Ridiculous prices - for what amounts to a cooler that has a service life of 5-7 years. Its NOT user serviceable and will go in a landfill since most people will just replace it when the pump goes.
My Noctua nh-14D is on a 5th or 6th build and works like new - I have no intention of ever buying another cooler.
E-waste concerns aside, at least NZXT's CLC warranty is category-leading at 6 years. The pump on my X61 died back in March after 5 years of service and they shipped me a new X62 within a couple days of them receiving the support ticket. My other interactions with their support service have been very positive as well, once for replacing a fan that had a bearing go bad and another for getting the AM4 bracket for the cooler.
I don't necessarily like these CLCs having a finite service life but at the end of the day they do perform measurably better than even the best air coolers and that means a quieter, faster PC.
In the exact situation with my Noctua NH-D14. It is also why I just ordered an NH-D15 for a second system. My experience with liquid cooling was that it was more complex/ noise / cost / hassle / e-waste.
Any large air cooler can cool just about any chip. I have a 14 & a 15 as well as some phanteks in various builds. Hell I still have a $30 big typhoon kicking around somewhere that im sure would do just fine. At some point AIO's became must have but I don't get it ESP when the noctua still outperforms 90% of them.
But I agree, after time the mix and match of each part provides a known quantity in terms of performance, which isn't bad. But it makes for a boring review. Kind of like the Lego style designs in midrange ssds.
edit: Retest all these aios using the same fans instead of the included and I bet they would perform within margin of error of each other. Fan pairings make a much more apparent difference on a rad than a standard heatsink.
For that matter, any cooler review without noise-normalized testing is useless (who cares how well it performs at max fan speed, those aren't the same noise levels and can't be compared) and this review didn't include that. It does mitigate this with the thermal resistance versus sound pressure test at the end, but that doesn't really provide a convenient point of comparison, nor does it tell the user "How hot will my CPU run at a reasonable sound level."
I dont understand why they dont test them all at a set RPM forget all the pwm stuff wire them i via a fan controller and set them at say 800 RPM and see which actually shifts the heat, my Custom loop rarely hits anything more than 750 rpm and my CPU is under 50deg C no matter what I do with it
RPM is irrelevant. Performance at a fixed noise level is what matters, because a cooler that comes with noisy fans and a cooler that comes with quiet fans shouldn’t be weighted equally if they cool as well at the same RPM.
Don't retest these AIOs with the same fan. The brands that include inappropriate fans with their AIOs deserve the consequences of their poor decisions.
arctic and EK have released non-asetek coolers recently and both of them outperform practically every asetek cooler on the market, especially in price. I don't think asetek rebrands are the only choice anymore as long as you can get your hands on a freezer 2 or ek drgb.
Minor point but I found it odd how they were dinged for not including threadripper mounting then in the next paragraph the reviewer says it’s not designed for threadripper‘s die size and that they wouldn’t recommend using it with a threadripper CPU. So why are we dinging NZXT for not including mounting hardware for a CPU that this cooler isn’t designed for and a configuration that the reviewer themselves doesn’t recommend? If anything, including a TR4 mount would imply that it WAS designed to also cool that chip.
To be sure, NZXT is not being dinged. We're just noting that while NZXT advertises these coolers as being able to work with Threadripper, they don't do so out of the box. (And even if they did have the part in the box, we wouldn't suggest it)
The 360mm and 280mm radiator coolers tend to be give or take with high end air coolers, and generally cost more. The 240mm radiators are almost always worse, more expensive, and louder.
The largest advantage of these is often not the improved temps, but how they mount in the case. The higher end air coolers tend to be extremely bulky and can have some difficulties fitting in smaller or more compact cases, or can have compatibility issues with ram depending on the ram height and motherboard layout.
I ran my H80i for close to 8 years (not sure the exact date, but it was at least 7 for sure) and only retired it this year for an iCUE H110i RGB PRO XT. Not a single leak, and it only suffered from a minor amount of liquid permeation... If I was to guess how much liquid disappeared over the 7+ years based only on the sound of the liquid moving around the radiator, I would say it was maybe 25%. I did not "need" to retire it, but with all new gear sitting under it, I figured an all new cooler was also warranted :)
Repeat after me. You will eventually be using liquid cooling since air cooling will not be able to keep up in the future because processors will generate much more heat.
