flightsim PC i run a Asetek AIO 360 from fractal it shall perform very bad if you lock at all tests , it have 10% more surface area then the 280 ( H110i and X61 ) same pump  the fans differ.

with noctua 3 x 120 3000rpm fans it performs sligtly better then the the 280 with 2 x 140 3000rpm fans even with fans set at 1000 2000 or 300rpm ( 10% more surface area and 3x120 give 3% more air flow)

Conclution If NOCTUA start to deliver Noctua AIO from asetek with their own fans, they probaly have a quiet and very good performing AIO cooler best on the market.for sure.

Here is a Pic of my latest sim pc all AIO cooled , its not as loud as the std Fractal and X61 cooler mostlt for the Noctua fans , the GPU is X61 with push pull have not made the backplate ready to the gpu and the fan for vrm is a corsair it shall be a noctua.

The Black and Withe Beast :https://www.dropbox.com/s/mww6y9w89c7ssr0/9900k-RTX2080TI.jpg?dl=0

Pc specs 9900k 5.5ghz htoff  temps 65-70C, Galax 2080TI boost without any OC 2055mhz temp max 40c

 

 

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by westman

Seems that the time has come for mobo's to offer a power header for AIO coolers that can sense if its pump has failed.  Mobo's for years now have had a header for a CPU cooler fan which monitors its RPM and can even halt a boot if the fan is not performing as expected.

I'm in the air cooler camp, if that matters.  Got a thermalright silver arrow sb-e, but only using its center fan due to the massive RAM heatsinks on my g.skill kit.  This configuration gets the OC job done with no appreciable cooling loss, except when running hardcore OC stress tests.

Edited May 7, 20197 yr by TheFamilyMan

16 hours ago, TheFamilyMan said:

Seems that the time has come for mobo's to offer a power header for AIO coolers that can sense if its pump has failed.  Mobo's for years now have had a header for a CPU cooler fan which monitors its RPM and can even halt a boot if the fan is not performing as expected.

I'm in the air cooler camp, if that matters.  Got a thermalright silver arrow sb-e, but only using its center fan due to the massive RAM heatsinks on my g.skill kit.  This configuration gets the OC job done with no appreciable cooling loss, except when running hardcore OC stress tests.

 

Actually, in one of the tech shows videos a while back there was an AIO that sensed pressure drop. Not sure what it did, shut down the PC or just a warning.

One fan is no issue,. Thermalright or Noctua. It's only  two degrees difference. In fact we could say that we have been running our coolers with two fans for years, with little point. one or two degrees is so small it's within the margin of error for testing.