Yeah. That tells you how much I'm off the loop for thinking 80mm fans are still doable
And your note brings me to another thought; This whole thing about moving the cooling process to the computer chassis (instead of on top of the processor) greatly contributes to the all-in-one liquid cooling versatility and room for future expansion. Would you agree? It's a nice side effect to water cooling that, I think, is at the core of the technology ability to adapt and improve itself. It's definitely a solution that is going to stay.
I mean, there's so much air cooling can do on top of the processor without that starting to become an issue. Who knows, maybe even forcing board manufacturers to rethink their designs. And we are starting to see these problems with the more recent generation of air coolers. From memory clearance issues, to weight issues. But water cooling in general moves the bulk of the cooling process to the chassis where it is much easier and cheaper to adapt to new sizes. Chassis manufacturers can easily design new solutions to larger radiators without even a fraction of the difficulties board manufacturers would face. Meanwhile, cooler manufacturers themselves can more easily improve on their current designs (including size and weight) without so many clearance problems.
