AIOs always start sucking air after a while. Then they basically stop working. Avoid if you can
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
24 points (100.0% liked)
No Stupid Questions
45066 readers
745 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Air cooling is superior to AIOs. The difference in thermals isn't worth the price, increased failure points or aesthetics.
I don't want water in my computer, simple as that.
Water cooling is intellectually interesting to me and I love the aesthetic but I would never choose it for my build. I don’t have disposable income if something went really wrong. I also would never clean the water.
I never have to think about my air coolers, I love them.
You don't change the water on an AIO, it's an all-in-one. I've never had a leak, but I did have a pump that failed so it stopped cooling and made a terrible noise
AIO don’t have a leaking issue but overlocking isn’t really a things anymore so I view it as a waste of money imo. I do agree that it looks cleaner but all my pc builds are not displayed so outside of performance, it does not matter to me with how it looks.
AMD CPUs sip power compared to Intel. This is even more true for x3d CPUs. The temperature difference between a good air cooler and AIO is going to be around 2-3C and performance difference well under 1%. AIO will be significantly more expensive and much less reliable - it's not worth it.
Edit: this is coming from someone who has a custom water cooling loop that is heavier than the rest of their PC (2 pumps, 4 thick 480mm rads outside PC case, etc - beyond silly)
Edit 2: the only valid reason to use AIO on AMD CPU is trying to squeeze it into a tiny case.
I have a 7900X3D and the Peerless Assassin 120 worked well. I swapped for a Zalman CNPS20X because you could get it for next to nothing at the time; it's not much better (the RGB fans look neat but it's so big it doesn't fit well in some cases and the fans are prone to chattering noises at specific speeds)
The benefit I can imagine for an AIO is that it reduces cramping around the CPU, so you can essily release RAM or the GPU slot clip. But I suspect VRM cooling suffers; some vendors made an add-on fan to compensare IIRC.
Unless you’re overlocking or just have really bad case design, either one will fair about the same. I went with an AIO purely for the aesthetic and haven’t had a single issue. Install was pretty easy too. I haven’t personally heard any horror stories of the AIO loops failing catastrophically but that’s anecdotal at best.
I'm a little out of the loop these days, and I'm not sure this applies to the newer x3d chips, so grain of salt. But I have a 5800x3d, and took the time to undervolt it (each core separately) after getting it, and it runs a whole bunch cooler without losing any performance. I have AIO on mine, but it's generally overkill.
9800x3d is fine on air as lon as you get a nice cooler. I'm personally anti AIO because I don't want to deal with the maintenance. I'm still using my NH-D14 after 15 years. Under absolute full load the CPU gets hot, but I only game on the computer so it never stays hot for long. An actually modern cooler would be plenty.
At work we have a 9950x running of a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 140 and under 100% load it cant maintain full boost speeds, but it hovers around its base clock speed.
I have been exclusively using AIOs for years now. Generally, by the time they need maintenance, its already time for a major hardware update and rebuild anyway. That is, of course, if it is serviceable. This depends on the quality of the AIO you buy, TBH. I had a first-gen Corsair AIO start to get audible air bubbles on startup, but it's long since been recycled.
I am sure other people have some kind of horror story about an AIO leaking or something, but in general, they don't really need to be maintained if it actually is a sealed system.
I've gone through an FX8120, 4560k, 4790k, 1800x, 3700x, 5800x3d, and finally 9800x3d all on the same cooler. Even if I do a big upgrade why would I want to change it if it's working fine?
Finally this weekend it's getting demoted to my server and I'm upgrading to a D15 G2. But that's only because I'm upgrading my server and it's 10 year old heatsink doesn't work on AM5.
Air, water, AIO, whatever. If it cools well, use it. I just prefer AIOs and there really isn't any maintenance, was my main point. There are always tradeoffs between AIO, air or a proper water rig, so there is that. (Fans are crazy quiet these days, but when I made the switch, it was mainly for noise. I always run an overclock, so my fans were always hauling ass which probably isn't needed now.)
Ultimately, I prefer AIOs for the way airflow is managed. It's not better or worse than air in many instances, but I like working with a radiator rather than a chonky heatsink.
I cannot disagree though: zero maintenance is better than maybe-maintenance. Like I said, it's about tradeoffs. (I can still make my PC sound like a fucking jet engine, though. Noctua server fans kick ass.)
