>>6614958Well, that depends. If you're going for looks, an AIO liquid cooler is certainly nice to have. In terms of price to performance, an air cooler is probably the better choice. As for volume, air coolers tend to be slightly quieter due to their lack of pumps and the fact that the radiator fans need to run faster than most CPU fans as they don't have a heat sink. For CPU heavy workloads, you'll find that air coolers run slightly hotter but the temps are also far more consistent which helps you avoid thermal throttling. There are nice looking air coolers like the Dark Rock series from Be Quiet!, but it's hard to beat an AIO in terms of esthetics.
If you're serious about overclocking or you have a chip that runs pretty toasty out of the box (mainly Skylake-X or Threadripper 2), a custom loop is probably your best option. They may be pricey, but it's worth it.
As for me, I'd never risk ruining my $3000 editing rig with liquid cooling. I run a 7820X with a 4.3 GHz OC on all cores using a Dark Rock Pro 4. Thermals are 30-37 °C when idle and 80-87°C during extended and intense workloads (video rendering).
