XPS 8950, i7 air-cooled vs water-cooled?

My water-cooled i7 8950 should be here Wednesday, so I'll give you my opinion on the noise in a few days. From the research I've done it seems like the latest version of the water-cooled XPS is better than the air-cooled but I am not sure by how much. I don't think the risk of leaking is very high. couldn't find anyone complaining about that. 

I'm especially curious re: how hot the CPU gets with max-load with the upgraded air-cooler, vs. water-cooled.

user feedback was premium tower air cooler (Dell calls it “advanced air cooling”) is more quiet compared to AIO liquid cooler which has some liquid pump noise (some even say very loud which is subjective).  You do not need to be over worried about liquid leak inside a desktop as this is a closed loop oem liquid cooler made by Asetek a well known AIO maker that makes so many of these and almost never heard of a leak, although never say never.

both cool i7 12th gen performed reasonably well in user conducted stress test.  In the end the preference is noise and style.  If you do not like to see liquid tubes hanging inside chassis and you are very particular about noise then go w premium tower air cooler.

kras1 had i7-12700k AIO which “settled in at 77 degrees. I ran the test for 30 min and after the initial temp spike never went above 80. No thermal throttle.”

billyjk had i7-12700 premium air cooler which “With the premium cooler, the same test did not allow the processor to exceed 72C, with a running temp of about 60C.  Temps during low utilization dropped to 28C.”

I have a XPS 8950 with a i7 12700(nonK). I elected to use the Dell premium air cpu cooler due to it is a simple swap. I have found the cpu temperatures at 100% utilization around 72C while at idle around 24C. My system is very quiet.

As redxps630 mentioned some have complained about the AIO pump noise.

Hope this helps.

I would love to hear what temps people see with the 12700K, with premium air-cooled.

Thanks to all for the posts above!  I am surprised at the rapidity of the responses!

The stock liquid cooling seemed to work pretty good. I put an aftermarket AIO in because of the pump noise at idle. The aftermarket cools better by about 2 degrees and was only a bit quieter. If I had to do it all over again, I would just leave the stock AIO in. The stock AIO was no where near silent like the advertisement said but it wasn't nearly as obnoxious as some of us made it out to be either. (The first stock AIO I had was LOUD, Dell replaced it and the replacement was definitely quieter.) I was just really frustrated with a PC that I was expecting to be near silent and it was anything but. I have no doubt that the premium air cooler is quieter at idle but I would be willing to bet that the AIO is much quieter under heavy load. I know with the stock AIO I was actually pretty impressed with how quiet it was under heavy load/ stress testing. If you are getting a "K" series CPU, I would still recommend the liquid cooling but if you don't plan to run your PC under heavy loads for long periods or very often, I think you will be happy with the premium air cooler. Another thing to keep in mind is that @smokeygraypoupon  had his non "K" series 12700 running in the low 70's (C) with a premium air cooler and that is only a 65 watt TDP CPU. My 12700K was running in the mid to upper 70"s (C)  with the stock AIO and that is a 125 watt TDP CPU. So to me it is clear that the liquid cooling does perform better but lets be honest, most of us aren't running our CPU at 100% utilization all the time, for me that only happens when stress testing.

It may be a futile exercise to wish for good cpu temp using Dell premium air cooler for i7-12700k overclocked.  True that some expensive high end air cooler may beat some low end liquid cooler, but the Dell premium cooler is probably not one of those stellar air cooler.

on the other hand, the noise from the Dell liquid pump could be from high rpm of radiator fan because bios automatically cranks up fan when it senses cpu temp is rising steeply.  This high fan noise is expected but not welcomed.  It is simply very difficult to cool overclocked -k cpu using a 120 mm radiator. This lesson had been learnt well in Aurora R13 which was said to have “loud fans under load.”  High fan spin can only compensate to a limited degree of the inadequacy of 120 mm rad. 

So this comes down to a design limitation of 8950.  Its premium air cooler is great for the non-k cpu based on user feedback.  otoh its 120mm AIO is not great for -k cpu.  you may keep the temp down to some degree but have to put up with high fan noise.  user who want a quiet -k cpu based XPS that is cooled effortlessly may have to wait for the next 8960 to see Dell respond to community by putting a 240 mm AIO in XPS.

PS A common rule of thumb that has been passed around the online forums is that you should dedicate 120mm (or 140mm) of radiator space per component that is to be cooled, with an additional 120mm (or 140mm) of radiator space if you are going to be overclocking. Following this rule means that you’d have to dedicate 240mm of radiator space to a single overclocked component (EKWB)

The noise was definitely from the pump. When dell replaced the AIO they only replaced the radiator and pump and reused the fan. It got much quieter. I tried disconnecting the fans to see if they were the culprits, they weren't. When I disconnected the pump the noise was gone. It isn't obnoxious but it is not completely silent either. I am actually using the stock fan with my aftermarket 120mm AIO. (To avoid BIOS errors.) They ramp up somewhat pretty quickly but never get anywhere near the max RPM. I was surprised that the fans weren't louder during stress testing. I agree that the temps I was getting with the stock AIO and even with the aftermarket are not great, but it did/does keep the PC from thermal throttling. I would say that is about as much as a person could ask for with a 120mm AIO. If over-clocking is involved, I doubt that a 120mm would be enough.

As newer components are being released with higher and higher power draw, the "120mm of rad per component" rule of thumb from 2016 has been updated to "120mm of rad per 100 watts of power". Your point about 120mm rad being insufficient is accurate.

In a way - yes but not entirely right, new electronics comes on a smaller lithography and better power efficiency, therefore actually reducing Watt-per-unit-of-Performance (or increasing performance per Watt).
but since performance of newer generation is higher - then total power consumption changes can go either way.

When planning a liquid cooling solution you design for the maximum power consumption, regardless of efficiency

nVidia RTX 2080 Ti = 260 watts

nVidia RTX 3090    = 350 watts

nVidia RTX 4090   = 450 watts

. . . lithography not withstanding

@kras1​ I came to the same conclusion, I have replaced the fan with a noctua 120mm and that helped a lot but yes the pump its self is a constant hum.  I will be swapping this for a premium fan cooled version as a result.