Liquid cooling will run you about 20º cooler, quieter, keep you running full speed for longer, and not block your RAM slots. Therefore I recommend.... air cooling! Liquid cooling does not run 20deg cooler. As heat dissipation is relative to surface area, watercooling with a rad about the same size as an air cooler with perform about the same as well. Water cooling does not defy the laws of thermodynamics. Water cooling is not quieter, you're literally using the same 120mm/140mm fans to dissipate heat through a heatsink, and you're also adding a pump which is not silent. You get "quieter" by oversizing the cooler, whether it's water or air cooler. By increasing surface area, you can decrease the fan speeds while maintaining same amount of dissipation. You should run at full speed for equally long. This only wouldn't happen if you were thermal throttling for some reason, and at that point the issue is an undersized cooler, not air vs water. Water does take longer to reach equilibrium due to higher specific heat and density, but that's it. The fitment issues is about the only thing correct in that statement. Air is generally recommended here as this is a help forum, where most of our advice is getting you the most out of your money (best value). This doesn't mean going with water cooling is wrong by any means, people can justify their builds however they want. We aren't going to talk you out of anything, we exist to give our opinions, advise, and provide information. Answer from -UserRemoved- on reddit.com
Thermaltake
thermaltakeusa.com › collections › aio-liquid-cooling
AIO Computer Liquid Cooling System | Water Cooling Kits for PC – Thermaltake USA
Thermaltake is a Taiwanese manufacturer of PC case designs, power supplies, cooling devices and peripherals
Reddit
reddit.com › r/buildapc › first pc build, why is liquid cooling not worth it? someone talk me out of it.
r/buildapc on Reddit: First PC Build, why is liquid cooling not worth it? Someone talk me out of it.
December 7, 2020 -
If I were to sum up what I've read online about air -vs- liquid cooling, it goes something like this:
"Liquid cooling will run you about 20º cooler, quieter, keep you running full speed for longer, and not block your RAM slots. Therefore I recommend.... air cooling!"
Huh!?
The closest thing on here I found in the FAQ is the liquid -vs- air guide in the sidebar, but that is TEN YEARS old and the arguments mostly consist of "If you build it yourself as a newb, it will leak". This seems to be before AIO coolers were a thing.
So, why does everybody recommend air cooling? It seems like it'll just block a RAM slot and be loud just to save me $20. Am I missing something?
People usually say you don't need liquid unless you're going to be running it hot for a long time, but it seems to me like gaming and rendering are both going to do that...
Related:
If we decide liquid cooling is the way to go, does it then make sense to purchase this hybrid liquid cooled EVGA 3080? https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=10G-P5-3898-KR
Intended use:
Building a Valve Index PC (in USA). Budget roughly $2k. Going to pair zen 3 Ryzen 7 or 9 with a RTX 3080. Will be used for gaming and Houdini/3D renders. Being a PC build newb I don't intend to overclock beyond what's here.
Rough draft build (open to any other suggestions here): https://pcpartpicker.com/list/spN6qp
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Liquid cooling will run you about 20º cooler, quieter, keep you running full speed for longer, and not block your RAM slots. Therefore I recommend.... air cooling! Liquid cooling does not run 20deg cooler. As heat dissipation is relative to surface area, watercooling with a rad about the same size as an air cooler with perform about the same as well. Water cooling does not defy the laws of thermodynamics. Water cooling is not quieter, you're literally using the same 120mm/140mm fans to dissipate heat through a heatsink, and you're also adding a pump which is not silent. You get "quieter" by oversizing the cooler, whether it's water or air cooler. By increasing surface area, you can decrease the fan speeds while maintaining same amount of dissipation. You should run at full speed for equally long. This only wouldn't happen if you were thermal throttling for some reason, and at that point the issue is an undersized cooler, not air vs water. Water does take longer to reach equilibrium due to higher specific heat and density, but that's it. The fitment issues is about the only thing correct in that statement. Air is generally recommended here as this is a help forum, where most of our advice is getting you the most out of your money (best value). This doesn't mean going with water cooling is wrong by any means, people can justify their builds however they want. We aren't going to talk you out of anything, we exist to give our opinions, advise, and provide information.
