edit 2: He has bought the air cooler!
He will be running the 9800X3D, which I don’t think gets hot enough to require an AIO. We are choosing between Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360 (AIO) and the Peerless Assassin 120 (air cooler)
Benefits of choosing an AIO (Arctic Liquid Freezer III) is better temperatures, nicer aesthetic. Downside of going with AIO is the possibility that it will leak/wear out over time, shorter lifespan compared to air cooler (which can pretty much last forever)
He will be getting a Lian Li case (the O11 Vision Compact) with the RGB fans set, meaning he could go with the cheaper 5 fan set instead of 8 if he decides on AIO. Combined with a decent sale on the AIO in my region, the price difference isn’t that large.
What do you guys think?
edit: Mmm the internet people seem to disagree with each other
You don’t change the water on an AIO, it’s an all-in-one. I’ve never had a leak, but I did have a pump that failed so it stopped cooling and made a terrible noise
AIO don’t have a leaking issue but overlocking isn’t really a things anymore so I view it as a waste of money imo. I do agree that it looks cleaner but all my pc builds are not displayed so outside of performance, it does not matter to me with how it looks.
Boost clocks depend on thermal headroom. Better cooling will get you better performance still, even if you aren’t manually over clocking.
A good air cooler, which is cheap, gives you all the headroom you need.
I don’t disagree. But cooling performance does impact CPU performance in some cases even without “overclocking”
And in very hot running chips, it can start to matter.