Air cooling can handle a fully loaded 280W threadripper without trouble. Consumer chips are still at 105W. I think we’re good for a while yet. Liquid cooling does not substantially outperform air cooling until you go larger than 240mm rads, where space can become a concern.
Intel isn't going to up and disappear because they lost the DIY segment, it has 10x the revenue of AMD, and a lot of market share for AMD to bite into still. Speaking of the DIY market, it's very popular to overclock there, and the biggest bottleneck outside of if it's unlocked is thermal management.
I don't think you will see widespread need for water cooling in desktop PC hardware in the near future. Not when the average desktop CPU currently sits between 35-65W TDP with a few halo models reaching to +95W. Compute resources have to meet other targets besides more instructions per second in order to be economically viable products. That, of course, dismisses enterprise workloads in data centers where I think liquid cooling might be a more reasonable consideration and where packing as much density into a given rack while having the staffing and vendor support to handle potential liquid cooling is a fair bit more doable.
I just purchased my all new prebuild PC from my local 'strip-center' tech-shop for $800 cash including a used RTX 1080 ($95) from a cryptocurrency miner since the mining days are now virtually a thing of the past. Yes...Intel has a lot of cash and more even today after just spinning off one off their subsidiaries. NVIDIA just paid $40 billion for ARM. Making CPU's? Corsair went public and looking at their "S1-document filing" made Mr. Paul (CEO) a cool $100 million with stock options. My Reality: The boys at the computers show were laughing that some highly touted AIO's now costing more then brand new older generation CPU's.They said that AIO water-cooler purchases applies to less than 20% of all customers or people coming to the show. Furthermore that the total USA motherboard market represents up to 90% of solely 'mainstream boards' between $90-$125 and which generally do not overclock. Madnu said..."For the man on the street cash is tight." I am not good with numbers and marketing and many other things so what do I know? But listening to the 'geek-team' from Bangladesh I inherently know something is not right with the hardware prices as touted on the open market. Paying $280 for a AIO? Meanwhile I am back in my basement command center listening to the Mugen-5 humming along. Playing Fallout 4 for the very first time in 'Max' settings. Today Mom is baking a strawberry pie. Life is good.
Judged by what? AMD, whos CPUs always were running hotter/less efficient than Intel at the same manufacturing process? Intel, who is still stuck with hot-headed 14 nm CPUs? Dont make me laugh. Telling the future by the unique situations we have now, is pretty nonsensical. Even in 10 year, its more likely that manufacturers will optimize their case ventilation and/or space for air coolers. I mean, most midi cases have space for 4 to 6 more D15-size air coolers, that isnt used at all. Its long due time for a new standard anyway. ATX is 25 years old!
And before I put some crappy AIO in my case, I rather build a water cooler myself for a few hundred bucks more.
When I read that AMD re-hired Jim Keller 2015-2016, I was glad and ecstatic. I knew that would bring AMD back. I support the underdog and want them to stay in business. I may be currently on an intel processor, since AMD was $400 for there zen processors generation 1 when it launched. Now, there are whooping Intel, and gaining their marketshare back. GOOD!
That was not nonsensical.
Off- topic. This is even more unique situation. If was not nonsensical to know the pandemic (covid virus) would over-run the united states with President trump's response to it back in January / February. Had he acted early-on like he should have. Their may be less deaths and faster time in finding a cure that works. 177,000 people have died and rising.
Quote (President Trump) - I have very important people working on this. I can't say who they are, but it is very important people.
Someone who talks to someone about a topic that is completely off-topic. Hence my car comment. If you think I dont know what a bot is, then I am very confident that you dont even know what conversational logic and reason is. If it quacks like a duck...
It would be really nice if you could include some OEM information within the article in the case of closed loop coolers. I'm aware that this is an Asetek cooler because of prior information, but it's easily possible to not know.
I would like to second the prior comment about adding a noise normalized test. While thermal performance is predominantly what I care about knowing the overall quality of the out of the box experience is really important to anyone who isn't going to replace the fans.
