Best 360mm AIO Cooler?

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Gawd
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Looking for something that's reasonably quiet, but good performance for a 14700KF. I'd originally wanted an Arctic Freezer II, but it won't fit on an ASUS Strix 790-E, and I'm not prepared to file or drill a £450 motherboard..

Any suggestions?

*edit* original post was for a 280mm solution for a 13700K
 
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Thermalright Frozen Magic 280. Cheap and very effective. I wouldn't choose anything else for my own rig.
 
chameleoneel said:
EK's 240mm nucleus AIO beats all 280mm and rivals some 360mm. It also has a truly quiet pump.

The fans don't need to be tossed, either.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnyczud9yk
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I have the 360 version and it is indeed very nice. Also, I don't know why my phone sees pink, to my eye they are the same color as the mouse pad 🤷‍♂️

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I am new to AIO cooling and went with what I thought that I had remembered to be the first company to bring one to market, that being Corsair. While my memory may be faulty, my 150i Elite 360 mm keeps my i9 12900 very cool Update: 13900 very cool.
 
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The Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 looks really good for the price.

It had some issues initially, but it seems like they have it ironed out. I believe online retailers are just now receiving the 3rd revision, the stock had pretty much vanished last week when I started looking into said cooler.
 
I think the brand new EK one outperforms the 420 ones only being a 360. Something about the cold plate design is better. If I were to get an AIO and wanted the best I would go with the latest EK.
 
Just got a EKWB EK-Nucleus AIO 360 and love it! Much cooler temps than a Arctic Liquid Freezer II plus easier to deal with.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the Arctic Liquid Freezer II but it as just not very manageable with the water cooling tubes. Guess my case is too small idk.
 
ng4ever said:
Just got a EKWB EK-Nucleus AIO 360 and love it! Much cooler temps than a Arctic Liquid Freezer II plus easier to deal with.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the Arctic Liquid Freezer II but it as just not very manageable with the water cooling tubes. Guess my case is too small idk.
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Awesome. If i were to ever grab an AIO it would be this exact one. How much were you able to grab it for?
 
ng4ever said:
What makes it so good ?
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Last I checked reviews its performance was fantastic. It performed better than a competing arctic liquid freezer 420 while being smaller at 360mm. The cold plate/block itself it better engineered quality and does a better job of cooling the CPU. I have a lot of EK stuff highly recommend.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
Last I checked reviews its performance was fantastic. It performed better than a competing arctic liquid freezer 420 while being smaller at 360mm. The cold plate/block itself it better engineered quality and does a better job of cooling the CPU. I have a lot of EK stuff highly recommend.
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I like their live chat support too.
 
ng4ever said:
Just got a EKWB EK-Nucleus AIO 360 and love it! Much cooler temps than a Arctic Liquid Freezer II plus easier to deal with.

Don't get me wrong. I liked the Arctic Liquid Freezer II but it as just not very manageable with the water cooling tubes. Guess my case is too small idk.
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Just picked one of these up myself.
 
Gamers Nexus just tested the Arctic Freezer III and says it's the best sound normalized cooler.
View: https://youtu.be/zfffNRTOZCc?feature=shared I think the new design will also be easier to fit to pretty much any motherboard. It has the same performance as the EK Elite 360, but 13 dB quieter with both set to 100% fans.

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The Ryujin III is the best 360 AIO available but I'm not sure if its compatible with your socket. I would have got one, but it doesn't support my CPU socket. Instead, I got a Kraken Elite 360 since I can use the same hardware from the previous generation.
 
I'm interested in how the new Krakens from NZXT perform vs the competition. I've been using their 280mm Kraken x62 AIO for nearly 7 years now. Talk about reliable. The GN review above only tested the old NZXT models sadly.

I also like AIO makers that give us non-RGB options too.
 
Absalom said:
I'm interested in how the new Krakens from NZXT perform vs the competition. I've been using their 280mm Kraken x62 AIO for nearly 7 years now. Talk about reliable. The GN review above only tested the old NZXT models sadly.

I also like AIO makers that give us non-RGB options too.
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The 'Kraken' aios have a million names.... it's kinda annoying, imho. Are you talking about a 'vanilla' Kraken? Kraken 'Elite' or?
 
pavel said:
The 'Kraken' aios have a million names.... it's kinda annoying, imho. Are you talking about a 'vanilla' Kraken? Kraken 'Elite' or?
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Literally called The New Krakens on their website:

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But, yes, the names are more confusing now. Specifically I'm looking at the Kraken 360 (not Elite).
 
As I mentioned, I recently just replaced my x72 with the new Elite 360, non RGB. I'm actually getting a solid 5 degree jump in temperature when idling in the BIOS. This is with the same exact thermal paste under the same exact conditions. My x72 was still working fine but I thought I should replace it because it was 6 years old. Perhaps this was a mistake. Then again, this could just be my experience with the Elite 360.

Yes, I completely agree. I appreciate the non RGB coolers. I personally would never get a RGB AIO if a non RGB version is available.
 