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Air cooling: + Cheaper + More robust + At lower (<80$) prices beats liquid cooling + Safer in short and especially long-term (no liquid, less parts to break) + Is compatible with more cases overall - Has a limit of how cool can you get (NH-D15 being kinda the flagship of air cooling) - Heats up faster than liquid (with liquid cooling it will take some time before the parts start to actually heat up) - RAM generally less compatible - Dissipates heat to the case, meaning you gotta have good case ventilation to blow that air out Liquid cooling: + Takes longer to actually heat up + Has an extremely large range of cooling (R3 to 3990X, 30$ to 5000$) + Often quieter + Directs hot air straight to outside of the case, allowing other parts to stay cooler - Costs quite a bit more to get to similar performance levels (even then many 160$ AIOs don't match NH-D15) and can cost ridiculously much at higher levels (custom loops) - More prone to failure and damaging other parts (due to them having liquid inside and has moving parts like pumps) - Less compatible with cases overall (360mm radiators and up take a lot of space, some cases don't even support 240mm) Probably missed many points, but those are some of the ones that popped to my mind. I prefer aircooling as it's less hassle, great performance for the money and is practically impossible to break. But watercooling is almost always preferred when using a high-end, and by that I mean like 5950X + 3090 and more, so custom loop stuff.
Is water cooling really worth it for a first pc build? : r/buildapc Aug 17, 2025
r/buildapc 11mo ago
Could someone explain exactly how liquid cooling works?
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/liquid-cooled-pc.htm More on reddit.com
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August 5, 2011ELI5 : How does the Liquid Cooling Works ?
Instead of attaching a metal block with a large surface area to your hot components, you install a hollow metal block onto them and pump water through it. Because water can carry a lot of heat and is easy to move around, this works very well to get the heat away from the components and move it to a larger radiator than you could practically install directly onto the component. And then you use air to cool that radiator. It's all about having a large surface area for cooling and moving the heat away from the component as fast as possible. Water is a good way to achieve both. More on reddit.com
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February 13, 2025Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling
Me, who genuinely agrees with you, but wouldn't have posted this here in a million years: More on reddit.com
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January 20, 2026Air cooling vs liquid cooling
Air cooling is perfectly fine for most processors, much cheaper (typically) and is much more robust. The only thing that can really break on them is the fans as they are the only moving parts, which would be easy to swap out. Even then a decent fan will typically last like 10 years before needing to be replaced. Water cooling really only is “needed” for those top end intel processors with 250w+ power draws (and to my knowledge it’s only the top end AIOs that outperform a quality air cooler). And even then you could just power limit it a bit and still get by with an air cooler. AIOs also aren’t very repairable. If the pump dies you are looking at buying an entire new unit unless you are very handy and it still might not be worth the time and money to fix it over buying a new one. Truth of the matter is most people go with liquid cooling because they like how it looks. Which is perfectly valid if you can afford to pay the premium for aesthetics. More on reddit.com
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February 29, 2024Is liquid cooling better than air cooling?
Yes, liquid cooling is generally more efficient than air cooling, especially for high-performance systems. Liquid has better thermal conductivity, allowing it to remove heat more effectively and keep components cooler. This leads to improved performance, reduced energy consumption, and increased hardware longevity, especially in environments where traditional air cooling might struggle to maintain ideal temperatures.
supermicro.com
supermicro.com › en › glossary › liquid-cooling
What is Liquid Cooling? | Supermicro
Is liquid cooling safe for hardware?
Yes, liquid cooling is safe for your hardware when properly installed and maintained. Modern liquid cooling solutions are designed with non-conductive coolants and secure fittings to prevent leaks, ensuring they operate safely without risking damage to sensitive components.
supermicro.com
supermicro.com › en › glossary › liquid-cooling
What is Liquid Cooling? | Supermicro
How long does liquid cooling last?
