Can I ask why an AIO? Never put much stock in them personally, seeing as they can perform worse and can be louder than some air solutions.
pre joining bit-tech I was all over AIO coolers. Loved them. Now I agree with @adidan Just buy a nice air cooler such as noctua. They're quieter, cheaper and as @Gareth Halfacree once said "What's it going to do? Leak air all over my motherboard"
It would get pretty damn tight if you put an AIO in the top of that case, the problem is the close proximity of the case roof to the top of the mobo (potentially creating conflicts between mobo heatsinks and the AIO, the AIO blocking access to fan headers at the top of the mobo and so on). And when it comes to watercooling.... El-Cheapo AIOs are very much entry level, you don't really get the full benefits of going water unless you do it "properly" with a full custom loop (and trust me, you don't want to know what a nice custom loop or two costs). I'd go with a top notch air cooler (in no particular order): Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 / Pro 4 Noctua NH-D14 / NH-D15 And just skip the El-Cheapo AIOs.
I agree with @Anfield If you want to go water, go full on custom loop. At least then you have full control over the liquid, the pipes, the connections and so on. Otherwise i'd go air. Actually, i'd always go air anyway but that's me. An entry level AIO (actually any AIO) that introduces water anywhere near a system of mine, well, it may be an unfounded worry but it just wouldn't leave me feeling comfortable.
I'm running 3 AIO's but I bought them 4 or 5 years ago, still running strong. But 4 or 5 years ago the selection of good quality, silent air coolers for mATX cases was much smaller, they were all massive, crap quality or loud (with standard fans). If I was buying new now, I would get either one of the new Noctua's recently tested on bit-tech or a Dark Rock 4 as mentioned above.
I would. Edit: BT have a Dark Rock Slim review just up, it seems to just outperform the Dark Rock 4 for about the same cash, for example. Edit: Edit: The new Noctua NH-D12A (BT has a review of that too) is a better performer but that looks closer to £90.
My rule of thumb is, if you're going to move it a lot go for an AIO, if its going to be mostly stationary go for an air cooler!
By a tiny margin (and with a slightly faster spinning fan). AM4 compatibility for future proofing is the better argument for the slim (especially with Ryzen 3xxx on the horizon).
Faster spinning but apparently quieter according to techpower up https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/beQuiet/Dark_Rock_Slim/7.html
Top-end air coolers have got silly expensive and silly large imo - there is a point where a small AIO becomes a very valid option (if it were me and I had £80-90 to spend, I would put it on a decently reviewed AIO). Bring back the days of the Tuniq Tower 120 and TRUE!
Depends on the case. I ran an H55 in one of my recently sold mATX cases but it was fiddly due to the case being released before AIO's came out - I had to remove the rubber grommets for one of the front fans to get it to fit and it was probably the only AIO that would of fit due to the small size. If I had the same problem now I would go for an air cooler for simplicity. In addition, in that particular case I would not have been able to use a discrete GPU (luckily I only needed iGPU) due to the AIO tubes interferring. However, most modern cases nowadays have enough room for an AIO, usually on the rear exhaust mount. The problem with a lot of AIO's is that the fans are not the best or quietest, if you are fussy about noise then you buy better quality fans (e.g. Noctuas) then the total cost ends up being the same as the highest quality air cooler anyway. To be honest the best thing about air coolers is that there are no moving parts that you cannot replace easily, if your AIO pump goes or, god forbid you get a leak, you have to replace it all. I would add that I was really impressed by the review for the Noctua NH-U12A showing it performs better than all AIO's, even dual fan/radiator versions on S1151.
Its just extra expense, if you have (cheaper) fan splitters then you can run them all from your motherboard BIOS control - if its decent then you can set them all to PWM/DC speed control as well, linked to the CPU temperature.
Yep, negative pressure setups attract a lot of dust. I'd still go for air cooling unless you're going for an enormous number of cores/threads - the heat density on more mainstream parts doesn't really justify liquid cooling, unless you're planning to clock it's nuts off. I'd still argue that the money spent on a loop would be better spent on higher grade core components. Unless you're working without a budget and already have the top end parts, where a loop will give you performance not available elsewhere.
I'm running a 280mm Chinese AIO that my wife brought over for me. It was a third of the price of a high end air cooler and doesn't put any stress on the board. I've not done any testing but I think it allows from an unobstructed cross air-flow across motherboard components. A custom loop looks great but my case is facing the wrong way to show off. The cost too much and look a PIA to set up. I am very interested in this:
They said they are working on a consumer product, I'm disappointed to have not seen anything in the year since.
Using some of these would do it https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.p...custom-speed-controllers.375097/#post-4778896
They're 120mm The 72W of peak power may be more of a problem, I'm sure you'll get used to the 67dB of noise On a realistic note, it comes down to what you want. You probably can, but it'll be expensive and will probably make far more noise.
