Modern PC enthusiasts might make you feel as if your rig doesn't have a glowing 360mm radiator with an LCD screen that you can put a GIF of a dancing anime girl on; it'll feel unfinished. Liquid cooling has become a fashion statement, and for the vast majority of CPUs, whether it is Ryzen or Intel, a massive radiator is overkill that adds complexity, costs a lot, and does little to your overall performance.

If you're not particularly fussed about aesthetics, and you just want the best price-to-performance ratio, then opting for a $50 dual-tower air cooler can provide you with the same thermal headroom as a midrange all-in-one cooler, with zero risk of leaks and a $100 saving that you can put towards a much better graphics card or other upgrades.

Meet the AIO Killer

The Thermalright Peerless Assassin decimates most AIO coolers

Thermalright absolutely crashed the market with their Peerless Assassin 120 SE air cooler. It offers 6-7 heat pipes and dual 120mm fans for under $40. While it doesn't look like the flashiest cooler on the market and certainly won't turn any heads in terms of aesthetics, in terms of performance alone, it provides a similar, if not identical, temperature to many leading all-in-one coolers.

Performance data shows that it can keep a Ryzen 7800X3D or an Intel i7-14700K at virtually identical gaming temperatures when compared to a 240mm or 360mm all-in-one. These sorts of all-in-one coolers will set you back $150 or more if you're opting for those flashier features or well-known brands.

I don't know what you might be thinking here, but an air cooler is louder than an AIO alternative. However, a hundred percent load AIO pumps plus three fans can be significantly noisier than two high-quality 120mm air fans.

The zero moving parts advantage

Save yourself the hassle of leaking AIOs

While all-in-one coolers might look cool, they have some pretty common failure points. One of the most common is pump failure, where the internal pump stops circulating coolant, which can cause the CPU to rapidly overheat, leading to thermal throttling, system instability, blue screens of death, or a whole load of other issues. Permeation, where the liquid inside your cooler evaporates over time, as well as the "one-in-a-million" leak, are also common issues when it comes to AIO options.

This is another fantastic benefit of opting for an air cooler. A fan might die in 10 years, and the total cost to fix it is $10. It's also maintenance-free, so you never have to worry about clogging or gurgling sounds. It's a hunk of metal and two fans that will likely outlive three different CPU upgrades, so long as you give it a dust every now and again.

Fan coolers have a much smaller margin for things to go wrong, thanks to the reliability and the minimal moving parts when compared to AIO coolers. Not only are you spending less initially, but you're also spending less on maintaining an air cooler in the long term.

The opportunity cost

Your money is better spent elsewhere

Let's say you spend $180 on a Corsair or NZXT AIO instead of $40 on a Peerless Assassin. Where does that $140 go? Well, in terms of a GPU, it's actually the difference between an RTX 4070 and an RTX 4070 Ti Super. If you're already covered on the GPU front, then you can get yourself a storage boost because it's the difference between a 1TB SSD and a 4TB Gen4 NVMe. Or you could double your RAM from 32GB to 64GB.

The potential couple of degrees of difference between an air cooler and an AIO cooler will never be able to give you the performance boost or convenience that a better GPU, more RAM, or significantly increased storage will provide. The sweet spot for cooling is currently sitting at $40. Don't let marketing make you feel like your PC is low-end just because it uses air instead of a fancy light-up cooler that can display GIFs. A PC that runs 5 degrees warmer but has a faster GPU is the better computer every single time.

If aesthetics and the style of your build are that fundamental to you, then, of course, opt for whichever cooler you want. But don't feel like these coolers do anything for your PC's performance compared to a standard $40 air cooler.