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  • FireSnake - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    Nice review, thanks!
  • Orange14 - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    So I can pay over $150 for a liquid cooler that will not out perform top of the line air coolers that are half the price or less. This is the height of madness.
  • mkaibear - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    That's not entirely true - there's still a measurable and significant (>10%) difference between this and top end air coolers.

    Top end air coolers approach 0.1 C/W but this manages 0.07, for example.

    It's not worth it to me, I'm happier with a high end air cooler every time - but for those who like running their systems on the edge for whatever reason there is a difference.
  • qlum - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    from what I understand tower coolers can start to rise in resistance when the the load exceeds the capacity of the heatpipes. Until that point they can be fine. They also depend more on the case than aio's.

    Or at leadt so I heard.
  • Gasaraki88 - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    Really? You got all that from this review?
  • Stuka87 - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    In my experience to get a standard heat/sink fan cooler to beat an AIO you have to run them at very high fan speeds which also makes them very loud. Plus the AIO's get the heat out of the case, instead of just pushing it around inside. I switched to an H100i 4 years ago and it has been flawless. You can't hardly hear it running, and keeps my 4.5GHz 4690K plenty cool (In the 40's most of the time). If you are going to come here and make claims, its best to have data to back up what you are saying.
  • Orange14 - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    There is alot of data collated over on Overclock.net Most of the issues seen with overheating are a function of inadequate airflow irrespective of whether one uses an AIO or air cooler. Air coolers don't face pump failure with is an issue with AIOs. Large twin fan air coolers run quiet. The one thing AIOs have is that they don't put stress on the MB which is only an issue with shipping computers. For those are DIY builders there should be no difference between AIOs and air coolers if they properly address case airflow.
  • Shlong - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    I have an AIO (generic Asetek 120mm) that I purchased 8 years ago in 2011 for an i7 2600K and it's still working fine. I purchased 3 more since then from Corsair, NZXT and haven't had any issues yet. The systems run quietly when fans would usually be noisy at full load and the ambient temperature in the case is lower.
  • Shlong - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    7* not 8*
  • Icehawk - Saturday, August 18, 2018 - link

    Ditto, have an H80 on a 3770 from 6-7 years ago runs perfectly and silently with a good O/C. Got another one for my 8700 and it’s not quite as silent but better than a tower would be. Cost is the main thing and I can afford the price differential.
  • tamalero - Sunday, August 19, 2018 - link

    Good for you man, but anecdotal evidence isnt exactly a basis for fact.

    Many people never had Xboxes fail on them, does not means others did.
    Hell, my cousin had more than 10 CONSECUTIVE xbox failures (as in replacements) during the Xbox design BS.
  • Shlong - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link

    It doesn't matter if it's anecdotal evidence or not. There is no evidence that AIO's have a high failure rate. The failure rate reported is like 0.01%. The Xbox comparison isn't apt because that had a high failure rate.
  • FullmetalTitan - Friday, November 16, 2018 - link

    It would be one thing if the risk he was pointing out was that AIOs will fail somewhat stealthily, but whatever cooling method you are using you will definitely notice the first time your PC hits a BSOD for CPU over temp. Troubleshooting both takes exactly one failure to identify the problem.

    On the xbox note, I was actually pretty happy I got the red ring naturally because MS had just changed it's warranty policy like the week before, got an upgrade from the janky first shipment of 360s to the newer version with better power management/safer power brick.
  • loadbang - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link

    Have put together into boxes with i9 and an H150i with four 1080Ti's installed. I was surprised at how quiet the whole box was, the client ended up having the rendering PCs in their office rather than the comms room. You can pretty much let the fans idle at the slowest speeds, CPUs are pretty happy running up to 100ºC, this AIO gets temps well below that.
  • TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    I read somewhere that a custom PC manufacturer switched to all-in-one water coolers to eliminate problems they had in shipping. Large heavy heatsinks would damage the motherboard when the package they were shipped in received a sharp impact. Computers that worked fine before shipping were broken by the time they reached the customer. This article prompted my switch to water cooling.
  • mkaibear - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    That would make sense if you move your computer a lot, but most people build it and leave it in one place...
  • Cableaddict - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link

    I've been taking oc'd PC's on the road for about 20 years now. Water cooling scares me to death, even today. As the air coolers got larger, I did start having problems with micro-cracks in my mobos.
    Then I came up with a simple solution: I run a length of angle aluminum across the top of the rack case, then I use plastic ties to secure the Noctua cooler to the aluminum. Dead solid. I haven't had a mechanical failure in at least 6 years, with 3 PC's getting thrown around my truck several times a week. With my new i9x build, I'm finally considering an AIO, but it would have to offer more than just a 10% improvement.
  • Diji1 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    Yeah but how quiet is that top of the line air cooler with 100 CPU load?
  • Diji1 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    *100% even
  • Apharot - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link

    Keeping it cool at 100% load is far more important than noise level. I'll take cooler over quieter every time.
  • qlum - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    looking at this review I see the nepton 280l still performs well enough. I replaced the fans on mine with corsair ml ones I at least know that did not have any negative impact on thermals in my case.
  • oRAirwolf - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    I would love too see a review of the Alphacool Eisbaer 420mm.
  • WatcherCK - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    I wonder if/when Corsair will star producing motherboards or graphics cards, two OEM products they dont appear to manufacture.... given their (to my untrained eye) high production quality their end product would be good kit... (and yea I figure motherboards and graphics cards are the most complex components to create after the CPU/GPU...) and would give them full component integration :)
  • Hxx - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    as much as i love corsair products but for the love of God if youre willing to spend $170 then why not get EKs aluminum kit or save up for a copper liquid cooling system. 170 seems such a waste for an aio. these should be 60/70 at most $100 for the more sophisticated ones
  • Oxford Guy - Thursday, August 16, 2018 - link

