You should read the graphs differently: A bigger radiator allows you to run significantly quieter to reach the same temperature as a smaller radiator, as you can slow down the fans to reach the same cooling effect. Additionally the fans can speed up, if you really need the oomph (especially during summertime).
Exactly why I went with a 360 myself. More surface area for cooling and less noise from 6 fans in a push pull configuration. Sure they spool up during the spikes but for less than 5 seconds at any given time. Usually upon clicking the exe.
i haven’t watched the video so idk what his conclusion is.. but usually the highest surface area means better performance.. also, if you add better fans that have better push/ pull capability you get better performance.. same with if you do push/pull
I was also starting to research this a earlier today as well. With my existing AIO being about 6 years so, I'm starting to get concerned about end of life.
To me, the takeaways from the graphs is that while yes, a 120mm cooler can cool decently well, it'll be struggling a lot more than a bigger cooler. For example, in the 260W Load graph at 10:14, the 120mm will be maxed out at 90 degrees and producing 44dBA while the larger coolers can achieve that same temperature at a much quieter operation of around 36 dBA, and can ramp up and produce more noise for lower temperatures. Similarly, we can compare the 240 and 280 against the 360. The 240 achieves a temperature of around 76 degrees at maximum load, producing 48 dBA of noise. The 280 can hit that same 76 degrees producing 45 dBA of noise and the 360 would put out 41 dBA (significantly less than 48 dBA, noise is a non-linear, logarithmic scale after all!). The cooling from the 280 maxes out around 74 degrees for a loud 50 dBA of noise while the 360 achieves 74 degrees while putting out 44 dBA, then can further cool the system to around 73 degrees for 48 dBA. Basically, the larger the cooler, the quieter you can run it to achieve the same cooling performance of a smaller cooler. Or to put another way, the larger coolers have extra cooling capacity in the tank beyond their smaller counterparts while achieving the same performance at a quieter noise level. I wonder if it would be more intuitive to plot temperature on the x-axis and Decibels on the y-axis...
Luckily I am buying one tomorrow so this video was timely :)
3 года назад
I have to admit, this video somewhat gave me confidence over my choice of going 240, I was really worried I should have gone 280 so that I could run fans slower and get a more silent experience. I'm okay with 1 degree higher so not a problem there.
I got my 360mm Corsair h150i capellix on Christmas. So far it’s doing a great job and it’s a lot quieter than my stock fan. My 3600x is able to maintain 4300 MHz mostly while staying around 50 - 60c while gaming. Plus the rgb looks really nice :3
My thought would be to use the 240 and use the 3rd empty fan slot for a vent fan for the whole case benefitting all the other components with more overall cooling not forced through a radiator.
Hey if your still looking to water cool your computer and you comfortable opening it up and what not i would suggest the kraken G12 from nzxt it’s an adapter you can hook an adapter up to so that can water cool the GPU while also having a fan to cool the vrm’s
I learned this the hard way. To be fair the manufacturer did say I could put a 280mm AIO on top they just didn't specify that the radiator would be outside the case
Wow you guys are amazing. I work in computer sales and I have referenced your videos a lot with my customers. Simple yet comprehensive. Your videos have helped me become more accurate and educated as well as my customers. I reference the Logitech MX Master 3 and MX Keys videos to a lot of business customers for a streamlined KVM setup. Best reviews of those I have seen hands down. You guys killed it this year. Thanks for all the hard work. Happy New Year from Alberta.
I'm running a Coolermaster 240L Master Light 240mm AIO on my R5 3600 overclocked too 4.2MHz in a mid tower with 3 120mm unrestricted fans in the front and the AIO at the top, with all settings set to auto on the AIO. Rarely do i see higher that 65c, and that's in our Aussie summer where it's not uncommon to get 40c+ temps. Another great informative video guys. Keep them coming.
