It depends on your case, but the main three things to realise. Liquid cooling is like a bottle of water, all the air in your bottle goes to the top. If you flip the bottle upside down the air still goes ‘up’ Air damages the pumps used in liquid cooling, they’re designed to run with liquid in them, so dry running air through the pump can degrade its lifespan and cause weird noises. The output of these two: we want to make sure that our pump IS NOT at the highest point of the loop. We want that to be one of our radiators or reservoirs, that way the air bubble stays out the way of our pump. You’ll want to bleed the loop to get as much air out as possible (if custom) If it’s an AIO your real options are front mounted tubes at the bottom Rear mounted tubes at the bottom Top mounted and the side with tubing connections doesn’t matter What NOT TO DO: Bottom mount a radiator for an AIO. Now your pump is the highest point in the loop and getting air circulating Front mount tubes at the top: in this configuration any air that would have sat in the top of the radiator is getting pushed around the loop as there isn’t that “dead space” any more. It might look better, it will be louder and won’t last as long Gamers Nexus has a video that gives you everything you need to know on how CLCs work and how to properly install one depending on what your case offers
Air coolers last longer than liquid coolers as fans are more reliable than pumps, there is always a risk of leaks with AIOs, but it’s less substantial than custom loop Also 0 maintenance is a lie you do need to clean your PC even with liquid coolers
You’re not totally wrong, it does, just not in this context. IO = Input / Output. AIO = All in one AIO also refers to a PC where everything is embedded in the display with no separate tower, so to avoid confusion just call an all in one liquid cooler a “CLC” and avoid the dual use of AIO
Yeah guys do replace the liquid but it's unnecessary guys do it cuz they're just PC nerds and they can do it. But it's not necessary. It's basically like an air cooler. You just wait till it breaks. It's usually the pump or the fans and it normally don't never drip
Air coolers last much much longer is the only difference as far as waiting for them to break. You could theoretically get one really nice air cooler from somewhere like noctua, and just message them for the new mounts and have that same cooler in builds for decades. Obviously just replacing the fans when those eventually die. Vs when an aio dies, thats completely done.
