Top positive review
5 people found this helpful
What's cooler than cool?
By Keith Cyphers on Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2021
3 Months In Edit: Just wanted to update this with some more positive impressions. It's been a few months and I am still very happy with this AIO cooler. One thing I wanted to revise is some of the temps below. Maybe I was measuring things wrong, or hadn't gotten the fans dialed in exactly. The idle temps are indeed low 30s (sometimes as low as high 20s,) but under load the thing doesn't budge beyond 45c. It's really quite impressive. Now attached is a new screenshot of a couple temp programs running alone a Prime95 torture test. First, a purchasing note: I ordered this Tuesday afternoon and Amazon delivered it by 1PM Wednesday. Go off, Amazon. It's a bummer that folks are peeing in jars to do this but can't argue with the results. My prior cooling solution was a Corsair H100i that was on its last legs. My CPU (a relatively ancient i5 7600k) was idling in the 50s, and occasionally getting to the tj. max of 100c under load. Needed an upgrade. The good: temps are now in the freezer. My CPU is idling at 30c, under load it gets into the 60s. I ran the stress test in CPU-Z for 30 minutes and it never got above 65c. The pump light is really pretty cool looking. If you haven't gotten sick of vaporwave aesthetics, it's rainbow is something right out of 1987 as imagined by 15 year olds in 2019. Quiet operation. Not noticeably louder than the prior setup despite the extra fan. The OK: Installation was easy enough. On an 115x platform the backing plate goes on, the risers get screwed in, the pump goes on the risers, easy peasy. Putting the fans on the radiator, very easy. Screwing the radiator into the case a little bit more tricky. There are a dozen screws and I ended up only being able to use 10 because the radiator and the case weren't quote flush at the front. The radiator seemed square so maybe it's a problem with the case (old NZXT. Nice case.) So far, doesn't seem to be causing any kind of vibration. There is no software. This is a true neutral observation. The Corsair uses a program that allows the pump and radiator fans to be controlled along with setting RGB colors on the pump. Mostly I used it to troubleshoot because the CPU was running so dang hot. Not having any software for a AIO heatsink seems.. fine. I don't really want to control the fans. The pump RGB can be controlled with a little box, which is smartly magnetic so it just hangs on the back of the case. There's a wire running that I don't love but maybe I'll find a more beautiful solution eventually. Apparently there is a way to control the pump RGB using something called "ARGB" which is a feature on newer motherboards. My older board doesn't have it, so it's the box or nothing. Quality of all the hardware is nice. Everything looks well made, screwed in together without grinding, feels like quality kit. The bad: Nothing. Very happy overall. I guess the installation instructions are very barebones. It's like Ikea diagrams. There is a note in the manual that says the pump may make some noise for the first 15 minutes, and to just wait and "chill out" if it happens. I know how these things work so no trouble, but if this is your first AIO cooler install you might need to watch some how-to videos. Aside from a couple minor issues, this thing is great. On a 10 point scale, I'd probably give it 9. On a five, I'm gonna go ahead and say the good outweighs the bad and say 5/5. If you are looking for an AIO and your case can handle the big boy radiator, this thing delivers.
Top critical review
1 people found this helpful
Impressive...ly bad fans.
By Sophie on Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2020
Lets start with the pump: It's fine. At full power it exhibits a bit of a hum consistent with most AIOs, but falls largely silent at 10v. Starting voltage is 5v, though it'll run down to 3 before stalling. I won't be doing performance testing here as I lack the tools and a 360mm aio is probably going to be fine through sheer brute force regardless of quality. These fans though... they're a special kind of awful. Like, Impressively awful. The bearings are louder than even the cheapo freebie fans you get from budget cases. They're so bad I had to look up what bearing CM used here and it basically reset my expectations entirely. I normally wouldn't ever think CM would cheap out enough to ship sleeve bearing, but here we are. Not only are sleeves the shortest lived bearing type, they can't be used in a vertical orientation (such as the front of the case) without significant life reduction. But it doesn't stop there, I tested a few other cheapy sleeve bearing fans I had sitting around and these are STILL louder. I don't know what these bearings are made of (Leftover metal shavings? Sawdust? cheese?) but they managed to earn the illustrious spot of "Loudest fan bearing in my entire collection", prying it away from the free unbranded 80mm fan that came with a cheap case I got in the late 90s. This is made all the more amusing by the fact that CM seems proud of these monstrosities, and loudly advertise them on the product page. I suppose they deserve some credit for the nice looking housing and built-in vibration dampers, but none of that really matters when the bearing produces more noise than the fan itself. Granted, you get what you pay for, and this is one of the cheapest 360mm AIOs on the market. I bought this assuming I'd probably end up replacing the fans anyway, but even my rock bottom expectations were too high for these abominations. So if you're looking for a budget AIO to toss your own fans on, this should be right up your alley. Noctua Redux fans are a good budget choice, get the high pressure version. But if you're planning to use it as-configured, look elsewhere. You can usually spend another $20-$30 to get quality fans on an AIO from other companies, which have proper bearings; and honestly even stuff in this price range should at least have rifle bearings so they don't self destruct when used vertically
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