1 year later, i chose this aio for my 5900x and wow it is amazing not letting it go over 70c under load when i game and having the fan on auto. at idle it ranges around 38-45c
Assuming you have the room 280s are great. The larger fans don't have to spin as fast and tend to be quieter while still providing great cooling. Even if you have a low end cpu and it is overkill, it allows you to upgrade your cpu without having to worry about replacing other parts.
yeah, 280mm's don't see much gains because the 140mm fans don't really match up to 120mm fans in terms of static pressure so a lot of the gains from a larger rad is lost.
This is surprisingly solid test. I wasn't expecting such a good content - but I am probably watching your channel for the very first time, so probably that's the reason ;) I'm definitely gonna take a look around. A year ago when I was building my WC setup I was struggling to get some solid conclusions about performance with strong emphasize on noise. In the end I was limited by my small case, so I had to choose the smallest 240 I could find (almost all of them were too tall for my front panel). Another thing that was very important to me was possibility to extend it to cool GPU. I replaced all fittings and hoses and bought universal GPU block (from china), and I am very very happy. My standard cooler was struggling with airflow and was very loud on load. Currently my PC is almost silent (acceptable on load). PC temps are around 15*C cooler and GPU around 20*C in comparison to my previous air cooling.
I went with a top mounted 280 for my build, 100% because a 240 would have looked a little too small to me in my P600s. Also just by happenstance it is almost exactly the same length as my GPU, which was a welcome surprise.
i really like your videos. love from bangladesh. your video quality is very good. and the pc building movie like parts in the videos are my favourites.
@@d3v1ldr1v3r86 went with a 240 nzxt kraken but finding temps on all coolers took me hours of looking up when this has all 4 cooler types in one well put together video
Theoretically, the sweet spot is a 280mm and let me explain why. It all comes down to Fans/Area. The more fans you introduce into your system, the louder it will be. Contrary, the more area you have to disperse heat, the better. In detail: - a 120mm AIO has: 120*120 = 14400mm^2 Area, or 14.4K square mm - a 240 AIO has 120*240 = 28.8K - a 280 = 39.2K - a 360 = 43.2K The largest jump can be seen on from 120 to 240, but fan/area ration is the same. A 280 has 36% more area than a 240 and a 360 has 10% more area, while adding another fan. Also, theoretically a 140mm makes more noise at same rpm as a 120mm , since it has larger blades, but moves more air! In other, if you normalize for air speed, both fans perform (obviously) the same but with roughly the same noise!
"The more fans you introduce into your system, the louder it will be." I'm sorry but that's not exactly true. Having more fans means you can run all of them at lower speeds while getting the same temps. That's why MORAs are so effective at silently cooling high end components. More rad space is always better no question about that.
@@Bucking-s4i There are many factors to be considered. You are claim is right! But 280s are "smaller" than 360s making them ideal for SFF cases or tight spaces. I mean , if you even have space for a 420 AIO , good for you . But I still consider a 280 AIO as the sweet spot between money spent , noise and performance
@@Bucking-s4i That's also true ! My point of view is that AIO are for gamers and dual towercoolers are for professionals. As soon as an AIOs thermal capacity is saturated, it performs like a heating. Air coolers , especially dual towers designs have large surface area !
D'Mitry, happy new year sir. Great video and I hope to see more of this content. If your graphs are correct. When I upgrade to a i9-9900 or i9-10900, I'll be fine with my 120mm Radiator?
I had the same thought! GN out here making all the other reviewers step up their game. Regardless, all those data points represent a lot of time, so props to the HC team!
Me, halfway thru my 280 AIO installation, after cracking a fan by over tightening: “f#$@ it, let’s watch some RU-vid”. Hardware Canucks: releases video telling me I don’t a 280 AIO ...
Thanx for this very informative video. You guys always come up with the tests that matter. In my country AIO's are so expensive that just buying one, would have to be a very informed decision. This will certainly help and save me money.
What happened to the 120's? Not available in the NA region? They aren't even on the Phanteks website. I'm super bummed because I can't fit any other size in my Thermaltake Tower 100. Anyway, great review HC can't wait to see more cooler reviews from you all, keep up the good work.
