Best 360mm AIO Cooler?

pavel said:
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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I have no experience with the 360 but I did buy and install the Frozen Edge 240 this past week. I had a little spare cash and needed an upgrade from my air cooler and it cost me $44 with tax. The only semi-recent experience with water cooling was an Enermax 240 AIO I got for practically free with a bundle purchase a few years ago. It wasn't the best and I'm guessing the pump died in under two years but it was okay. This Frozen Edge seems to be quite a bit better. However, the fans when ramped up to almost max speed are definitely loud. I don't know how to describe it but it was almost like a buzzing noise. There's nothing wrong with the fans but seems to be part of the sound profile. At lower speeds probably under 75% I didn't really notice them. I like having fan noise in the background but the noise of these was just under the threshold of irritating. One of these days when I get bored I might swap out the stock fans with some Arctic P12 fans as I have some spares but it probably won't be soon.

The Frozen Edge 240 replaced a Scythe Fuma 2 with a three fan setup. With regards to performance the Scythe was only allowing my Ryzen 5800x to boost to 4.0-4.1Ghz with a heavy AVX load via a distributed computing program. The FE 240 is allowing it to boost to 4.4-4.5 with the exact same load. Temps are the same since it's bouncing off the 90C throttle point but that is a considerable difference between the two.

Something to keep in mind is that the Thermalright AIOs are pretty new so there's no real history out there. They seem to perform really well overall and extremely well for the price. However, they likely won't last as long as many of the others. I don't remember where I saw/read it but the pumps used have a MTBF rating quite a bit less than most of the quality AIOs out there. I think it was somewhere around 4-4.5 years of continual use whereas most others are usually 25% longer if memory serves.

Another thing to keep in mind is what brand of CPU you're using. The Arctic AIOs use an offset mounting for AMD and usually tend to perform better because of that. In the case of Intel CPUs it won't matter.

Before going with an Arctic AIO, make sure the thing is going to fit. The extra thick radiator will cause problems with a number of cases, especially if mounting it at the top of the case. As much as I would like one of the Arctic AIOs, there's no way they would fit in the case I currently have, at least not at the top which is the only place I'll mount a radiator. That's also why I went with a 240 instead of a 280. It's not possible to mount any 280 at the top of my case much less the Arctic.
 
I'm building a computer for my daughter in my old Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic and it's getting either a 3900X or my semi- broken 5950X that requires very specific PBO settings to run at stock performance. I had a 45mm thick Corsair(Hardware Labs) radiator in the top of that, so I should have no issues fitting there. Based on reviews, the price to performance ratio should be better than almost anything out there given the non rgb version cost me $90 on Amazon. I'm sure the EK Nucleus beats it in all out performance, but it's also almost double the price.
 
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Captain Newmackwa said:
I had motherboard and case compatibility issues with the Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360. I had no such issues with the EK Nucleus 360 AIO.
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What motherboard did you find compatibility issues and how so? Did you mean to say it was an Arctic Liquid Freezer 2 or was it a Liquid Freezer 3?

I'm still trying to sort out possible compatibility issues with the Arctic LF3 listed above and the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme so if anyone has tried that board please let me know. One of the users on the other forums now claims that disassembling the plastic shroud is not a good idea / will not allow it to fit, but they've not said why or what exactly the problem is. There's at least one user who's still claiming it fits just fine unmodified with expected high performance so maybe its all right , but I may have to test it out myself. I'm going to be a bit annoyed if I have to return it and buy a replacement - I really wish that the Arctic team would have altered the design just a bit so this wouldn't be such a concern with things directly below the AM5 socket. If i have to return it, I guess I'll have to go EK Nucleus but it would be frustrating to have to swap
 
kamikazi said:
I'm building a computer for my daughter in my old Lian Li PC-011 Dynamic and it's getting either a 3900X or my semi- broken 5950X that requires very specific PBO settings to run at stock performance. I had a 45mm thick Corsair(Hardware Labs) radiator in the top of that, so I should have no issues fitting there. Based on reviews, the price to performance ratio should be better than almost anything out there given the non rgb version cost me $90 on Amazon. I'm sure the EK Nucleus beats it in all out performance, but it's also almost double the price.
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I just installed this on a test bench and it worked pretty easily. The only issue I see is with getting both screws on the coldplate to bracket mount started. You have to get a couple of turns on one before pressing down hard on the other side to get the other started. Other than that, piece of cake.
 
pavel said:
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?)?
Click to expand...


I have the Thermalright Frozen Magic 360mm and I can honestly say its one of the quietest AIOs I have ever used. Keeps my 7800X3D in check and I was able to dial the pump down 1000rpm to make it completely silent. For $48.00, the price/performance is off the charts. I did not use the Thermalright Fans, I had some AF120s on hand and used those.
 

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GotNoRice said:
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.
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That's past the point of diminishing returns.
You could always go heat killer block, Iwaki RD30 and four MORA Pro3 rads with 36 140mm fans running on 7V for something much quieter and have coolant temp same as your room! ;-)
 
cpufrost said:
That's past the point of diminishing returns.
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Yeah I know that diminishing returns is part of the equation. But clearly diminishing returns aren't going to be the exact same for every single AIO. This difference is what I'd like to see covered more in various reviews. Not just "It's too loud because I can actually hear the fans". I'm not really interested in a crazy custom water cooling setup, as you're talking about considerable extra complexity and cost at that point compared to just swapping out a handful of fans.
 
Also there is the frozen prism or the frozen notte I wonder which one performs better the prism is 59 the notte is 63 crazy cheap
 
Rvenger said:
I have the Thermalright Frozen Magic 360mm and I can honestly say its one of the quietest AIOs I have ever used. Keeps my 7800X3D in check and I was able to dial the pump down 1000rpm to make it completely silent. For $48.00, the price/performance is off the charts. I did not use the Thermalright Fans, I had some AF120s on hand and used those.
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I was thinking of getting that one - thanks for the review. :) It's a bit cheaper (here - in CanuckLand) than the Notte and *supposedly* has better fans? (the pump is the same, afaik). If I replace the fans, which (3 pack?) fans would be a good choice (brand/model)?
Would it make sense to see how the fans are? I thought - if I think they're too noisy - then you have to dissemble everything and do it again...right?
What are AF120s?
 
pavel said:
Would it make sense to see how the fans are? I thought - if I think they're too noisy - then you have to dissemble everything and do it again...right?
What are AF120s?
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yes it would. not nessisarily, depends on you case and if you can get a screw driver in there.
corsair air flow fans.
 
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