Finally, the numbers people want *most* when they go to AIO/water coolers....thermal resistance, and, most important at all, how well it handles cooling a full earth-shattering 60 watts of heat!!!!
Aside from being yet another rebrand of the same old AIO design, I don't think the complexity of NZXT's pack-in software is going to ultimately be of much benefit while at the same time having the potential of causing both security issues via increased surface of attack (and potentially poor or no response to discovered exploits) and system stability problems by tapping into and interacting with hardware. That has been and continues to be a problem with a lot of smaller companies with ambitious plans to add value to mechanically similar products through software. All of that extra code doesn't do much but add cruft in the same way we used to deal with TSRs back in the DOS era that were shoddy or wasteful of system resources.
GN's tests always show AIOs are less loud and have better performance. But with the idea of having a machine reliable with no requirement for any sort of water damage. I would chose Noctua high end Air Cooler only. Yea it looks bulky and all, but I prefer peace of mind rather than these cooler products where they show off those RGB RAM sticks and what not, where that CAM bloatware and unwanted bloat is needed for the machine too.
As long as they keep using aluminium fins, my feeling is, they do not take their customers seriously. It's just a couple of grams extra weight and maybe a buck higher BOM. But it would make it stand out between the competitors. And still nobody bothers. Except Swiftech a long time ago (but got burned by some patent infringement) and some other small player that never came available (EWK maybe?)
I recently went shopping for a AIO and stayed faaaaar away from NZXT for a few reasons. First, no ARGB fans for their already high price. If you want ARGB fans, you have to buy separate ones adding to the already high cost compared to everything else in the market. Second, their connectors for their ARGB (on the waterblock) is proprietary and if you want to convert them to a non-proprietary connector so that you don't have to use (and BUY) NZXT's proprietary ARGB controller, you have to pay at least $15 to get a special converter to do so.
You wind up spending $80 more to get the same experience as other products and it's just ridiculous. And of course their CAM software has it's own host of problems. Every time GN gets an NZXT review unit, they update on the latest on CAM's woes.
thx for words of wisdom, (o)fme it should be said, that there is (generally spoken) a difference between trust and support. Technically, if a cooling system for cpu was at high cost only to enhance for chipset or gpu cooling, there's not that much reason advertising this to mass markets (for liquid cooling enthusiasts)?
(btw for common knowledge: Some 'new' (destructive to freedom) www attitudes appearing in some fields? fast examples selected randomly: "We care about your privacy" "Non-precise means only an approximate location involving at least a radius of 500 meters is permitted." or "To measure content performance vendors can: * Measure and report on how content was delivered to and interacted with by users.")
I have an X73 for my 3960X in a Define 7 case. The stock fans were nice and quiet, but I didn't feel pushed enough air when flat out at 100%, so I replaced them with six Corsair ML120's in push+pull, blowing out the front of the case (have 240mm AIO GPU up top). My 3960X, nailed at 100% in Aida64 long term, settles at 84 degrees Celsius (motherboard temp, package bounces around about 10 degrees higher). It feels like the round cooling plate only covers about 60-70% of the Threadripper - which I read supposedly doesn't matter that much, but yeah.
If the CAM software wasnt's so bad... It runs 9 processes to monitor, uses over 1GB of RAM. And it causes systems to freeze randomly (had now 5 other people replying to me that they had the same symptoms). Never a NZXT product that requires CAM, never again.
I just had my all new super PC purchase including a CDROM and with a high quality 'Thermaltake Gravity' cooler build by a local strip-center shop for under $850. Money for the man on the street is tight and I can't afford to play games.They said that AIO water-cooler purchases only applies to less than 15% of all customers and that less than 2% of them are actually attempting to overclocking their PC's! Moreover that 80% of AIO purchasers have been let to believe (or scared) into that AIO's is the only right answer. Perhaps marketing and ultra high profit margins at work? Furthermore that the total motherboard market represents up to 90% of mainstream boards actually purchased ($90-$120) and which generally do not overclock. I am not good with numbers and marketing and many other things so what do I know? But listening to the geek-team from Bangladesh I inherently know something is not cool!
