Have AIOs killed custom loops?

[skizzo]

Personally, I would never buy an AIO. If I'm gonna water cool it will be a custom loop. If not, I'll use an appropriate air cooler. I don't think the markets for any of these really crossover. If you want to custom water cool, that's what you're gonna do. No AIO is going to convince you to abandon that route. Similarly, no air cooler will convince some to not water cool whether custom or AIO. And most people who want to use AIO are people who think it's superior to an air cooler, but don't have the budget, patience or knowledge to build a custom loop. No custom loop design is going to convince a AIO user to switch. They have their own market in my opinion. None of them have killed each other

 

[kapone32]

Personally, I would never buy an AIO. If I'm gonna water cool it will be a custom loop. If not, I'll use an appropriate air cooler. I don't think the markets for any of these really crossover. If you want to custom water cool, that's what you're gonna do. No AIO is going to convince you to abandon that route. Similarly, no air cooler will convince some to not water cool whether custom or AIO. And most people who want to use AIO are people who think it's superior to an air cooler, but don't have the budget, patience or knowledge to build a custom loop. No custom loop design is going to convince a AIO user to switch. They have their own market in my opinion. None of them have killed each other

Alphacool and EK belie everything you have just written. I also noticed that you did not mention how much easier it is to install an AIO. That actually forced AIr coolers to be easier to install. I remember buying a Hyper 212 because of the narrative and pulling my hair out trying to install it.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

... most people who want to use AIO are people who think it's superior to an air cooler, but don't have the budget, patience or knowledge to build a custom loop.

Compared to large powerful air cooler an AIO has a crucial advantage: weight of the part which is mounted on the motherboard and the center of mass position. 1.5 kilo heavy air cooler with a center of mass far away from the motherboard can create huge levering action and if you moved/dropped a case with such a cooler suddenly in shipping for example, bad things can happen.

With much lighter AIO cooler pump combo mounted on the motherboard (and close to it), nothing bad can happen.

 

[Dragam1337]

Custom loops aren't worth the trouble for 99.99% of users.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Custom loops enable using multiple times smaller graphics cards compared to air cooled monsters. Perhaps even lighter, causing less stress to motherboard.

 

[damric]

Custom loops can actually be cheaper than AIOs, if you don't mind waiting a few weeks for generic parts to arrive direct from China.

Two of my test benches are built with the cheap stuff, probably around $100 worth of parts on each loop.

I do have some better stuff on my main rig but the CPU block was only $20.

I do like AIOs for quick, easy builds that aren't mine though

 

[thesmokingman]

Alphacool and EK belie everything you have just written. I also noticed that you did not mention how much easier it is to install an AIO. That actually forced AIr coolers to be easier to install. I remember buying a Hyper 212 because of the narrative and pulling my hair out trying to install it.

I remember years before the AIO craze when Swiftech mounted a real DDC onto the cpu block and the semi real real custom watercooling quality level AIO was born. Ofc these extremely niche parts cost practically the same as a real loop so... it never really caught on. And the rest is history, RIP Swiftech, they technically still exist but scratches head on how they make any money these days.

I do like AIOs for quick, easy builds that aren't mine though

Exactly per my first post into this thread. I'll use AIO for casuals.

 

[kapone32]

Custom loops can actually be cheaper than AIOs, if you don't mind waiting a few weeks for generic parts to arrive direct from China.

Two of my test benches are built with the cheap stuff, probably around $100 worth of parts on each loop.

I do have some better stuff on my main rig but the CPU block was only $20.

I do like AIOs for quick, easy builds that aren't mine though

If you know what you are doing that cannot be true you can but Thermalright AIOs for $50

 

[damric]

If you know what you are doing that cannot be true you can but Thermalright AIOs for $50

I agree. If you are spending much more than that on an AIO or air cooler you should probably consider custom.

 

[erocker]

Unless I want to water cool my GPU, yeah a good AIO seems to be more than enough for my needs. It's just as easy if not easier than mounting some air coolers and there's a bunch that work very well and are rather inexpensive.

 

[kapone32]

Unless I want to water cool my GPU, yeah a good AIO seems to be more than enough for my needs. It's just as easy if not easier than mounting some air coolers and there's a bunch that work very well and are rather inexpensive.

