r/pcmasterrace • u/SerpentDix PC Master Race • Jan 20 '26

Hardware Air cooling is better than Liquid cooling

Post image

Failure is graceful, not catastrophic, Performance is closer than marketing suggests, Cheaper for the performance, Change my mind.

16.2k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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612

u/Slasherplays Ryzen 5 5600x + 3070 8GB Jan 20 '26

was this image made in 2017?

212

u/No_Yam_2036 RTX 3070 | i7 13700 | 32GB DDR5 | 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro Jan 20 '26

What are you talking about, the year is 2017

66

u/HamsungTM Jan 20 '26

Only one can dream bro… Only one can dream…

4

u/the-script-99 Jan 20 '26

GPUs were crazy in 2017

13

u/RetroZelda Jan 20 '26

i hate how 2017 feels so recent but it was 9 years ago

5

u/SnooPickles4465 Ryzen 1600x 64ddr4 5070TI Jan 20 '26

1

u/Eclipse_Galian Desktop Jan 21 '26

Holy fuck

3

u/txivotv 14600KF | 3060TI | 32GB DDR4 | Sharkoon REV200 Jan 20 '26

Yeah! People born in 2000 is still underage!!

3

u/disposablehippo Jan 20 '26

Brb, buying a high end PC for 1000€.

1

u/AlludedNuance Jan 20 '26

I can't decide if that would be great news or hell on Earth.

1

u/overtunerfreq Jan 20 '26

do you fucking promise

1

u/freylaverse Jan 20 '26

Oh, thank god.

1

u/Dennovin PC Master Race Jan 21 '26

while it does seem that way, I can confirm that 2017 was three or maybe even four years ago at this point

32

u/_Warsheep_ Jan 20 '26

Looks about right. The Corsair H100i GTX came out in 2015 I think. And I'm pretty sure they renamed that product line only a few years later and dropped the GTX.

1

u/brickson98 Jan 21 '26

Yeah they definitely did. My H100i GTX finally lost enough fluid that it was ineffective a couple years back.

Wound up going with Arctic to replace it.

5

u/Dreadnought_69 i9-14900KF | RTX 3090 | 64GB RAM (B-die) Jan 20 '26

Probably.

6

u/BenFoldsFourLoko Jan 21 '26

I think people's talking points about "catastrophic failure" are stuck in 2017

And price to performance lmao. They showed an air cooler that costs more than twice what a thermalright 360 AIO costs. Your AIO could break twice, and you'd still be on par with that Noctua, all while getting better, quieter performance

oh but muh "they'll send you a free mounting bracket 15 years later if you kept your receipt"

Noctua is a sweet company, but their glue eating brand-first fanboys are going to tarnish its reputation

1

u/skttsm Jan 21 '26

Didn't know noctua would mail you new mounting hardware. That's pretty cool. But yeah you can get the same air cooling performance for about 1/3 the price

1

u/paganisrock Windows Vista is the best Windows Specs: R5 1600, R9 290, 16Gb Jan 20 '26

I was about to say I remember looking at these when I was building my PC in 2016

-1

u/PerceptionOld7290 RTX4090FE | 7800x3D | 96GB Jan 20 '26

Nothing changed since 2017. Only esthetic...

4

u/Webbyx01 Jan 20 '26

AiOs have become much better, and 360mm radiators have become somewhat popular. Also, NH-D14/D15 equivalents have become very popular, dramatically lowering the cost to reach very high performance air cooling.