Getting ready to order a new computer mainly for my flight sim hobby after almost six years of using my present computer, time for an upgrade. When I spoke today on the phone to the store I usually purchase my gaming computers, the salesperson said liquid cooled is the new standard. I'm from the old school who worked in the communications and electronics industry for 40 years and electronics and liquid don't go together well.

Questions:

is this the new standard?

Any issues with liquid cooled with leaking?

Any regular maintenance with liquid cooled? 

Looked forward to any input. Thanks in advance.

John C.

 

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by johncott

Yes it is with the CPU using AIO

Yes, it is very common today on gaming machines.  Air coolers have also come a long ways, and I have seen some air coolers outperform water coolers, but they are expensive and large.

I would recommned an AIO (All in One). they are sealed units. So no topping off or changing the fluids. No connections. So no Maintenance.  Since they are all sealed units, it should not evaporate and should not leak. I suppose anything can fail but I have been using them for years and had never had a problem. 

AIO cooling seems to have become the standard for most pre-built computers.  They are generally quieter than air cooled systems and the sealed AIO systems are usually trouble free.  On mine, an EVGA AIO, the radiator fans died not long after I bought the computer.  Rather than send it back to Newegg, I replaced the fans myself, which resulted in an even cooler and quieter running cooling system.

The larger AIOs are just “ok”, go with a custom loop as you get far more flexibility and a lot quieter.  I just recently finished a hard line setup on a Corsair 9000D, 16 fans, 2 D5 pumps, 2x480 1x 420 radiators and added a fill port with ball valve and drain port with ball valve.  Extremely quiet setup as I don’t need to run the fans at high speed to ensure optimal thermal exchange.

Do NOT run pumps at full speed, use a temp curve.  For the D5 pumps I run at 1800 rpm to about 2300 rpm (max is about 5000 rpm) to obtain optimal cooling, your setup will vary a little pending number of radiators and line/tube elevation … so unless you have some super long distances, rpm should be around 1800 - 2300.

Hardline setups are more difficult to create but do look nice … I enjoy building them, but soft line tubing has less potential to leak and much easier to manage and if you change components frequently you can use quick disconnects which means no draining of loop required to switch out components.  Do NOT go cheap with fittings.  Koolance make excellent fittings with swivel, but they’re not cheap … just make sure you get correct OD/ID measurements AND go with quality tubing (for hardline TMMA for soft line PU tubing (not PVC)).

After install you will want to jump the PSU MB connector to trigger perhipal power to run the cooling system ONLY (no power to components) to ensure no leaks, prime, and get the air pockets out.

Do NOT use distilled water.  Use coolants from a supplier as they will have the necessary anti-bacteria chemicals and lubricants for pump already mixed in the fluid. 

The build will be rewarding, very very low risk, and run very quiet even under heavy loads.  Custom loops are awesome.

EDIT: case pressure, recommended to aim for neutral which means you should have as many as fans pulling air into the case and you do pushing air out of the case.  Typically pull air in from the front and exhaust air out back and/or top/side.

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by CO2Neutral

12 minutes ago, CO2Neutral said:

The larger AIOs are just “ok”, go with a custom loop as you get far more flexibility and a lot quieter.  I just recently finished a hard line setup on a Corsair 9000D, 16 fans, 2 D5 pumps, 2x480 1x 420 radiators and added a fill port with ball valve and drain port with ball valve.  Extremely quiet setup as I don’t need to run the fans at high speed to ensure optimal thermal exchange.

Do NOT run pumps at full speed, use a temp curve.  For the D5 pumps I run at 1800 rpm to about 2300 rpm (max is about 5000 rpm) to obtain optimal cooling, your setup will vary a little pending number of radiators and line/tube elevation … so unless you have some super long distances, rpm should be around 1800 - 2300.

Hardline setups are more difficult to create but do look nice … I enjoy building them, but soft line tubing has less potential to leak and much easier to manage and if you change components frequently you can use quick disconnects which means no draining of loop required to switch out components.  Do NOT go cheap with fittings.  Koolance make excellent fittings with swivel, but they’re not cheap … just make sure you get correct OD/ID measurements AND go with quality tubing (for hardline TMMA for soft line PU tubing (not PVC)).

After install you will want to jump the PSU MB connector to trigger perhipal power to run the cooling system ONLY (no power to components) to ensure no leaks, prime, and get the air pockets out.

Do NOT use distilled water.  Use coolants from a supplier as they will have the necessary anti-bacteria chemicals and lubricants for pump already mixed in the fluid. 

The build will be rewarding, very very low risk, and run very quiet even under heavy loads.  Custom loops are awesome.

EDIT: case pressure, recommended to aim for neutral which means you should have as many as fans pulling air into the case and you do pushing air out of the case.  Typically pull air in from the front and exhaust air out back and/or top/side.

Sure - that is an option with 16 fans - or you just get one of these and be done with it...

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cooling/id-cooling-frozn-a720-and-a620-review

cheap and easy to install. And with e.g. 120W AMD CPU a lot of headroom on the TDP and consequently lower noise. Air coolers are a valid option. Nothing wrong with it.

I have the Noctua NH-D15 G2 in one of my computers (AMD 9950X3D), it works ok, ridiculously expensive now at ($235).  Getting these large dual fan heatsink air coolers to fit can be a problem (RAM clearance, back panel clearance) ... I had to adjust the fan attachment points on my NH-D15 G2 and they unit looks ugly and they're heavy (definitely not good for vertical mount motherboards) and only two fastener points for that much weight on a CPU.