The Gremlins with zero fan forced me into watercooling my GPU. Alphacool is what I have been using since. I bought EK for the looks and the block blew a gasket after 3 months so it has been Alphacool and Corsair for me.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I recently purchased an Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420, which cost under £90. I then bought a Threadripper system and, since the LF2 doesn't supper TR (due to its block's coldplate being tiny, which is probably one of the reasons why these coolers are so cheap), had to buy a replacement AIO - the Silverstone ICEGEM 360, which cost £130. The latter has a much larger coldplate but a far smaller rad (360mm @ 30mm thick vs 420mm/40mm for the LF2). This peeved me quite a bit because what I really want is the LF2's radiator, but with the ICEGEM's coldplate. This then led me down the line of considering building my own watercooling loop, which is something I dabbled in once a looong time ago before AIOs became a thing, and then AIOs became a thing and I never really touched custom again because AIOs were Good Enough.

The problem is, watercooling components are really freaking expensive. For example, just the block is £65; the cheapest pump + res combo is £130 and cheapest 420x30mm rad is £80. That's 275 quid before the ancillary-but-necessary bits like tubing and fans - more than I paid for two fully-functional AIOs! Now I know that I can get parts much cheaper - Alphacool seems to be more sanely priced, and Barrow and Bykski are the bargain-basement AliExpress options - but you're still not looking at anything I'd consider "decent value", even considering these parts can be reused across multiple builds over multiple years.

This then got me to wondering, what is the experience of others who have either used, or are using custom watercooling setups. Have you also migrated to AIOs? Have you experienced customer cooling components' prices increasing or decreasing over time? Do you think the custom loop is a dying hobby/art?

And no, I'm not making a poll because I'm not interested in bland yes/no answers - I'm looking for others' experiences. So walls of text away!

A lot of the costs are more to do with the price of custom manufacturing (CNC mills) boutique parts.

Everywhere in the world, mass-production has centralized the machining of metallic parts. Its always cheaper to have a robot copy/paste a design over-and-over again for 100,000+ SKUs, since 10x different designs of 10,000 SKUs each requires literally 10x more human effort to transition between designs.

As mass production grows cheaper, custom smaller-runs grow more expensive.

----------------

Custom loops have always been expensive however. And honestly, I don't see much benefit for AIO over air-cooling. If I'm going to do liquid, it'd be all custom.

 

[DaemonForce]

I think custom loops have always been a niche market for extreme overclockers. There has never been any need for a custom loop in a regular home PC, ever.

Mid 2004: Pentium 4 Prescott.

OEM chip, 1c/2t, 90nm, 89W disaster with a short variety of cooling solutions available. By the time I picked an air cooler, it was a full copper Vantec device used to put these chips in 1Us. It turns them into a sauna. My Koolance kit was the only appropriate solution and it was still terrible whenever anything gaming. Even adding a mild Radeon 9200 to the loop was a bad idea. I don't run that P4 anymore.

 

[GhostRyder]

I don't think its killed it, just made more air cooled people move over to AIO's. I still prefer custom and do my own, but I know more people who do AIO's than anything else.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Like others have said I think custom WC builders are going to custom WC, I don't think many are switching to AIO.

I've always been on the air cooling side but I have thought about custom looping for the just GPU. 90 class cards can pull a consistent 420w. Never considered an AIO in any build.

Did someone say their AMD CPU throttles at under 90w? So it doesn't matter what cooler you use if the IHS is total trash? I've seen a D15 soak up almost 200w from a 14700K and 11700K and still not throttle.

 

[Ruru]

Custom loop lasts from a build to another with some maintenance. When an AIO pump dies, the whole unit is junk.

So I use either air or custom, no AIOs unless they're expandable/maintainable (like some Alphacool and other manufacturers' units)

 

[A Computer Guy]

I don't have the numbers to know if AIO's are killing custom loops but after having assembled my first loop successfully after using an AIO many years ago I'd wouldn't go back to using an AIO ever.

Air is basically maintenance free other than a dusting and good coolers can still compete.