Excellent content. I have been using a 360mm AIO for many years, one as I just like the size in my case and running them at low fan speeds keeps things quiet and cool especially when I run a 10700K at 5.1GHz. I do push some serious loads at times and the temps are always in check. Bottom line a good 120mm/240mm AIO will for a great job especially if overclocking is not important, just low noise systems. AIO's have come a long way and I do like the Phanteks design though I am rocking the Lian Lin Galahad which also just looks great!
Dimitri I love the content, can I make a suggestion. Put the numbers on the right side of the graph and flip it. Start at the lowest temp, end at the highest in the middle of the graph. Personally. Great work though, just a suggestion to make it easier to read.
@@valuehunter5544 a 1tb nvme i believe is mandatory... The cpu, well, at least its easy to upgrade in the future, and you won't have to replace your board. The gpu is still great if you're on 1080p. That 1tb though, for real, who really wouldn't ever end up filling a 1tb drive anyway? I have 26tb in my system, 20tb between 2 HDDs, a 2tb SSD, and then a 2tb gen 3 nvme and a 2tb gen 4 nvme. Talk about overkill lmao, considering all I do is play games (to be fair though I was attempting to stream/edit content, but that never happened).
@@TheGauges420 nah but the thing is that i bought an rx 590 when i could've had a gtx 1660 super for the same price cause i thought, like a noob, that 8gb vram > 6gb vram therefore rx 590 is better.
Great sponsorship. Fantastic video with data for everyone, while Phanteks gets to show off their coolers. And I gotta admit, the daisy chained non-RGB fans and included fan extension is amazing.
Long time watcher, first time subscriber! Your videos have always been great and editing/quality have only gotten better over the years. Keep it up my man!
Need to focus at the beginning of the graph, not the end. The whole point of going big is to run near zero fan speeds and still maintain a good temp. 35dBA is the only part of the graph worth looking at.
At this point one should consider how much noise his gpu will make during gaming* as I doubt the AIO would be topping her. * I say gaming because during gaming you will never use 100% power constantly but rather small burst of intense cpu usage which in theory at least the bigger rad would be better at dealing with, thanks to needing more time to reach temperatures worthy of upping the fans.
Great vid. Informative. I went with a 280mm NZXT. IIRC I think I figured the larger fans would be quieter. I guess the larger rad size on the 360 makes a bigger difference. The 280 ate my 6700k 4.7ghz for breakfast. My new CPU 10850k 5.0ghz - adequate but you can tell it stresses it a lot more. Liquid gets to 40C after gaming 60-90% cpu usage. Used to peak around 36C.
I have the Glacier AIO i think it's really cool. My favorite thing is tube clips. You can also slide the fan cables through tbe middle for better cable management. The short daisy chain fan cables are cool, but i wish they were slightly longer to hide the connectors.
When the early reviews for the Be Quiet Pure Loop AIO came out, some had text indicating that 120mm for Ryzen 3, 240mm for Ryzen 5, 280mm for Ryzen 7, and 360mm for Ryzen 9. That made no sense to me. The general rule of thumb is stay away from the 120mm unless you're doing a SFF build, and use the size appropriate for your case.
Thank you for this video. Great graphs and so on. I'm looking into the ROG Ryujin II 240mm and 360mm AIO, with Asetek 7th gen pumps. I was pretty bummed out because I am not able to fit the 360mm in my case because of my big STRIX graphics card, so I wanted to see how much performance I would lose by choosing the 240mm and by the looks of it, not much - barely any actually, when considering I'm only running a 8700K at 4.7GHz - might pull 100 watts at maximum while gaming.
Loved this test, a couple years later and I think I'll be comfortable running a slight overclock on an i5 13600k with a 240mm Corsair AIO so I have room for the 360mm AIO attached to the Aorus 4090 Waterforce GPU
Unpopular use case here, but I’m fine with both noise and ramping fans to 100%. I keep my system on 24/7 for the type of work I do. Having quieter fans are nice, but not a selling point for me. In further reviews, could you include a graph of pure performance that is not noise normalized? Doesn’t need to eat up a bunch of time, but would be really nice to see
Nice vid. Thx for sharing. So 240 or 280 is enought if you don't have an extreme CPU. (Have a 420 AIO and it performs really good. It's not overkil, just want a cool CPU with no noise :-) )
Its nice to see one AiO maker that gets the AM4 mounting correct. The 2 hook on clips on other brands does not distribute even pressure. I will be getting this ASAP!
