> most CPUs can be cooled by a good tower cooler just fine Water coolers are definitely still an enthusiast part in my opinion. If you're satisfied with "just

> most CPUs can be cooled by a good tower cooler just fine Water coolers are definitely still an enthusiast part in my opinion. If you're satisfied with "just fine" then no, it's probably not worth it. It will give you better cooling per decibel but probably worse per dollar, at least on stock clocks. If you want to mess around with overclocking the advantage seems to become a bit bigger for AIOs as you crank up fan speeds.