120 vs 140 AIO

fightingfi

2[H]4U
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Oct 9, 2008
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besides the 140 mm being bigger any real world differences? any good ones to buy or worth buying?
 
In general unless you're space constrained, going with a decent air cooler ($50ish) will be better performance than a 120mm AIO.
 
i have a 120 water cooler but was thinking of going 140 because i can basically inside of my case im always looking for ways to buy bigger fans and get more cooling i guess thats just normal for me 🙃
 
Not worth the upgrade. Going to a 2x120 or 2x140 would be worth it.
 
Maybe if it were cheaper, but $100 is corsair 240mm money for only $20 more. Make more sense if it was priced at $80 or so. I just did a similar "upgrade" from 240 to 280 rad. I knew it wasnt going to net me much but wanted to use up all of my available rad space as well. My idle temps are slightly less, load temps are pretty similar. Fan noise is about the same, but the rgb pump looks better than my previous h100i pro so theres that.
 
everyone is trying to compete with the new Arctic Freezer II, every review I've seen has shown that to be the absolute best performance per dollar in AIO cooling by a longshot.
It's also sold out everywhere.
 
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everyone is trying to compete with the new Arctic Accelero Freezer II, every review I've seen has shown that to be the absolute best performance per dollar in AIO cooling by a longshot.
It's also sold out everywhere.

I'm thinking you mean the Liquid Freezer II as the Accelero is for video cards IIRC.
 
Yep. I did mean the Freezer II.
Sorry, I just installed the Accelero on my own videocard and got used to typing that out.
 
I have always been impressed with Arctic's products ever since the Freezer 4 and the Freezer 64. So good for what they cost especially over stock coolers at the time.
 
As TheSlySyl said air cooling is way more dependable tha CLCs. Sure, new Arctic looks good, but we have no way of knowing how long it will last until it's been in use for several years. Some of the best CLCs out in last few years started failing in less than 6 months.
Top tier air cooling costs less and cools as good as all but very best CLCs when new .. but as time goes buy CLC pumps wear and coolant flow slows down. CLCs have such slow flowrates they won't even publish them. But independent testing shows them to flow 40-55L/h when new .. about the same a health adult pisses .. and that becomes less when pushed through waterblock, hose and radiator. By comparison Alpha Cool made Eisbair and be quiet! Silent loop pumps are rated about 70L/h and Swiftech Drive X3 is rated 660L/h .. and most popular custom loop pump, D5 is rated 1500L/h.

With top tier air you have way more dependability because the only thing that will ever wear out is fan .. system still works at low load with no fan and any fan can be held on with rubberbands until new fan is in hand. Only other thing you need to do with air cooling is make sure case has good airflow, and below link is to basic guide to case airflow:
https://hardforum.com/threads/basic-guide-to-improving-case-airflow.1987938/
 
I would recommend getting a nice $30 - $50 air cooler rather than a 120/140mm AIO. Even a Hyper 212 is better than most of the small AIOs ive tested.
 
Get something like a 240/280mm instead.... I am running a 120mm as a temp. on my custom loop Ryzen system and any vcore higher than 1.3 the single rad can't handle the heat and my CPU will eventually hit 90+c during prime95 and fail/power off.
 
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