Custom cooling will always be more expensive (in terms of raw parts cost and labor) but I like being able to know I've checked every gasket and connection for a leak proof experience so going all in also means perfecting my setup to 100% satisfaction including the proper tube length to fit into my PC case and piece of mind knowing it's not going to leak. Also with that I know something about the fluid being used not being a problem that's going to gunk up in the fins. I'll add that when I got my first blocks I didn't try to get "the best ones" and managed to get both on sale with heavy discounts but the fittings are what really killed my budget. If I had to make any recommendations for new customer loop builders it would be (in no particular order)

• get what's on sale that's not pure garbage
• use a simple D5 and tube combo
• use clear fluid only
• use opaque low permeation soft tubing
• don't get the smallest tubing size ex: 10/13mm, go 10/16mm instead
• don't bother with distribution plates
• any money you save not buying something RGB can be put to better use building your custom loop
• pressure test with air before filling your loop
• mistakes will happen so plan for it

Although AIO's seems to have gotten better I hate the ewaste aspect of it approaching almost a consumable product and the pumps will likely be worse in terms of noise and failure rate especially over time. I just want a trusty D5 I can put on top of a CPU waterblock/reservoir to make things more compact but by the time EK gets around to that it will be 400% more expensive for no reason at all. If custom water cooling dies it will be partially because EK helped price it into oblivion.

 

[AusWolf]

Did someone say their AMD CPU throttles at under 90w? So it doesn't matter what cooler you use if the IHS is total trash? I've seen a D15 soak up almost 200w from a 14700K and 11700K and still not throttle.

If you mean me, then no... I said my AMD CPU throttled at 50 W under a 280 mm AIO, but stays roughly 10 °C below throttling temp under a Dark Rock 4.

So what cooler you use matters a lot, but size doesn't mean anything when you have an X3D. Coldplate design is way more important than anything.

 

[rv8000]

I’ve yet to see, or rather hear, an aio that doesn’t have some form of obnoxious pump and flow noise(s), immediately makes them a no go in my book. The better air coolers typically make AIOs irrelevant, especially from a value perspective; seems to be an aesthetic choice for many.

Id go custom 100% over aio if it were my intention to water cool as there are significant temp/noise benefits.

 

[DemonicRyzen666]

I don't have the numbers to know if AIO's are killing custom loops but after having assembled my first loop successfully after using an AIO many years ago I'd wouldn't go back to using an AIO ever.

Air is basically maintenance free other than a dusting and good coolers can still compete.

Custom cooling will always be more expensive (in terms of raw parts cost and labor) but I like being able to know I've checked every gasket and connection for a leak proof experience so going all in also means perfecting my setup to 100% satisfaction including the proper tube length to fit into my PC case and piece of mind knowing it's not going to leak. Also with that I know something about the fluid being used not being a problem that's going to gunk up in the fins. I'll add that when I got my first blocks I didn't try to get "the best ones" and managed to get both on sale with heavy discounts but the fittings are what really killed my budget. If I had to make any recommendations for new customer loop builders it would be (in no particular order)

• get what's on sale that's not pure garbage
• use a simple D5 and tube combo
• use clear fluid only
• use opaque low permeation soft tubing
• don't get the smallest tubing size ex: 10/13mm, go 10/16mm instead
• don't bother with distribution plates
• any money you save not buying something RGB can be put to better use building your custom loop
• pressure test with air before filling your loop
• mistakes will happen so plan for it

Although AIO's seems to have gotten better I hate the ewaste aspect of it approaching almost a consumable product and the pumps will likely be worse in terms of noise and failure rate especially over time. I just want a trusty D5 I can put on top of a CPU waterblock/reservoir to make things more compact but by the time EK gets around to that it will be 400% more expensive for no reason at all. If custom water cooling dies it will be partially because EK helped price it into oblivion.

I would just add buy only all copper parts.
some years ago Coolermaster made an expandable AIO that was full copper on both the blocks (Esiberg) & the radiator, heard they're trying to bring it back recently.

 

[Bones]

I think custom loops have always been a niche market for extreme overclockers.

That used to be true in the days of Pentiums and Athlon XP's but hasn't been since around 2008 or so.

