Which one your build actually wants.

Air cooling vs Liquid (AIO)

A cooler has one job: move the processor's heat into the room without making a racket. Both kinds do it well at the same price. What actually separates them is what fits in your case, what is above your memory, and how you feel about a pump.

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Side by side

Specification	Air cooling	Liquid (AIO)
Typical capacity	150–280 W for a good dual-tower	240–400 W depending on radiator length
What limits the fit	Height, and clearance over the memory slots	Whether the case takes that radiator length
Moving parts	Fans only	Fans and a pump
Expected life	A decade or more; fans are replaceable	Typically five to seven years, then the pump is the limit
Noise at idle	Silent — the fans can stop entirely	A pump hum is always present, however faint
Effect on the case	Dumps heat inside, so the case fans matter more	Moves heat straight out through the radiator
Failure mode	A fan gets noisy; temperatures creep up slowly	The pump stops and the processor overheats immediately
Small cases	Low-profile coolers exist down to 37 mm	Often the only way to cool a hot chip in an ITX build

Which to pick

You want the machine to be quiet at idle. A good tower with the fans stopped makes no noise at all, and a pump cannot match that.
You want it to still be working in ten years. There is nothing in an air cooler to wear out but the fan, and fans are a few euros.
Your processor is 150 W or below, where a dual-tower has capacity to spare and a radiator solves a problem you do not have.

Which to pick

The processor is a 200 W-plus part under sustained load, where a 360 or 420 mm radiator has headroom no tower matches.
The case has no room above the socket but plenty on the top or front panel — a common shape in modern chassis.
You want tall memory, an unobstructed view of the board, or a display on the pump block. These are aesthetic reasons and they are perfectly valid ones.

Frequently asked questions

Is liquid cooling always better?

No. At the same price a good dual-tower matches a 240 mm AIO and beats a 120 mm one, while being quieter at idle and lasting longer. Liquid pulls ahead at 360 mm and above, and in cases where a tall cooler simply does not fit.

Can an AIO leak?

It is rare in a sealed unit from a reputable maker, and most carry a warranty that covers the parts it would damage. The far more common end is the pump simply wearing out, which is why an AIO has a service life where an air cooler does not.

Where should the radiator go?

At the top, exhausting upwards, is the usual answer: it keeps the pump below the highest point of the loop, which stops air collecting in it. Front-mounted works and cools the processor slightly better, at the cost of warming the air the graphics card gets.

Will a big cooler block my memory?

It can, and it is worth checking before buying. Dual-tower coolers usually clear standard-height sticks and collide with tall RGB ones; the fix is either low-profile memory or sliding the cooler's front fan upwards, which costs a little performance.

How do I know my cooler is enough?

Compare its rated capacity in watts against the processor's TDP, and leave some margin — a cooler rated at exactly the chip's TDP will hold it in the high eighties. The assembly simulator on this site does the comparison for you and warns when it is tight.