Liquid cooling systems typically last several years with proper maintenance. The longevity depends on factors such as the quality of the components, the type of coolant used, and regular upkeep, including coolant replacement and ensuring no leaks occur. Well-maintained systems are known to operate reliably for 5 to 10 years or more.
supermicro.com
supermicro.com › en › glossary › liquid-cooling
What is Liquid Cooling? | Supermicro
17:54
Liquid Cooling Systems - CompTIA A+ 220-1101 – 2.14 - YouTube
09:42
Liquid Cooling in AI Data Center - YouTube
01:16
Water Cooling Explained for PC Building Rookies - YouTube
YouTube
Liquid Cooling Systems - CompTIA A+ 220-1201 – 3.8
07:32
Liquid Cooling Has Finally Arrived - YouTube
EK Water Cooling
ekwb.com
PC water cooling solutions and systems by world leader EK by LM TEK
A liquid-cooling system takes advantage of the basic principle of thermodynamics – the fact that heat moves from a warmer object to the cooler one.
Asetek
asetek.com › home › liquid cooling › asetek technology › how liquid cooling works
How Does Liquid Cooling Work? - Asetek
July 22, 2024 - In a liquid cooling system, heat is removed from critical computer parts using a liquid coolant. It starts with a water block attached to the CPU or GPU, where the coolant absorbs the heat through conduction.
Koolance
koolance.com › cooling-systems-computer-desktop-pc
Ambient Liquid Cooling Systems for Computers - Koolance
EXT-440CU is a compact ambient liquid cooling system designed with features for computer cooling. This model contains a single x 120mm fan copper/brass radiator, providing roughly 400W of cooling with a 25°C ambient delta.
CORSAIR
corsair.com › home › hydro x series custom cooling
PC Custom Cooling | PC Liquid Cooling | CORSAIR
Clear coolants are ideal for pairing with any RGB lighting in your system, while coolants available in four different hues can make your loop stand out. ... A custom cooling loop moves heat away from a PC’s central components to radiators positioned where airflow can cool it more effectively. Coolant is pumped through water blocks attached to parts like the CPU and GPU, where it absorbs heat. It then flows to one or more radiators, where fans disperse that heat, allowing the cooled liquid to circulate back through the system.
Supermicro
supermicro.com › en › glossary › liquid-cooling
What is Liquid Cooling? | Supermicro
Liquid cooling is designed to efficiently remove heat from systems that operate at high computational workloads, making it essential in applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), high-performance computing (HPC), and data centers where traditional cooling methods ...
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Liquid_cooling
Liquid cooling - Wikipedia
2 weeks ago - Some of the drawbacks include the risk entailed with the close proximity of liquid to electronics as well as its cost. Liquid cooling systems are more expensive than fan sets, which require fewer components such as reservoir, pump, water blocks, hose, and radiator.
CoolIT Systems
coolitsystems.com › home › resources › understanding liquid cooling
Liquid Cooling Explained: Benefits & Design | CoolIT Systems
March 12, 2026 - Liquid can also be directed precisely to the hottest components. Water is the primary ingredient in most computer-cooling fluids due to its availability and exceptional thermal properties. It conducts heat roughly 25× better than air and can absorb about 4,000× more heat. However, pure water is rarely used on its own. Most systems rely on water–glycol mixtures because glycol adds important protections, namely preventing freezing, inhibiting corrosion and eliminating biological growth.
Micro Center
microcenter.com › home › water cooling kits
Water Cooling Kits : Micro Center
Liquid cooling systems use coolant fluids in a closed loop system to cool your PC’s CPU and / or GPU.
Intel
intel.com › gaming › how to build a gaming pc › cpu cooler: liquid cooling vs air cooling
CPU Cooler: Liquid Cooling Vs. Air Cooling - Intel
June 22, 2026 - If you want the lowest possible temperatures, or if you’re interested in a quieter solution and don’t mind a slightly more complex installation process, liquid cooling is probably the best option. Air coolers are quite good at relocating heat away from the CPU, but keep in mind that heat is then dispersed into the case. This can raise the ambient temperature of the system overall.