    I don't think you've kept up with inflation. $60–70 isn't realistic at all.
  • Stuka87 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    1: An AIO is super simple, plug and play.
    2: You cannot build a custom loop for anywhere close to $170.
    3: Custom loops require maintenance. An AIO you install it, and then let it do its thing for the next several years.
  • Allan_Hundeboll - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link

    Custom loops don't need a lot of maintenance.
    I purchased a diy asetek water chill about 20 years ago. I have replaced the fans and the water lock and 2 years ago the pump died. I top up the water roughly every 2nd year and have change the water 4-5 times during the systems impressive lifetime.
    Definitely the best Pc investment I ever made!
  • EGA999 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    My new build has an 8086K cooled by a Noctua NH-D15. All 5 case fans are Noctua. 8086K is OC'd to 5.0 MHz - all cores - at 1.280 Vcore. Idles at 33c. Prime95 stable for 1 hour - never over 85c. Who needs an AIO?
  • vMax65 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    My 8700K overclocked to 5GHz at 1.3v does 28 to 30 Degrees in Idle (Living in UK) and does not exceed 80 degrees in Prime95... I am using the Corsair H150i Pro...Why do people use AIO's? Many reasons and for me having tried the Noctua in the past was how difficult it was to get at things when making changes and having something that heavy hanging of the CPU just wasn't for me. The H150i Pro is also super quiet and does a stellar job of cooling a overclocked CPU with minimum fuss.
  • vMax65 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    And my lowest temp at idle today is 25 degrees!!!!
  • Wolfclaw - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    I'll stick to my Arctic 240 with its 4 fans, £75 and keeps my R5-2600 cool and quiet !
  • imaheadcase - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    I'm actually surprised Intel and AMD just don't ship small water AIO with retail cpu by now. I guess they are still afraid of the old "it has water it can mess stuff up" mentality.
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    AMD did that with the 9590.
  • Icehawk - Saturday, August 18, 2018 - link

    I believe Intel also offered them at one point - not very good ones though.
  • Orange_Swan - Tuesday, August 21, 2018 - link

    to be fair with a 225w tdp it was probably cheaper than building a comparable air cooler
  • npp - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    "The noise floor of our recording equipment is 30.2-30.4 dB(A), which represents a medium-sized room without any active noise sources."

    This is false and misleading, as is the whole table stating among others that anything below 35dBa is "virtually inaudible".

    Really sad that silentpcreview.com is gone now, as are the days when such dubious and downright erroneous statements wouldn't have made their way into an anandtech review.
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    My favorite example is when the same review site that glosses over fan noise later gushes about the silence afforded by a fanless PC. Which is it? Either all those fans are "silent" and "inaudible" or they're not.

    Tell a tinnitus sufferer about silent PC fans. It is, for instance, very possible for a person to be able to tolerate many, much louder, sounds — like air conditioner fans and car trip noise, and yet get much worse tinnitus reaction problems from these supposedly silent/quiet/inaudible PC parts.

    I've been waiting many years for a high-performance fanless case but it looks like the lastest one, the Calyos, is vaporware. Apparently, the designers have moved to a new startup to create more vaporware, albeit with worse specs.
  • Ryan Smith - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    So the standard that is usually quoted for a quiet room in a rural area is 30 dB(A).

    http://www.dot.ca.gov/dist2/projects/sixer/loud.pd...

    In practice you won't find that rooms can get much quieter than that without using sound-absorbing designs, be it a recording studio or anechoic chamber.

    Now if you have findings that say otherwise, we're more than happy to look at them. After all, we strive for accuracy. But what I can say for certainty is that none of our testing environments get below 30 dB(A).
  • npp - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    Ryan, this a review of the legendary Scythe Ninja done by SPCR in 2005, long before they built their hemi-anechoic chamber:

    https://bit.ly/2MA3g5E

    As you can see, the ambient SPL was 18dBA (without room treatment) and the fan did rise up to about 22dBA, which according to the quoted data should be inaudible. Of course, if the noise floor in the room is 30dBa, one could go on and state that the cooler is silent, and this wouldn't be true.

    I'm not trying to argue or split hairs here, but if you want to include SPL measurements, you should take them more seriously. A room with 30dBa noise floor isn't the best place to perform such measurements to begin with and makes judgement of the sound performance of various fans highly unreliable.

    Now regarding what constitutes a quite room, this is really a subjective matter. The common consensus is around 20-30dBA, I personally would call 20dBa quite enough.
  • Diji1 - Friday, August 17, 2018 - link

    >A room with 30dBa noise floor isn't the best place to perform such measurements

    Fair point but it's not as though most users are going to be using the product in super quiet spaces like that.
  • geoxile - Monday, May 27, 2019 - link

    How long are these tests run? Water takes time to stablize
  • Cableaddict - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link

    What I would love to see is a comparison of how much heat all these systems can dissipate, WHEN AT THE SAME NOISE LEVEL. For instance, if the AlphaCool had the same performance as the H150i, when it was dialed back to also give 39.2 dB, but then had the extra capacity if needed, it would be a no-brainer purchase.

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