Thanks to MR JOE LEWIS for helping me trade, through his professional masterclass trading strategies, I hav been able to get my profit in return from my trades. After many times of been defrauded of my funds, i finally get to cash out $17,300 4 HELP Email [email protected]
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menorton - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
What exactly is the cost of these coolers compared to others listed in the review? Seems common sense to include this, unless I missed the MSRP.Hyoyeon - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
X53: $130X63: $150
X73: $180
The Z series is + $100
Cellar Door - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Ridiculous prices - for what amounts to a cooler that has a service life of 5-7 years. Its NOT user serviceable and will go in a landfill since most people will just replace it when the pump goes.My Noctua nh-14D is on a 5th or 6th build and works like new - I have no intention of ever buying another cooler.
Destoya - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
E-waste concerns aside, at least NZXT's CLC warranty is category-leading at 6 years. The pump on my X61 died back in March after 5 years of service and they shipped me a new X62 within a couple days of them receiving the support ticket. My other interactions with their support service have been very positive as well, once for replacing a fan that had a bearing go bad and another for getting the AM4 bracket for the cooler.I don't necessarily like these CLCs having a finite service life but at the end of the day they do perform measurably better than even the best air coolers and that means a quieter, faster PC.
mervincm - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
In the exact situation with my Noctua NH-D14. It is also why I just ordered an NH-D15 for a second system. My experience with liquid cooling was that it was more complex/ noise / cost / hassle / e-waste.godrilla - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
Set it and forget it Noctua D15 all the way. Even fits in my H210 and a hybrid 2080ti.Revv233 - Tuesday, September 1, 2020 - link
Any large air cooler can cool just about any chip. I have a 14 & a 15 as well as some phanteks in various builds. Hell I still have a $30 big typhoon kicking around somewhere that im sure would do just fine. At some point AIO's became must have but I don't get it ESP when the noctua still outperforms 90% of them.shaolin95 - Saturday, March 20, 2021 - link
Lol because it doesn't outperform or match about of the recent AIOsNoctua fans live in denial lol
frbeckenbauer - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
basically, the 120mm version of this is a lot more expensive than other 360mm coolers, you pay for the screen on the pump-block-comboGuspaz - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Isn’t this just another rebadged (or rather slightly customized) Asetek cooler?brontes - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
When it comes to mixing water and electronics, nobody wants to mess around with unproven stuff.It works the same way in custom loop stuff. There are as many rebadges of the
asetek aio as there are the D5 and DDC custom loop pumps. https://laing-thermotech.com/industrial-commercial...
But I agree, after time the mix and match of each part provides a known quantity in terms of performance, which isn't bad. But it makes for a boring review. Kind of like the Lego style designs in midrange ssds.
brontes - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
edit: Retest all these aios using the same fans instead of the included and I bet they would perform within margin of error of each other. Fan pairings make a much more apparent difference on a rad than a standard heatsink.Guspaz - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
For that matter, any cooler review without noise-normalized testing is useless (who cares how well it performs at max fan speed, those aren't the same noise levels and can't be compared) and this review didn't include that. It does mitigate this with the thermal resistance versus sound pressure test at the end, but that doesn't really provide a convenient point of comparison, nor does it tell the user "How hot will my CPU run at a reasonable sound level."rpg1966 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
It's extraordinary that their cooler tests don't have a simple x-y chart of noise/dB versus CPU temp.E.Fyll - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Page 4, last section.TelstarTOS - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
of only 4 models.alufan - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
I dont understand why they dont test them all at a set RPM forget all the pwm stuff wire them i via a fan controller and set them at say 800 RPM and see which actually shifts the heat, my Custom loop rarely hits anything more than 750 rpm and my CPU is under 50deg C no matter what I do with itGuspaz - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
RPM is irrelevant. Performance at a fixed noise level is what matters, because a cooler that comes with noisy fans and a cooler that comes with quiet fans shouldn’t be weighted equally if they cool as well at the same RPM.TelstarTOS - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
"any cooler review without noise-normalized testing is useless"QFT. This review is almost useless and subpar for AT usual level of completness.
