Air vs. Liquid PC Cooling - How to Choose?
Published on 19 January 15
Ljuben0
The worst enemy of all your desktop PC’s internal mechanical components is heat. While all large computer manufacturers make sure the cooling system works seamlessly, building your own computer could leave you with the question - what cooling method to choose for ultimate performance?
Air Cooling Method
The air cooling method involves using multiple fans to reduce the temperature of all internal mechanical components. Currently, components such as graphic cards and processing units come with great stock fans, so you don’t really have to worry about overheating if you don’t employ all of your computer’s resources.
However, if you are looking to get the maximum out of your desktop PC, you need to consider upgrading all internal fans, as stock ones guarantee only minimal performance.
Installing air cooling system on your desktop PC is much easier and a lot cheaper when compared with liquid cooling. Even, if you have to upgrade all of your PC’s fans, you will spend far less than for liquid cooling system.
The main disadvantages of the air cooling method are that fans are pretty loud, less efficient than liquid cooling systems and also the heat sinks for particular fans get pretty big.Liquid Cooling Method
If you are looking to overclock your CPU and get the maximum performance out of your desktop PC you will have to spend a small fortune on fans, but in the end you might still end up with burned out computer. In such cases its best to use liquid cooling PC system.
During the setup of liquid cooling system you can configure it to reduce the temperature on specific PC parts better than any fan could ever do. Liquid cooling systems are also a lot quieter than fans, so even cheaper systems could help reduce noise levels by far. Liquid cooling systems take less space in the PC case than heat-sinks used for fans.
On the other hand liquid cooling systems are much more expensive than fans - most of the times the price for liquid cooling system is at least 2 times more than any fans could cost. Setup also matters greatly, so you need to do some serious planning if you are not buying a complete liquid cooling kit. Furthermore, if you decide to go for a setup where you cool down separate PC components the total price to pay is likely to go up!
It’s highly recommended to construct the liquid cooling installation outside your PC case at first, because the liquid could seriously damage expensive components. Since installation and planning aren’t exactly easy things to do you might want to consider getting some extra help from knowledgeable friend or colleague.Conclusion
Both desktop PC cooling systems offer great performance if installed correctly. If you are not looking to overclock your processor and employ all of your desktop PC resources, you might want to go for a good air cooling system consisting of several fans.
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