An AIO or air cooler aren't as impactful as the environment in my experience. Throw your computer in the corner of a room and that AIO ain't gonna help.
If you do go AIO, make sure you do it right.
Either case, good airflow design does wonders - air cooled or AIO.
Air coolers will simply last longer with no significant cooling penalty
This is very true nothing beats just having a ton of metal to throw at it. Had a Megahalems for 15 years with only minor dust cleaning from time to time.
Fair enough
I've had an AIO for years and had no complaints, but I just bought a fan since AIO can fail more easily over time. There are more parts that can fail and water can eventually evaporate or break down the materials.
I think it depends on what the use case is. I'm using my PC as a sever that I want running 24/7. As such, I don't want fewer points of failure and I'm concerned about potential failures when I'm not home. Whereas, if it was just a gaming PC that I only turned on while I'm playing, I might care less as I'd be able to monitor it in person easier.
Food for thought.
Unless he’s building a custom loop because he’s really into building custom pcs, then liquid cooling isn’t worth it.
A decent heat sink on the CPU and several fans blowing correctly in the case will do just as good. The only real drawback is that they’re not as quiet under high load.
As for AIOs, it’s been a while but I doubt rather a lot that they re on par as far as price goes, and you’re going to be better off buying better (read: noctua) fans.
More/larger fans also can be ran at lower rpm’s for the same cooling and get even quieter. (And have that much more under high load.)
To the edit: you’re gonna find that there’s little more decisive than liquid vs air when it comes to building pcs. I like my liquid rig. But also, I realize most people won’t enjoy changing coolant every month.
Rule of thumb is to use the tdp and at least try to cover that with the thermal rating. 120w is your tdp and that is either a beefy air cooler or a multifan aio. These cpus do run hot but it's by design to some extent. My tdp is 150 in the same series with a rating of 170 on the aio. Still goes up to 90 when stressed.
I got an air cooler just because I had 3 die on 6 years, as the pump on each went.
Went back to noctua
I can see two reasons to pick an AIO over an air cooler, none of which has been a concern for me.
- Using a small case. In a small case you may not be able to fit an air cooler large enough to cool the CPU, an AIO is more flexible and is a great alternative in these cases.
- Needing to move your computer from place to place. The traditional tower air cooler puts a LOT of strain on the motherboard, this is fine for when the computer is in a static place, but when moving a computer, especially if you are driving, any bumps can cause the cooler to pull on the motherboard, possibly cracking the motherboard. An AIO with it's smaller footprint is far less susceptible to that. I have a Noctua D15s as my cooler, and if I had to transport my computer in my car I would either remove the cooler and GPU before loading the computer in my car, or lay it down flat.
I just built a new PC with the same CPU and used a Scythe air cooler, specifically this one. They are relatively inexpensive but good quality. Running at 99.9% usage while compiling software packages, it topped out 80°C.
~80C is thermal throttling territory for amd cpus, FYI.
No it's not. 95c is the target temperature on anything 7000 series and newer. Google says the 5700x throttles at 90.
I use the cooler master hyper 212 for mine. Works fine.
One more thing, for PSUs, is the Seasonic Vertex GX1000 better than the Focus GX1000 in any way aside from 2 years extra warranty (10 vs 12 year warranty)
I'm running a 9800X3D on air in my server rack. I'm using a 3U chassis and cooler clearance became an issue, so I went with a low-height Noctua NH-12L.
Even using liquid metal thermal compound, under load I was pushing some uncomfortable temps. I read that people had great results undervolting at factory clocks, so I gave it a shot. Now I never exceed 59°C stable.
I have a Coolermaster AIO, it's nice, if you can pair it with a low noise power supply (my RMX shift series I am very happy with so far over two years) and your case fans don't whine, then you will have a pleasantly quiet experience on your desktop with most tasks up to light gaming. An air cooler with as big a radiator you can fit may work just as well.
Performance wise I think they aren't too different, there are premium and budget types for both liquid and air coolers.
I had a one liquid cooled computer once, and swore never to have one again.
Even when they work, they're crazy heavy, and sometimes they leak.
And all the pumps and tubes add that many more points of failure that could interrupt my precious gaming time.