GNUminex_l_cowsay - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Don't retest these AIOs with the same fan. The brands that include inappropriate fans with their AIOs deserve the consequences of their poor decisions.whatthe123 - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
arctic and EK have released non-asetek coolers recently and both of them outperform practically every asetek cooler on the market, especially in price. I don't think asetek rebrands are the only choice anymore as long as you can get your hands on a freezer 2 or ek drgb.edzieba - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
In the US, Asetek swings their legal muscle around to quash competition. Elsewhere in the world, there are plenty of other AIO designs available.jaggedcow - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Minor point but I found it odd how they were dinged for not including threadripper mounting then in the next paragraph the reviewer says it’s not designed for threadripper‘s die size and that they wouldn’t recommend using it with a threadripper CPU. So why are we dinging NZXT for not including mounting hardware for a CPU that this cooler isn’t designed for and a configuration that the reviewer themselves doesn’t recommend? If anything, including a TR4 mount would imply that it WAS designed to also cool that chip.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
"So why are we dinging NZXT"To be sure, NZXT is not being dinged. We're just noting that while NZXT advertises these coolers as being able to work with Threadripper, they don't do so out of the box. (And even if they did have the part in the box, we wouldn't suggest it)
Machinus - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Ian, can you ebalorate on how usable the X73 is without having to use the CAM software? Can the fan and pump be controlled with typical BIOS headers?satai - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Is it better then high end air coolers?inighthawki - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
The 360mm and 280mm radiator coolers tend to be give or take with high end air coolers, and generally cost more. The 240mm radiators are almost always worse, more expensive, and louder.The largest advantage of these is often not the improved temps, but how they mount in the case. The higher end air coolers tend to be extremely bulky and can have some difficulties fitting in smaller or more compact cases, or can have compatibility issues with ram depending on the ram height and motherboard layout.
Luminar - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Repeat after me: all water cooling solutions eventually leak.Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
[citation needed]Spunjji - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
On a long enough timescale? Sure.Within the lifetime of one or even two system builds? No, not in my experience.
Can't comment for longer durations than that, as the oldest kit I've personally seen in service is about 7 years old now.
QB - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
I ran my H80i for close to 8 years (not sure the exact date, but it was at least 7 for sure) and only retired it this year for an iCUE H110i RGB PRO XT. Not a single leak, and it only suffered from a minor amount of liquid permeation... If I was to guess how much liquid disappeared over the 7+ years based only on the sound of the liquid moving around the radiator, I would say it was maybe 25%. I did not "need" to retire it, but with all new gear sitting under it, I figured an all new cooler was also warranted :)QB
silencer12 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Repeat after me. You will eventually be using liquid cooling since air cooling will not be able to keep up in the future because processors will generate much more heat.Guspaz - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Air cooling can handle a fully loaded 280W threadripper without trouble. Consumer chips are still at 105W. I think we’re good for a while yet. Liquid cooling does not substantially outperform air cooling until you go larger than 240mm rads, where space can become a concern.Luminar - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Future processors will generate much more heat?Are you talking about Intel's processors in 2022 (if Intel still even exists)?
Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Intel isn't going to up and disappear because they lost the DIY segment, it has 10x the revenue of AMD, and a lot of market share for AMD to bite into still.Speaking of the DIY market, it's very popular to overclock there, and the biggest bottleneck outside of if it's unlocked is thermal management.
silencer12 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Yes, future processors will generate more heat. Likely, in my opinion. I am talking more than 2-4 years in the future.Intel made 71.9 billion (2019). Of course they will exist. They are coming out with their own graphics cards.
@unshamed explained the rest already for me below on market share.