Newegg
newegg.com › home › components & storage › fans & pc cooling › water / liquid cooling
Water Liquid Cooling (AIO) | Newegg.com
June 22, 2026 - Upgrade your computer’s cooling system with Newegg advanced water liquid cooling devices (AIO) and cooling fans. They offer protection against overheating components and maintain optimal performance. Our AIO providing unmatched reliability for your LGA 1700 and AM5 Ryzen 9000 processors and ensuring a longer lifespan and a better user experience.
Eaton
eaton.com › us › en-us › products › thermal-management-solutions › liquid-cooling-systems.html
Liquid cooling systems | Eaton
Eaton provides thermal systems that help you achieve next-generation performance and power density levels for liquid cooled server and cloud data center cooling systems, industrial chillers and medical imaging cooling systems, like MRI chillers and ultrasound or x-ray modular liquid systems.
EKWB
ekwb.com › shop › kits
PC Custom Water Cooling Kits – EK Webshop
EK custom water cooling kits are a perfect solution for those who are entering into a world of high-efficiency PC cooling and also for those who would like a fast solution.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/buildapc › could someone explain exactly how liquid cooling works?
r/buildapc on Reddit: Could someone explain exactly how liquid cooling works?
August 5, 2011 -
Is it like a tube filled with cold water that physically touches components in the PC? I have no idea.
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==If you get why your computer is hot, skip this part== When electricity moves through a wire, there is a level of inefficiency. This means not all the electrical energy that was at the beginning of the wire will be making it to the end. Some of this energy will be released as heat. Any part of your computer that uses electricity will be generating heat. The more watts it uses, the more likely it will be releasing heat. Your power supply, which brings power from the wall to the computer, (hopefully) is listed 80 bronze or something similar, which means that the power supply is always using at least 80% of the watts moving through it (for power, etc) meaning it only releases twenty percent or less of the energy it uses as heat. How does it become more efficient? Materials and design play a big role. Different materials will absorb and conduct heat at different rates. Some pick up heat easily and hold on to it for a long time, some materials don't like to pick up heat but release it quickly, and everywhere in between. So, you've got a processor, and it is hot. The processors will be getting really hot because of the clock speed - they are going from having lots of electricity flowing through to nothing and then back again many times each second. ============ Typically, processors come with some form of stock cooling. This will be the heatsink you are familiar with, where there's a bit of thermal paste between the top of the processor and the included cooling "sink". Heatsinks are made of materials that are very heat conductive, so they pick up heat easily (such as from next to the processor) and conduct it to the cooler parts of itself (like the ends of the fins). Many heatsinks will use a different material for the part where it is directly touching the thermal paste, such as copper. This material absorbs heat even better, and conducts it around (moves the heat from the copper part near the processor to the attached, less-warm copper parts), but doesn't hold as much heat. These copper parts are usually heatpipes. They are like the highway heat must travel on, you can move really fast but you can't exactly leave whenever you want to. That's where the "blades" come in, or the part that looks like the back of your air conditioner. These (typically aluminum) fins conduct and release heat very well, not as well as copper, but they can hold more heat. In more difficult engineer jargon, Copper has a better thermal conductivity, but a lower thermal mass than aluminum. This heat leaves the aluminum through conduction. Air that is near the aluminum will absorb a bit of heat. Air is not dense at all, and is a horrible conductor. Only very small bits of heat leave with each atom of air. By adding a fan, we can up the mass flow rate, or how much air is moving by the fins. More air by the fins, more heat conducted away. WHAT MAKES LIQUID COOLING DIFFERENT All this heat conducting we've been talking about has been taking place inside your case. The air that is absorbing heat from your processor might have just absorbed some heat from your RAM, or your hard disks or anything else! That pre-heated air can't hold as much heat and won't do as good a job. Sadly, it wouldn't be very easy to set up copper pipes that ran from inside the case to outside the case as cases come in many flavors and styles. What would fit in my computer might not fit in yours and vice versa. There