The answer, as always is "it depends"
What AIO?
What case?
Most AIOs are actually not easily serviceable, they can definitely improve temps over most cheap air coolers, and further if you regularly swap out other components in the PC (GPU/CPU/Ram/M.2s etc) then they make life *sooooooooooooo* much easier, can also prevent damage when moving it about compared to a chonky air cooler
Some unique cases simply *require* an AIO (Look up the Segotep Phoenix , literally can't cool the CPU without an AIO in it)
But if you're going to just put the stuff in and want to not think about it at all for the next ~year, (you should be repasting it around every 1-2), don't want to deal with any potential failures, and rarely change components in there, a beefy Noctua NH-D15 is hands down the way to go
However, there are options like the Be Quiet Pure loop which *are* serviceable, they even come with an extra bottle of coolant
I will recommend this though: If your PC case cannot fit at least a 280mm AIO, preferably a 320mm+ AIO, imo don't even consider it for a 5800x3d or +5900x, or Intel comparable
I have a 280mm Be Quiet AIO with my 5900x as the intake, so it's getting cooling first, with both push *and* pull, and it's still getting worse temps than my Dark Rock Pro 4 air cooler did in an older case
14900k • Z790 Apex Encore • 4090 • 2x24Gb-8000 • 1200 Corsair Shift • 420mm Arctic II Push-Pull • Noctua • Fractal Torrent • Guilded.gg/justifiers
