Surely you have said this phrase at least once this year: the weather is crazy. And you would not be wrong, because what we are going to experience this summer may not have been seen for decades. After the cold, spring came, the cold returned and now we are going to touch 40 degrees in just 15 days, therefore, is it a good time to buy an AIO for our CPU or GPU for the summer ?
We are not exaggerating if we say that this summer looks to be tough thermally speaking. For this reason, the air sinks are going to fall short and by far compared to ambient temperatures above 40º on average in our country. The solution is to improve the cooling and we are not referring to putting more or better fans on the PC, but rather important changes to the system.
AIO liquid coolers and summer, real alternative?
Well they really are. An AIO has to begin to be valued as a non-temporary option per se because summer is coming, but rather a stationary option for our PC throughout the year or its useful life. The air coolers begin to have marginal improvements version after version, a disruptive technology that changes and improves temperatures does not arrive, therefore, an AIO is the easy and fast solution to improve what is present, not so cheap.
Everything will depend on the hardware we have, the use and the economy, of course, but once the option of an AIO has been valued, where is it most necessary today? Processor or graphics card? Well, to discern this there are as many cases as there are PCs in the world, so we have to opt for a series of Solomonic decisions.
AIO on a CPU
It really has all the advantages and the drawbacks are really negligible, but let’s argue. An AIO for CPU is easy to install today, it does not require maintenance in the vast majority of cases and the temperature gain is interesting as soon as we start from a mid-range heatsink. The problems are clear: its price in the mid-range and high-end models of a good size radiator, and the longevity of it.
The capillarity of the materials used and the wear of the pumps are the most controversial issues, first because air enters the circuit over the years, and second because that same air deteriorates the pump in its operation and axis. We speak as a general rule of between 5 to 10 years, which will be when there is no guarantee on the other hand, but that is why we always insist on models of proven quality despite paying a little more.
AIO on a GPU
Everything gets complicated here, since what we have is precisely a disassembly of the graphics card that can and surely should incur a loss of warranty, where by removing EVGA the rest of the manufacturers do not tolerate it.
For this reason, we have to assume that risk, which is a lot if we take into account that an AIO system for GPU is much more complex to install than that for CPU, there are much fewer models available and the problems are the same as those that we have specified in the section higher.
For this reason, the vast majority of users choose not to take the risks involved, that if they do, it is preferable to go from AIO to custom liquid cooling , which would be ideal, but then the level of knowledge needs to be much higher and also the price is shoot. Therefore, this type of product, such as an AIO, is recommended for summer and in fact for the whole year, but knowing these risks, the choice is something personal.
