a PC world fans Adam here with Gordon and our weekly podcast the full nerd we
get a lot of questions from PC builders one of them specifically that we get
over and over and over again is hey I'm buying a new CPU should I go air to cool
it or should I go to water to cool it I know lately there's been a big trend
in going air a lot of people concerned about putting water in their PC why
would somebody go one over the other and what's the strengths and weaknesses of
both well first we're talking aftermarket we're not talking about your
stock cool true true yes air is big pluses if you were moving parts it's can
be had fairly low cost hyper 212 Coolermaster it's an awesome cooler very
low cost my main concerns which I've never been really super fan of sometimes
is once you put this cooler into your system there's just not a lot of room in
there to get to the RAM to cure the plugs so that's all been my pain pain
point in in air coolers they generally again they can be more reliable they can
also be quieter a lot of people don't realize that this is I've been seeing
this machines far back as the mid-2000s where you get a machine great big super
machine and it would have a big honkin cooler on it it would actually be cooler
than a liquid cooler here because some liquid loops that's a surprise a lot of
people but you know custom loops you've got pumps you've got lots of fans
there's a lot of things going on in there so air frankly has been Cooling's
CPUs far longer than liquid on on personal computers so there's nothing
wrong with it great way to go biggest problem there pain to deal with when you
want to get in there so know that if you're into air good that's all good
stuff now if you're into liquid CLC closed-loop cooler I tend to prefer
those in my own builds because it's easier to get to the RAM it's easy to
move stuff around it's just it's it's just easy you don't you don't
cut your hand on the cooler because you never the way to do it with is to is
sometimes the only way you get to the RAM is to pull the heat sack right and
that is a pain yeah and sometimes what you need to do then is is that you cheap
out so you don't I'm not gonna pull it on your just gonna jam my hands in and
then you just cut your hands up all on those those fins it's a pain that's why
I like CLC's the other big advantage of CLC's is they look cooler they just look
cool I mean frankly that's the reason why most people ran CLC's because it's
just cool hey I've got a liquid-cooled PC of course custom loop people who
would like to look down their nose at you
COCs have gotten way more advanced you've got the ones with the old ads on
them you've got all these lights and all kinds of craziness they just look cool
they're just they're just kind of like coolness but Gordon I've heard a lot of
people say that they're worried about water yeah getting in their systems the
chances of something happening that could hurt your your PC or higher with
the CLC than air I should should people really put stock into that have you seen
that many problems so I agree that statistically there's a greater chance
of damaging something with a liquid cooler CLC because there is water in
that system it could leak out and corrode something but I will say my
experiences I've never seen one leak and it doesn't mean it can't happen it's not
like I'm saying these things don't happen but what I'm saying is if CLC's
posed a huge if the failure rates were anywhere near the way people try to make
them out to be which is it feels like everything oh my god your seals gonna
fail like come on if it's like point o 1% or 0.1% that is a that is a very
small group right I've never seen it happen and if it were even say 20% which
would be catastrophic 20% of CLC is failing which is what you're getting
oppression from some people of they wouldn't sell them anymore because if
they sold them because I'll honestly a lot of these people will make the CLC is
their warranties will cover damage they'll say oh really
or smoke your CPU we smoked your motherboard if you're making the seal
season you're blowing up people's hardware you're not gonna sell them
anymore that's generally not a good business practice you put yourself out
of business right yeah and if you're gonna say well it's your problem our
problem with that people know about that really fast so I think a lot of the
faults with cocs are in my opinion likely due to installation issues we
don't know how hard people are torquing on these things remember it's a rubber
hose going to a plastic fitting going into you know plastic people sometimes
try to get those hoses to make them look pretty and they've just put a little too
much pressure on them user error it can happen
I don't know if that's in every case but it definitely could contribute to it and
you're putting a lot of stress in that joint it could also be just
manufacturing issue but generally I'm gonna say CLC's are safe yeah sure
statistically it is higher than an air cooler no doubt about that but I would
argue not enough to really matter for most people they do negatives on CLC's
they cost more right they are a pain to set up as well because now you've got to
install all these fans on there and then put it put it into place on your system
but you know positives easy to get in that system looks cooler so air great
super reliable can be had really cheap you can scale up to actually being very
high-end in performance with those great big giant not Chua's great parts but
they're pain to deal with after they've been installed CEO sees you know just
easier access to all that and can look cooler so when I was first building pcs
and I was faced with this question and maybe some others had this as well it
was always my understanding that you could actually overclock your system
better on a CLC is that true does that changed I think it's a generalization
that you can't rely too much on because if you're looking at a ninety five
dollar Noctua versus a $35 CLC and there are thirty
five and forty dollar CLC's now that not propaganda it's gonna smoke that that's
CLC right as you get to a really big gigantic CLC some of them have options
for custom custom cooling as well I think generally the edge will go to the
COC it's not probably enough to make a difference for most people hmm I think
yeah if you're looking at your normal mainstream 100 watt CPU it's it's not
come on this is not I'm not gonna change your world by going to either one of
those okay from from a very high-end air cooler to a very high-end CLC I don't
think it's gonna change your world okay well I want to hear what you have to say
why did you pick air versus water and why is Gordon wrong on his picks oh yes
please tell me all right and if you have questions you
can email them into the full nerd at PC world comm if we don't answer it on the
show maybe we'll answer it in a segment like
this so thanks for taking the time to answer these questions Gordon I
appreciate it see you later