I too have selected a new Liquid Freezer III based on reviews (and the exceptional prices at launch discount), and am currently determining if it will fit on my proposed mobo the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme which Arctic considers potentially incompatible due to the heatsink w/ the OLED on it (which it erroneously attributes to being a M.2. slot heatsink), but i've seen from other users that in fact it can fit though it is close. For anyone else considering, be sure to check - https://support.arctic.de/lf3-compatibility, but know even some that have a problem there may be a workaround even if not listed.

Edit: I have confirmed from 2 users on the overclock dot net forums mobo owner's thread, that the LFIII will in fact fit on the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme. "KedarWolf" showed it come extremely close to but fits without issue with the heatsink OLED while unmodified, another user "email.acc77" modified it slightly to remove the plastic cap over the tubing (this apparently takes 5 screws to remove, 3 on one side, 2 on the other) which gives a few more millimiters of clearance. Their pictures are included - good news for Asus Crosshair X670E Extreme users, and probably a few others as well.
 

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I'm also looking at the Liquid Freezer III 360 to potentially replace my aging (almost 5 years old) CoolerMaster ML360R.

What I find extremely annoying however is the obsessive focus on noise that almost every review seems to have these days. I really couldn't care less about noise. I want to know which 360 AIO performs best when using 6 loud 100+ CFM fans in push-pull with an aggressive fan-curve.
 
criccio said:
You're in an extreme minority, but I think you know that.
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Yeah, I'm not trying to convince anyone else that my way is better, I'm just trying to find out which AIO is best for my particular use-case scenario.
 
GotNoRice said:
Yeah, I'm not trying to convince anyone else that my way is better, I'm just trying to find out which AIO is best for my particular use-case scenario.
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I'm guessing that AIO wise the LF3 would be one of the better candidates given it has a thicker radiator than most others out there - 38mm vs 27mm for typical aluminum Asetek variation designs that are the majority of other models. There are a handful of AIOs out there that may be worthwhile but can't remember the newest off the top of my head.
 
GotNoRice said:
Yeah, I'm not trying to convince anyone else that my way is better, I'm just trying to find out which AIO is best for my particular use-case scenario.
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If you want max performance how about the EK nucleas direct die cooler? Or going custom loop? Because maxing out fans has a diminishing return where the noise increases after a certain point but the cooling doesn't lol.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
If you want max performance how about the EK nucleas direct die cooler? Or going custom loop?
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Too much effort and/or too expensive.

xDiVolatilX said:
Because maxing out fans has a diminishing return where the noise increases after a certain point but the cooling doesn't lol.
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Yes, but I doubt that point of diminishing returns is the exact same for every single radiator design. I'm sure that there are certain radiators that would benefit from more airflow more than others. That's the kind of info that seems difficult to find however. Also, since radiator airflow is also case airflow, I'm not worried about having "too much" airflow. Also, even though the fans have a high maximum CFM, I still use a fan curve and they still only ramp up to maximum when the temperature warrants it.
 
RanceJustice said:
I too have selected a new Liquid Freezer III based on reviews (and the exceptional prices at launch discount), and am currently determining if it will fit on my proposed mobo the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme which Arctic considers potentially incompatible due to the heatsink w/ the OLED on it (which it erroneously attributes to being a M.2. slot heatsink), but i've seen from other users that in fact it can fit though it is close. For anyone else considering, be sure to check - https://support.arctic.de/lf3-compatibility, but know even some that have a problem there may be a workaround even if not listed.

Edit: I have confirmed from 2 users on the overclock dot net forums mobo owner's thread, that the LFIII will in fact fit on the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme. "KedarWolf" showed it come extremely close to but fits without issue with the heatsink OLED while unmodified, another user "email.acc77" modified it slightly to remove the plastic cap over the tubing (this apparently takes 5 screws to remove, 3 on one side, 2 on the other) which gives a few more millimiters of clearance. Their pictures are included - good news for Asus Crosshair X670E Extreme users, and probably a few others as well.
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I just purchased the Liquid Freezer III as well, however mine is the 280 variation being mated to an undervolted and overclocked 5900X.
 
The LF III is probably the 'best' right now (for the price) but does anyone here have any opinions on the Thermalright AIO 360 coolers? I'm looking at them - they're cheap but have good reviews (majority/most of the time) - I was looking at Deepcools (e.g. LT360) but the Thermalright seem just as good but cheaper.
Thoughts?
The problem is that there's so many versions - and they have different hardware specs - which I believe is mostly the fan differences - but, the pump has different speeds to them, too?
I'm trying to compare the Frozen Edge & Frozen Notte, especially (although, one could compare them all - i.e. Frozen Prism, Frozen Aqua Elite, Notte, Edge) - not sure why they need so many versions but these are under $100 CAD (Canadian market) so quite a bit cheaper than a LF III - at over $200.
The other intangible - is whether the fans are sufficient - some ppl report that they are loud - regardless of which fans you get with the cooler - and there's the option to change out the fans - at an expense that increases the overall cost (or price) of the AIO, right? Depending which fans you get - what is relatively cheap but a lot better than the stock fans that came with it (is the question, right?)?
 
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