The best AIO coolers for your PC in 2022

The Corsair iCUE H100i RGB Pro XT is the result of Corsair’s years of making AIO coolers. Now fitted with support for the iCUE software, you can sync up all of your various RGB accessories for a unified look inside your build. Additionally, the software allows you to check on your CPU and coolant temperature to make sure everything is running smoothly.

In addition to a 240mm radiator, the kit comes with two Corsair ML120 fans. They have a massive range that you can control with PWM, from 400 rpm up to 2,400 rpm. In iCUE, you can also configure a profile to turn the fans off when temperatures are low.

When it comes to raw thermal performance, the Arctic Liquid Freezer II is the best 360mm AIO cooler on the market. It reaches similar performance to competing coolers at NZXT and Corsair while being very inexpensive. The 360mm option is only $125, while the NZXT Kraken X73 — another 360mm AIO — clocks in at nearly $200. The price is even more impressive when you consider the cooler’s features. In particular, the pump is controlled by PWM, allowing it to modulate with the workload rather than run at full speed all the time.

Although significantly more expensive than the Liquid Freezer II, NZXT’s third generation of Kraken X coolers are worth their asking price. This 240mm model clocks in at around $130, which still isn’t too expensive. The design is much more appealing than Arctic’s offering while achieving similar levels of thermal performance.

For looks, the Kraken X’s infinity mirror pump cap is a showstopper. It bounces light around inside the cap to create the illusion of infinite LED rings. Like nearly all NZXT products, the Kraken X53 is fully integrated with CAM, allowing you to monitor temperatures and tweak your lighting settings. Over the X52, the X53 also includes an NZXT Hue 2 connection on the pump, offering power for up to six Hue 2 accessories. If you want to trick out your rig with synced-up RGB, the NZXT Kraken X53 is for you.

Unsurprisingly, socket support is excellent, with support for TR4 and AM4 on AMD, and LGA115X, 20XX, and 1,200 on Intel. NZXT rates the Kraken X53 for six years of continuous use — 60,000 hours, technically — which is around what we’d expect for most AIO coolers. NZXT offers a six-year warranty, though, so you’re covered from any defects for the rated life of the cooler.

120 mm AIOs usually aren’t very good, but the Corsair H80i v2 is the best 120 mm AIO around. Without proper surface area on the radiator, most 120 mm coolers just aren’t up to snuff when it comes to cooling power. The Corsair H80i v2 solves that problem. The radiator is twice as thick, clocking in at 49mm compared to the standard 25mm. The H80i v2 doesn’t match the cooling performance of a 240mm radiator, but it gets a lot closer than a standard 120 mm one. And the Corsair H80i is still relatively cheap at around $100.

To get through the extra thick radiator, Corsair includes two SP120L PWM fans, so it’s easy to set up a push-pull configuration, but you’ll need to factor in the extra thickness of such a configuration when mounting.

Cooler Master offers a range of “lite” AIOs, which are basically previous iterations of Cooler Master’s MasterLiquid line with increased socket support and double FEP tubing. At around $80, the Cooler Master ML240L v2 is the best budget AIO available. It comes with a 240mm radiator, two RGB fans, and a small RGB controller. Thermal performance isn’t great, and the noise level is higher than some more costly options. However, the ML240L clocks in around $50 cheaper than most competing 240mm AIOs. Plus, you can always swap the fans out later for more lighting options and slightly better noise levels.

The Cooler Master ML240L comes with nearly universal socket support, too. On Intel, it supports LGA1200, LGA20xx, LGA115x, and LGA1366, and on AMD, it supports AM2 to AM4, as well as FM2 and FM1. For the price, it’s hard to beat the ML240L.

The Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora is a CPU cooler that you can refill. Unlike other AIO liquid coolers, you can swap out the fluid, upgrade the hoses and fittings, and even expand the loop. The most recent model supports digital RGB on the fans and CPU block, too, allowing you to trick out your lighting however you want.

The looks are right, but Alphacool didn’t sacrifice thermals with the Eisbaer Aurora. The radiator is made out of copper for a little extra cooling potential, and the nickel-plated copper CPU block has been slightly enlarged compared to previous versions. For CPU support, the Eisbaer Aurora supports most modern processors, though it doesn’t officially support Threadripper chips.

The most important part of an AIO CPU cooler is the radiator size. A larger radiator offers better cooling performance, but you need to make sure it can fit inside your case. Otherwise, look at the socket support to make sure you can use the cooler with your motherboard and buy from a reputable brand.

Most AIO coolers have a lifespan of six years, regardless of if they have RGB or not. You can expect an AIO cooler from a reputable brand to run for six years without issues, but every cooler is a little different. We recommend looking up individual AIO cooler reviews to see if others have had issues with reliability.

Before buying an AIO cooler, you need to know about the risks it may pose to your PC. Although failures are few and far between, every AIO cooler is still putting water dangerously close to your precious PC components, so there’s always a risk that the cooler could leak or fail and damage your parts. The fact that AIO coolers are closed makes matters worse because you can’t open the loop to see if there are any problems.

The best way to mitigate risk is to keep an eye on your cooler to see if there are any signs of leaking and to monitor your CPU temperature to see if the pump is failing. As long as you keep an eye on both, you can find most problems before they do any catastrophic damage.

In a typical setup, yes, liquid cooling is simply better at capturing and dissipating heat than an air cooling system alone — however, they aren’t necessarily better than the best air coolers.  AIO coolers are a popular option to add liquid cooling because they offer the whole cooling system in a premade package that’s relatively easy to set up, and they tend to be very quiet.

That being said, AIO coolers may not be the best choice for every gaming station. As we mentioned above, not all PC cases have a lot of room to add a radiator, pump, and tubing. If you aren’t interested in overclocking and your current system manages temperatures just fine, you may not see a lot of benefit from switching to an AIO cooler, either.

That depends on several factors. The pump that moves the liquid in the cooler is typically silent or at least inconsequential compared to other PC noises. AIO models usually have fans, which will get noisy if they operate at high speed or are dirty. You can decrease fan noise by keeping them free of dust and monitoring their settings via the BIOS if possible. The good news is that, with liquid cooling, fans usually don’t have to work as hard and are less likely to make lots of noise.