are fans on the case itself, to pump cool air in and hot air out. Easy. Less hot, stale air and more fresh, cool air, more heat that can be removed. When liquid cooling, you typically have a heatsink like the one that came on your processor on the edges of the case (such as inside top), outside the case but still "attached" (outside top), or potentially even relatively far away (in your basement). This heatsink might be aluminum fins and a fan, or it could dwarf your stock cooler and be a whole bank of aluminum fins with three or more fans. Since the heatsink for watercooling doesn't need to be inside the case, not only can there be a lot more surface area to release the heat, but that heat isn't put back into the case at all. So the case will be cooler this way, before we even get to the liquid. The "water" in watercooling is not necessarily "water" or "cold". What is important is that whatever fluid you are using (air is a fluid too!) has a higher thermal conductivity and higher specific heat than air. More atoms (liquids are denser than air) can hold more heat. It is going to be hard to beat the thermal conductivity of, say, copper with a liquid, but easy to beat air. There is still a copper (or some other metal) "block" in liquid cooling, so in the longest way possible to answer your question, the liquid does not touch any of the computer parts directly. The liquid flows through the block, picks up heat, and is pumped away. Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions
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http://computer.howstuffworks.com/liquid-cooled-pc.htm
Reddit
reddit.com › r/explainlikeimfive › eli5 : how does the liquid cooling works ?
r/explainlikeimfive on Reddit: ELI5 : How does the Liquid Cooling Works ?
February 13, 2025 -
Recently, I have noticed how people install ( or simply wishing to get one of them ) liquid cooling in their computers :
I never thought about it before, but how does it all work ? If a regular cooler generates more or less good air to cool the processor. That's how this thing works ? Shouldn't the water ( or whatever there is ) be heated ? And it seems that these tubes do not interact directly with the processor.
I know of course that it's not just the tubes, but the computer ( especially in heavy programs or games ) puts a strain on your processor, doesn't it ?
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Instead of attaching a metal block with a large surface area to your hot components, you install a hollow metal block onto them and pump water through it. Because water can carry a lot of heat and is easy to move around, this works very well to get the heat away from the components and move it to a larger radiator than you could practically install directly onto the component. And then you use air to cool that radiator. It's all about having a large surface area for cooling and moving the heat away from the component as fast as possible. Water is a good way to achieve both.
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There is a pump for the liquid, this moves the liquid to a radiator. This radiator has a bunch of fans connected to move air through and cool the liquid
GIGABYTE
gigabyte.com › Glossary › liquid-cooling
What Is Liquid Cooling and How Does It Work? - GIGABYTE Global
April 9, 2026 - Liquid Cooling is a heat transfer technology that improves server efficiency and reduces energy use, vital for high-performance data centers and green computing.
CORSAIR
corsair.com › home › cpu coolers
AIO Water Coolers | Liquid CPU Cooling | CORSAIR
June 17, 2026 - AIO stands for all-in-one. An AIO cooler is a sealed liquid cooling system that includes a pump head, radiator, tubing, and fans in a single pre-filled unit. The pump head mounts directly to your CPU, drawing heat away from the processor and transferring it through the coolant to the radiator, where the fans exhaust it out of your case.
Data Centre Magazine
datacentremagazine.com › data-centres › top-10-liquid-cooling-companies
Top 10: Liquid Cooling Companies | Data Centre Magazine
March 19, 2025 - As it continues to design products for data centres and server OEMs, CoolIT is one of the most trusted direct liquid cooling solutions in the market to date. In addition to its headquarters in Calgary, Canada, it has three manufacturing warehouses in Canada and China. ... Gigabyte offers single-phase and two-phase immersion cooling systems to enable industry leaders to build sustainable data centres.
Lbl
datacenters.lbl.gov › liquid-cooling
Liquid Cooling | Center of Expertise for Data Center Efficiency
Since this system operates well using high temperature coolant, dry coolers can be used for heat rejection to the atmosphere, thereby eliminating evaporative water use almost anywhere in the world. Liquid immersion cooling, especially with phase change “two-phase immersion cooling”, is a paradigm shift in the way electronics are cooled.