Extreme Overclocking (XOC) uses subzero methods these days which is WELL beyond what a custom loop is capable of no matter how you look at it.
I do agree with one point here, in that custom watercooling has always been a niche market because the majority always defaulted to air or in later days, AIO's which is nothing more than a "Package" watercooling system in itself.
Back then watercooling was thought of a something dangerous or even "Taboo" to a point.
All that quickly passed and here we are today with water/liquid cooled systems being commonly used now.

There has never been any need for a custom loop in a regular home PC, ever.

That's just you own opinion of it and, just because it's your own opinion that doesn't make it correct.

I did have a custom loop in my home once and it did really well, I still have the block and both pumps (MCP 655 "Vario" pumps) I got for it too which all of it still works fine to this day.
Yes, I had a need for it so I used it and never once regretted using it.

If I still had the place for it I'd run it yet again with my daily but that's not true anymore so instead I'm running an Ice Giant cooler and it's works great with my AM4 daily machine here.

So - The "Need" of it for a regular PC or anything else is up to the individual to decide. In your case you can't see a need for it and that's fine - You're intitled to that thought about it but it's not like your own view MUST be everyone else's too.

With that, there is no denying some chips these days run really warm to hot and I do know a custom setup, with the right parts can more than meet the need for it's cooling, plus you can do all the maintenance on the setup with ease vs cracking open an AIO for the most basic things like keeping the cooling system topped off.

In all honesty I don't care for or even like an AIO - I've actually won one before and gave it away because I just don't like them BUT at the same time, that's just me and only me.

My own like or dislike of them is not a requirement for anyone else to ditch an AIO if they already have one or to dismiss it if considering one to use.

With that said, pre-builders and PC shops are offering top grade gaming setups with custom loops, which makes them slightly more accessible for the random Joe (not that he needs one, but still).

I'll reiterate it here - The need for such is up to the user to decide - Not for you, me or anyone else to decide here.

 

[Why_Me]

What's the percentage of peeps who use or intend to use a custom loop. I'm going with less than 2% and that's being generous.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I would just add buy only all copper parts.
some years ago Coolermaster made an expandable AIO that was full copper on both the blocks (Esiberg) & the radiator, heard they're trying to bring it back recently.

I'd do the opposite and only buy all aluminum parts, since Aluminum is cheaper.

Yeah, copper has better performance. But how much better performance do you really need? You're probably radiator-bound in any case.

Sticking with only one metal helps with galvanic corrosion in any case. So All-Aluminum or All-Copper probably has the longest life.

 

[Bones]

I'd do the opposite and only buy all aluminum parts, since Aluminum is cheaper.

Yeah, copper has better performance. But how much better performance do you really need? You're probably radiator-bound in any case.

Sticking with only one metal helps with galvanic corrosion in any case. So All-Aluminum or All-Copper probably has the longest life.

I agree that the eficiency of a system is largely bound to the rad's own ability to move heat to atmosphere.
In my case I prefer copper since it's the better of the two and (Personally) I'm a "Stickler" for getting the most out of what I've got if I have it at all. Yes, sticking to the same metal/material in the system is better than mixing things.

What's the percentage of peeps who use or intend to use a custom loop. I'm going with less than 2% and that's being generous.

You're probrably right about that these days.

I can honestly say things like blocks for CPU's and the like aren't as "Good" as they were before about soaking up heat spikes due to them not being as thick, or substantial as they were back in the day.
Today, the the emphasis is more on overall efficiency which is OK in itself.
Compared to how thick blocks used to be vs what you'd find today lends evidence of it.

An example is when you compare the thickness of block bases these days, they are paper-thin in comparison to alot for things you could get back in the day and some are even made of aluminum, not copper.
Anything made now with copper is just a really thin sheet of copper stamped/made into the design and that's about it.

However the term "Custom" always carries a higher price tag too and that's one big reason why the market and pickings of such components is so slim these days.
You really don't have manufacturers making anything of real quality vs what was available in the past for custom setups and that just hurts the market for it.

 

[DaemonForce]

I was waaaay over that performance threshold with my aluminum rad from day 1 but also had an extreme situation that got worse the day I moved up to a 125W quad core. I don't know who the aluminum kits are for but they exist for a reason. Save your money (and your ears).