Under load testing, NH-D15 G2 just doesn't hack it compared to a custom liquid cooled setup.  Although Noctua fans are relatively quiet (some of the quietest), they will have to run at 100% to keep from CPU throttling under heavy loads. 

Also have a Corsair iCUE Link Titan 360 AIO in another PC (AMD 9950X), it gets noisy under heavy loads and definitely not as efficient as a well setup custom water cooled system.

Steering someone away from liquid cooling is a bad idea in todays CPU/GPU thermal settings.

I'm assuming OP is interested in building a PC, specifically water cooled, hence my suggestions.

I've used and built just about every combination of air, AIO, custom and a custom setup will always provide for most efficient cooling with least amount of noise.

If cost is an issue, then go with 3 fan (360 min) AIO, they're actually cheaper than Noctua NH-D15 G2 air only.

EDIT: the standard for custom water loops are Goulds D5 pumps, extremely reliable (provided you don't run them without fluid).

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by CO2Neutral

I've been using water cooling for 16 years.

I have custom water loops (to the CPU only) on both of my sim boxes--that said, my thoughts on air vs water cooling have evolved some in the last year.

My P3D machine is a 24-core Intel 13900KS, and I would not even think about air cooling that, as it's a heat monster.  My current MSFS box is an AMD 7800X3D, and it's only water-cooled because I already had the loop built for the previous 10-core Intel 10900K.  The AMD CPU runs cool enough that a quality air cooler is sufficient.

My two other boxes are both air-cooled with Noctua NH-D15s--an overclocked Intel i9-9900K and an Intel i7-8086K.  My wife's PC is an i7-7700K with a Corsair H100 AIO water loop.

Honestly, if you opt for one of the 8-core AMD X3D chips, which are the king of the hill for MSFS presently due to their super-sized L3 cache, I would stick with a good air cooler due to their simplicity and reliability.  My 7800X3D is typically only dissipating ~60 watts running MSFS, so an air cooler would be more than sufficient.  The only moving part in the air cooler is the fan (or fans), and are easily replaceable if they ever die on you.  I still like Noctua in large part because of their quiet and reliable magnetic bearing fans.

If you opt for Intel, or one of the dual-CCD AMD chips like the 9750X3D, then an AIO water loop with a 280 or 360 mm radiator would be at the top of the list for an OEM build.

I enjoy building and operating custom water loops--but they do require work to install and regular maintenance.  My water loops have everything but the CPU water block mounted on a rack external to the case, so leaks that threaten the PC's electronics have never been a problem--but I have had several radiators develop pinhole leaks after many years of use.  The AIO loops are sealed and fairly trouble-free--leaks are rare (but can happen).  AIO water pumps do eventually fail, and I've had a couple AIO loops disappoint me with poor performance and/or noise issues over the years.  The fans on an AIO water loop can be just as noisy as an under-specced air cooler, so putting enough radiator surface area in play is vital to keeping fan speed down to minimize noise.

1 hour ago, CO2Neutral said:

... I'm assuming OP is interested in building a PC, specifically water cooled, hence my suggestions. ...

 

Thank for your info, I'm not interested in building my own computer. I usually just go and choose the parts, and they put it together. I'm tech savvy but the last three systems I've purchase from them have worked awesome. Always had good service and follow-up service when needed. I will look into both AIO and some recommendations for custom liquid cooling.

John C.

4 minutes ago, johncott said:

I usually just go and choose the parts

I believe Origin PC have some pretty nice pre-built custom water loop systems where you can pick parts and they build to order.

I would advise the OP to closely tack to the advice of @Bob Scott. Unless you want to be doing active maintenance skip the custom water loops. A good AIO is more than sufficient.

Edited May 2, 20251 yr by Maxis

I run a B650E with a Ryzen 7 9700X on air with no issues.  My gpu is a AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.  My CPU air cooler is a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120SE that costs $55.00.  My system isn't overclocked so air works without any issues.  My case is a mid-size with 6 intake fans and only one exhaust fan.  

My experience with AIOs is after a couple of years the cooling fluid starts to evaporate and the pump develops cavitation issues and reduced cooling.  With no way to refill the AIO it became necessary for me to replace the AIO.  

21 hours ago, Maxis said:

Unless you want to be doing active maintenance skip the custom water loops

Disagree, AIO operate on the same principles but aren’t maintainable and hence fail or become less efficient and need to be replaced.  A maintainable custom loop can be used thru many iterations of components lasting decades with the only replacement part being the CPU waterblock (sometimes not even that).

You’re certainly welcome to disagree but I have been using the same aio since I built my rig for msfs2020 In August of that year and upgraded through 4 cpus over two sockets without issue. Considering I am at year 5 without having to mess with my aio in any way I I would be happy to state that the aio is just as good as any custom loop to cool as long as you selected a good brand.
Not everyone is down to be bending pipe elbows and cutting custom lengths and filling reservoirs not to mention trying to source interfaces for whatever components that you desire to be added to the loop (like gpus) and those interfaces can get hella expensive. if that’s your thing great however for most people the aio provides water cooling without being overly involved and is the most appropriate solution here. 

Edited May 3, 20251 yr by Maxis

I have a PC with a 4 year old AIO still running great on a de-lidded CPU.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpu-coolers,4181.html