PeachNCream - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
I don't think you will see widespread need for water cooling in desktop PC hardware in the near future. Not when the average desktop CPU currently sits between 35-65W TDP with a few halo models reaching to +95W. Compute resources have to meet other targets besides more instructions per second in order to be economically viable products. That, of course, dismisses enterprise workloads in data centers where I think liquid cooling might be a more reasonable consideration and where packing as much density into a given rack while having the staffing and vendor support to handle potential liquid cooling is a fair bit more doable.silencer12 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
Acknowledged.Tom Sunday - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
I just purchased my all new prebuild PC from my local 'strip-center' tech-shop for $800 cash including a used RTX 1080 ($95) from a cryptocurrency miner since the mining days are now virtually a thing of the past. Yes...Intel has a lot of cash and more even today after just spinning off one off their subsidiaries. NVIDIA just paid $40 billion for ARM. Making CPU's? Corsair went public and looking at their "S1-document filing" made Mr. Paul (CEO) a cool $100 million with stock options. My Reality: The boys at the computers show were laughing that some highly touted AIO's now costing more then brand new older generation CPU's.They said that AIO water-cooler purchases applies to less than 20% of all customers or people coming to the show. Furthermore that the total USA motherboard market represents up to 90% of solely 'mainstream boards' between $90-$125 and which generally do not overclock. Madnu said..."For the man on the street cash is tight." I am not good with numbers and marketing and many other things so what do I know? But listening to the 'geek-team' from Bangladesh I inherently know something is not right with the hardware prices as touted on the open market. Paying $280 for a AIO? Meanwhile I am back in my basement command center listening to the Mugen-5 humming along. Playing Fallout 4 for the very first time in 'Max' settings. Today Mom is baking a strawberry pie. Life is good.Beaver M. - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
Judged by what?AMD, whos CPUs always were running hotter/less efficient than Intel at the same manufacturing process?
Intel, who is still stuck with hot-headed 14 nm CPUs?
Dont make me laugh. Telling the future by the unique situations we have now, is pretty nonsensical.
Even in 10 year, its more likely that manufacturers will optimize their case ventilation and/or space for air coolers.
I mean, most midi cases have space for 4 to 6 more D15-size air coolers, that isnt used at all.
Its long due time for a new standard anyway. ATX is 25 years old!
And before I put some crappy AIO in my case, I rather build a water cooler myself for a few hundred bucks more.
silencer12 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
When I read that AMD re-hired Jim Keller 2015-2016, I was glad and ecstatic. I knew that would bring AMD back. I support the underdog and want them to stay in business. I may be currently on an intel processor, since AMD was $400 for there zen processors generation 1 when it launched. Now, there are whooping Intel, and gaining their marketshare back. GOOD!That was not nonsensical.
Off- topic. This is even more unique situation. If was not nonsensical to know the pandemic (covid virus) would over-run the united states with President trump's response to it back in January / February. Had he acted early-on like he should have. Their may be less deaths and faster time in finding a cure that works. 177,000 people have died and rising.
Quote (President Trump) - I have very important people working on this. I can't say who they are, but it is very important people.
Beaver M. - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
Yeah, I too have a 6 cylinder engine.Get your script fixed, bot.
silencer12 - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
Do you even know what a bot is?I am certain you do not.
Beaver M. - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link
Someone who talks to someone about a topic that is completely off-topic.Hence my car comment.
If you think I dont know what a bot is, then I am very confident that you dont even know what conversational logic and reason is.
If it quacks like a duck...
thestryker - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
It would be really nice if you could include some OEM information within the article in the case of closed loop coolers. I'm aware that this is an Asetek cooler because of prior information, but it's easily possible to not know.I would like to second the prior comment about adding a noise normalized test. While thermal performance is predominantly what I care about knowing the overall quality of the out of the box experience is really important to anyone who isn't going to replace the fans.
