# Are AIO fans important in 2021? (and related CPU heat discussion)



## Gandyman

Hey guys,

Been trying to look into fan reviews, and it seems most are just semi-paid advertisements for mainstream brands, so hard to find some objective information.

My question is: Do fans (brand/type) even matter on an AIO radiator? I would have presumed as long as there is air moving through your radiator, having it move slightly faster or slightly quieter wouldn't really matter, so just go for whatever looks/rgb elements you want for your build. But I would love to be proven wrong.

I have a EK360 and I've been using the oldschool colourd-ring Corsair SP120 x6 in push/pull in a core p3 case. I have been told by randoms here on OC that my fans are 'garbage' and are what is limiting my 10900k OC. I am skeptical however. In a lot of overclocking current gen Intel videos I see, they are running 5.1/5.2 ghz all cores, with quite generous voltage, and run cinebench and get 60-70c, when I am almost thermal throttling at 5hz at my lowest truly stable voltage. My theory on this is that they aren't truly stable, as I can bump down my voltage and temps quite a bit and pass 5+ hours of cinebench/realbench, but crash to desktop with WHEA errors in games that I know are CPU stability harsh. But I would really like to definitively get to the bottom of whats going on. I swapped out my Corsair h150i for the EK360, incase there was something wrong with the h150i. But results were basically Identical at load, however Idle temps dropped slightly. Now I'm considering changing the fans to 6x NF-F12 push-pull but as they are $55 each here that's quite a bit of expense if the differences in AIO fans are negligible. My other idea is to change motherboards from the Aorus Ultra to the Strix-E to see if a different brands power delivery makes a difference to how much power my particular CPU needs to be properly stable.

Whats you guys thoughts?


----------



## The Pook

you're not going to drop 30c with new fans if that's what you're asking, lol. you're not going to go from thermal throttling to "60-70c" load temps with new fans, at least. 

10900K is a hot CPU and you've got mid-range cooling. If you want "60-70c" load temps you need a real loop and not an AIO (or find an igloo).


----------



## o1dschoo1

The Pook said:


> you're not going to drop 30c with new fans if that's what you're asking, lol. you're not going to go from thermal throttling to "60-70c" load temps with new fans, at least.
> 
> 10900K is a hot CPU and you've got mid-range cooling. If you want "60-70c" load temps you need a real loop and not an AIO (or find an igloo).


Unless he tosses deltas and runs them full blast  
There's a 15c difference between my deltas running half speed and full speed last time I tested it. I was only running single rad at that point though


----------



## The Pook

you're running an actual loop, no? cut your flow rate by ~90% and try it again.

running better fans on my H115i got me less noise and similar performance but even with my iPPC 3000s at 100% I'm not dropping 30c, lol.


----------



## 8051

The Pook said:


> you're running an actual loop, no? cut your flow rate by ~90% and try it again.
> 
> running better fans on my H115i got me less noise and similar performance but even with my iPPC 3000s at 100% I'm not dropping 30c, lol.


Are AIO flow rates that bad relative to custom loops?


----------



## o1dschoo1

8051 said:


> Are AIO flow rates that bad relative to custom loops?


Yes lol.


----------



## Gandyman

So the difference between using 6x ML120 or NF-12 or NZXT aer or Kaze Flex on a 360 aio is going to be virtually non existant?

This Video he says he set from1.3 - 1.35 *load* voltage with a nzxt kraken aio before hitting thermal limits to get 5.2ghz on the worst of his two CPUs. Which is odd beacuse at 5.0 and 1.28 load I'm hitting 95c ish on all 10 cores after only a few loops.


Spoiler











This Video he says he was running 5.2 ghz at 1.42v and was able to loop Cinebench for "over a hour without any issues" (10:20 Video Timestamp) using a NZXT Kraken z73


Spoiler











This guy is using a ARTIC Liquid Freezer II 360. 5.2 Ghz. Hottest core was 75c, with 1.314v 


Spoiler











So why am I getting 5.0 GHz maximum, with less Vcore, and hitting thermal throttle territory?? The only Thing I see in common as they are all on Asus boards, and I'm on a Aorus Ultra. Something is wrong here.


----------



## Awsan

100 of factors, might be the mounting is skewed a little, it might be that your thermal paste application was not good, it might be a defective cooler, it might be that your cpu or cooler (Or both) are not as straight as his (Lapping?) so it can be anything even the airflow in your case vs his case.


----------



## The Pook

Gandyman said:


> So the difference between using 6x ML120 or NF-12 or NZXT aer or Kaze Flex on a 360 aio is going to be virtually non existant?


if "virtually non-existent" is dropping temps <30c, then yes. 

take off 3 fans, run either push _or_ pull. how much do your temps go up?


----------



## bigjdubb

Adding 3 more fans to my corsair 360 doesn't really do much for cooling potential, but it does allow lower rpms for the same potential. The stock fans can outpace the aio without much trouble. The same six fans used to did a great job of cooling a cpu and gpu on a 65mm thick radiator in a custom loop, now they barely get the job done cooling a cpu on the corsair 360 rad.

You will need to forget the AIO acronym if you need high performance cooling. They are meant to be a replacement for using an air cooler, not a simple to use replacement for a custom loop.


----------



## Gandyman

To anyone who cared about my thread, or stumbles upon this in the future, I found out why my CPU was acting so bad compared to others. After swapping motherboard and AIO, I ended up with the help of others determining that there was most likely cracks in the solder and / or substrate that were making my core deltas huge, and over all temps and vcore needed really high.

After getting a new CPU my temps and performance and vcore needed for stable clocks are in line with the videos.

Moral of the story is, never get a 10900KA, the terribleness of the Avengers 'game' seems to have seeped into the silicone itself, as while doing research everyone I came across with bad CPU were all 'A' SKU. 

Ive been building PC's since 1999 and profesionally since 2006 and it was my first ever bad Intel CPU.

And as to the original topic of AIO fans, I have 6 fans in push pull, and after testing heaps with the new CPU, it seems that the fan speed only really helps after long sessions of heat, once the liquid gets fully saturated with heat and then only after a long while. I tested a 1 hour realbench at 40% and 100% aio fan speed, and only by the end of the hour was the CPU temp a little hotter.


----------

