5 Disadvantages of Liquid Cooling You Need to Know About

This is where liquid cooling comes in. Water has a much higher heat capacity than air, meaning it can absorb and move more heat. As such, liquid cooling provides much better heat dispersion for setups that can get extremely hot, as well as sleeker designs, less noise, and other benefits.

However, it’s not all good, as liquid cooling and all-in-one (AIO) coolers have many drawbacks – which include a liquid cooling mechanism and associated components – that you need to know about before deciding whether to get an air cooler or a liquid cooler. These include higher prices, greater complexity, and a general lack of need among most users.

Liquid coolers are generally more expensive than air coolers, which makes sense. They’re more complex and more expensive to produce, but that also means you get more performance for paying more, right? Not exactly. Liquid coolers dissipate heat better because water has a higher heat capacity. This means that at the highest level, any water cooler will outperform the best air coolers. However, most people don’t have computers that require this level of cooling, and in practice, you often end up paying twice or even three times as much for something that will do the same job.

To evaluate this, we can refer to a test conducted by the YouTube channel Tech Notice that compares different PC coolers. In testing, the Deepcool AK620 Zero Dark, at around $75, performed better than the $250 NZXT Kraken Elite, although only just. AIO liquid coolers offer better cooling, but the difference isn’t that big, and the large price premium makes it even less worth it if you’re prioritizing cooling alone. For most people, getting a better air cooler instead of an expensive AIO is one of the cheapest ways to upgrade their PC.

Liquid cooling offers the potential for much better cooling, but that’s not the only reason people opt for it. Virtually any high-quality air cooler can provide sufficient cooling for even the most intensive setups. A much bigger benefit for most users is the lower noise levels of liquid coolers compared to air coolers. However, this is not always true either.

The faster a fan moves, the more heat it will disperse and the louder it will be. The opposite is also true: a slower fan may dissipate less heat but will be quieter. If you’re dealing with low thermal loads, you can reduce your fans’ speed to a level where they are almost silent – around 300 rpm (revolutions per minute) – and even lower if needed. The same is not true with liquid cooling.

A water pump produces a certain level of noise as it pumps coolant through the AIO tubes. Unlike fan speeds, you can’t simply reduce the pump’s power to lower the noise it makes. This leads to a situation where air coolers can be much quieter than air cooling during basic office work, and sometimes even when your computer is under heavy load.

Installing a traditional air cooler is very simple. You find a fan of the right size, screw it into position, then connect it to the power supply. This simple process becomes much more tedious when using AIO liquid coolers because there are more parts to work with.

Before AIO coolers became available, installing a custom liquid cooler was extremely complicated and fraught with risks. AIOs greatly improve things, but they are still much more difficult and time-consuming to install than air coolers.

A liquid cooler typically consists of a block of water that cools your components, a pump that transports the coolant once it’s heated, tubes through which the water flows, and a radiator and fans to dissipate the heat. Each part must be connected separately, making the installation process much more complicated than simply screwing in a single fan.

One reason PCs last longer than laptops and other prebuilt devices is the ability to swap parts. However, it’s still a chore, and unless you’re looking to upgrade your PC, the only reason you’ll need to replace parts is if one is broken. Fortunately, you don’t have to replace a cooler often, but its lifespan depends on its type.

Anyone who has used a traditional air cooler knows that they can last an absurd amount of time. It’s not uncommon for an air cooler to last a decade, and even when it breaks, it’s often just a matter of properly dusting it and replacing the fan, rather than upgrading to a whole new cooler. This is because air coolers are simple and have few potential failure points. The only moving component is a simple fan, and there aren’t many different parts holding everything together.

Liquid coolers are often called all-in-one coolers for a reason: as the name suggests, there are many more parts to work with. The water block, pump, radiator, fans, tubes, and even the coolant inside the unit all operate as separate components that can fail. Unlike air coolers, you also can’t replace a single part (unless it’s a custom liquid cooler), which means you’ll have to get an entirely new cooler instead. This is why AIO liquid coolers typically last five to eight years, compared to air coolers, which can last indefinitely.

One of the biggest concerns people have when choosing a liquid cooler is that it could leak and fry their expensive graphics card. This makes sense because water and electricity have never gone well together. However, the coolant inside AIOs is almost always a non-conductive mixture of distilled or deionized water and glycol. This means that even if your AIO coolers leaked, the liquid wouldn’t short-circuit your entire system, at least if you clean it up immediately.

However, this does not mean that there are no other dangers. Even though the liquid is non-conductive, continued and prolonged exposure to moisture can corrode components over time. Since liquid cooler leaks are much harder to detect than air cooler leaks (with an air cooler, you’ll immediately notice the fan has stopped), you may go for hours or even days before you notice a leak. By then the liquid may have already damaged your components.

It is also important to note that AIO liquid cooler leaks are quite rare, at least for the first 5-7 years. Yet when one stroke of bad luck can cause your entire PC setup – often worth thousands of dollars – to completely break down, you can never be too careful. In general, if you’re considering purchasing a liquid cooler, choose one from a reputable brand with strong consumer and expert ratings, and double-check the warranty to ensure it covers any collateral damage from a leak.