Tilmitt - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Would be nice if you could include an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer in your testing, it's pretty highly regarded.MDD1963 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Finally, the numbers people want *most* when they go to AIO/water coolers....thermal resistance, and, most important at all, how well it handles cooling a full earth-shattering 60 watts of heat!!!!Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
The graphs go up to 340w, you have to select it...PeachNCream - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Aside from being yet another rebrand of the same old AIO design, I don't think the complexity of NZXT's pack-in software is going to ultimately be of much benefit while at the same time having the potential of causing both security issues via increased surface of attack (and potentially poor or no response to discovered exploits) and system stability problems by tapping into and interacting with hardware. That has been and continues to be a problem with a lot of smaller companies with ambitious plans to add value to mechanically similar products through software. All of that extra code doesn't do much but add cruft in the same way we used to deal with TSRs back in the DOS era that were shoddy or wasteful of system resources.Quantumz0d - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
GN's tests always show AIOs are less loud and have better performance. But with the idea of having a machine reliable with no requirement for any sort of water damage. I would chose Noctua high end Air Cooler only. Yea it looks bulky and all, but I prefer peace of mind rather than these cooler products where they show off those RGB RAM sticks and what not, where that CAM bloatware and unwanted bloat is needed for the machine too.Foeketijn - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
As long as they keep using aluminium fins, my feeling is, they do not take their customers seriously. It's just a couple of grams extra weight and maybe a buck higher BOM. But it would make it stand out between the competitors. And still nobody bothers. Except Swiftech a long time ago (but got burned by some patent infringement) and some other small player that never came available (EWK maybe?)Guspaz - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
Aluminum fins as opposed to what, copper? Copper is expensive and heavy, and should be used sparingly where it can make the most difference.Freakie - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
I recently went shopping for a AIO and stayed faaaaar away from NZXT for a few reasons. First, no ARGB fans for their already high price. If you want ARGB fans, you have to buy separate ones adding to the already high cost compared to everything else in the market. Second, their connectors for their ARGB (on the waterblock) is proprietary and if you want to convert them to a non-proprietary connector so that you don't have to use (and BUY) NZXT's proprietary ARGB controller, you have to pay at least $15 to get a special converter to do so.You wind up spending $80 more to get the same experience as other products and it's just ridiculous. And of course their CAM software has it's own host of problems. Every time GN gets an NZXT review unit, they update on the latest on CAM's woes.
back2future - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
thx for words of wisdom, (o)fme it should be said, that there is (generally spoken) a difference between trust and support. Technically, if a cooling system for cpu was at high cost only to enhance for chipset or gpu cooling, there's not that much reason advertising this to mass markets (for liquid cooling enthusiasts)?(btw for common knowledge: Some 'new' (destructive to freedom) www attitudes appearing in some fields?
fast examples selected randomly:
"We care about your privacy"
"Non-precise means only an approximate location involving at least a radius of 500 meters is permitted."
or
"To measure content performance vendors can:
* Measure and report on how content was delivered to and interacted with by users.")
hubick - Thursday, August 20, 2020 - link
I have an X73 for my 3960X in a Define 7 case. The stock fans were nice and quiet, but I didn't feel pushed enough air when flat out at 100%, so I replaced them with six Corsair ML120's in push+pull, blowing out the front of the case (have 240mm AIO GPU up top). My 3960X, nailed at 100% in Aida64 long term, settles at 84 degrees Celsius (motherboard temp, package bounces around about 10 degrees higher). It feels like the round cooling plate only covers about 60-70% of the Threadripper - which I read supposedly doesn't matter that much, but yeah.KorbenD - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
If the CAM software wasnt's so bad... It runs 9 processes to monitor, uses over 1GB of RAM. And it causes systems to freeze randomly (had now 5 other people replying to me that they had the same symptoms). Never a NZXT product that requires CAM, never again.silencer12 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
I think there are other unofficial cam alternatives. There was some developer who made software in python which can monitor nzxt liquid cooling.silencer12 - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
I forget the name of it though. I found out about it last yearTom Sunday - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
I just had my all new super PC purchase including a CDROM and with a high quality 'Thermaltake Gravity' cooler build by a local strip-center shop for under $850. Money for the man on the street is tight and I can't afford to play games.They said that AIO water-cooler purchases only applies to less than 15% of all customers and that less than 2% of them are actually attempting to overclocking their PC's! Moreover that 80% of AIO purchasers have been let to believe (or scared) into that AIO's is the only right answer. Perhaps marketing and ultra high profit margins at work? Furthermore that the total motherboard market represents up to 90% of mainstream boards actually purchased ($90-$120) and which generally do not overclock. I am not good with numbers and marketing and many other things so what do I know? But listening to the geek-team from Bangladesh I inherently know something is not cool!seamonkey79 - Sunday, August 23, 2020 - link
This is as stupid as that $300 B550 board.lisadonalds - Saturday, October 31, 2020 - link
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