Great video! Especially because there is very small number of noise normalized reviews. It would be awesome to add D15 as a air representative for comparison there as well. If possible then there are 2 420mm aios on the market. You could add them there as well.
Love this content!! Very interesting. I would love for you to do similar testing on custom loops - I know there's so many more variables, but looking at a standard CPU+GPU loop how many rads are really necessary!
Honestly just go with the max amount of radiator space that fits into your case. More rad space means you can run the fans at lower speeds wich equals less noise. There's no point in getting smaller rads for custom loops
I went with a 280mm AIO and honestly it gives me enough room for orientation. I also don't have to deal with a heavier version when this AIO does the job of cooling my CPU under 25C at idle and 35-40c when using demanding applications like gaming. The one I use is from NZXT the z63 and it has not failed me yet.
I have a couple of deep cool tristellar sw cases I bought at a "low" price of 199 USD each when they were closed out in summer 2018, and have been wondering about the 120mm aio coolers. I want to put these cases in service here since all they have been doing is sitting around for two and a half years, and would like to see something I don't think any reviewer has done to date: an extensive round-up review of all currently available 120mm aio coolers. You can be the first to do so! All reviewers seem to focus on is the 240 and bigger aios.
Super cool video guys, thanks! I have a question for a future follow-up, how does a case with poor airflow impact these test results? i.e. does the bigger rad help offset the higher temperature of a NZXT 510elite or a Corsair 4000X?
I have a question please and I hope for an answer. Is the ASUS VG27AQLIA monitor suitable for a very powerful PC with a RYZEN 9 5950X processor and RTX 3080 graphics card? Is this screen suitable for this computer or weak for him ??
Depending on the price yeah, there is little difference. It's mostly up to what each size does to your case, and what CPU you have. The hotter the CPU, the bigger the cooler you'll want. I have 280, because i have an ITX case that fits a 280 rad. And with ITX you can't make use of the extra room from a 240. With a 140 you can put a fan, or some harddrives there, but unnecessary, so i just got a 280, makes it look cleaner and more compact.
This video made me feel better about the 140mm in my H1 cooling the 105W CPU in my rig. It's been spiking and I was worried about the cooler not being able to keep up. I hope it's just a air pocket in the radiator.
nice review and shows how people are losing their money with 100w cpus and wasting $300 in aio rgb i still use my h60 dual fan on my 6600k at 5ghz and i now have a 5600 at 4.8ghz my 120mm aio cost me $59 and doesn't go above 75c in games I rarely get above 60c buy what you want my at $59 its unbeatable as an offer and it has been running since 2014! unless you have a 200w i9 or a big 200w cpu
Would be curious to see a custom loop cooling a ryzen 7/9 and a 3080 or 6800 xt with different radiator coverage to see what the minimum radiator coverage would be for a given temp/noise ratio. Think this would be very helpful for deciding what parts to put in a SFF build that can only fit one radiator. Alternatively do a 240 mm radiator with different cpu/gpu combos.
Is noise normalization the best way to compare AIO sizes? It stands to reason that a larger system will make more noise at similar percentage of its total performance. So, keeping the noise db levels constant, you could have been running the louder 360 AIO with 3 fans at 33%, while the 280 was running at 50%, and while the quieter 120 AIO with 1 fan was running at 100%. Throttling performance at a fixed noise level would explain the unusual result that the larger coolers all just stop any additional cooling at one point. They can't cool any more without exceeding a max db level, not necessarily because they have reached 'diminishing returns'. Does a larger AC in a home reach diminishing returns? GamersNexus tests show noise normalized results to show noise efficiency and also 100% max performance results to show full cooling capability. If the title of the video was "A Guide to the RIGHT Size to Limit Noise" that might have been more accurate. People probably expect higher noise levels for peak performance and peak heat loads (and even want the higher noise levels for short periods of higher performance). Thanks for the info though. Cheers
