NZXT Kraken 360 RL KN360 B1

I decided to give NZXT Kraken a try after i had bad experiences with Corsair Hi Capellix AIOs (their pumps are unbearably loud). According to many reviews Kraken and Corsair Hi series go head to head for the top spot in AIO business. I’ve tried both, and i like Kraken a lot more than Corsair.

Noise: In my build i strive for ultra silent build with maximum performance. As i mentioned before Corsair pumps are really loud, they sounded like a dental office practice right next to my ear; after a while the sound started to drive me crazy. I’ve read reviews that NZXT fans are not great and are very loud, so as i bought my x73 Kraken i also ordered (x3) Noctua NF-A12 120mm fans. Let me tell you guys, this set up is dead silent. The pump is barely audible even at 100% load mode and Noctua fans are well know for their performance and silence. I don’t know how loud Kraken is with original NZXT fans, but Kraken AIO with Noctua fans is silence enthusiast’s dream.

Perfomance: Performance is great, Kraken is actually fares a bit better than Corsair. I get 35C idle on boosted CPU speeds @ 4350MHz and i get 70C on 100% multi-threading test in Cinebench. Corsair was 40C idle and 69C is Cinebench.

Aesthetics & RGB: This one is very subjective, because different people like different things. Personally i prefer Corsair pump design plus their RGB quality & brightness is twice that of Kraken, but constantly buzzing pump was a deal breaker for me.

Installation: Corsair AIO was harder to install. Each fan comes with 2 wires one for RBG one for fan control, it also comes with a command module with more wires. Kraken has a lot of wires too, but it’s set up was more straightforward and easy. The length of wires was just enough for my needs but barely. One thing i didn’t like about Kraken set up is that i could not install pump-head traditionally at 90 degree angle to the right because it’s water houses extend too far into RAM housing territory, thankfully the pump head is easily rotatable & adjustable, so i settled for a 45 degree angle set up.

Conclusion: If i could i would take off half a star for subpar RBG brightness, inability to mount pump-head at 90 degree angle and wires that should be a bit longer, but all that is not enough to take down a full star in my opinion. All things considered NZXT Kraken X73 is great AIO, it cools wonderfully, it’s dead silent and it’s pretty good looking. Worth the premium price, and it lives up to multitude of positive reviews online.

My Build:
CPU: Ryzen 7 2700X
MOBO: ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming
GPU: EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER SC
RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4 2400Mhz, CAS 15-15-15-35
NVME: Samsung 970 PRO
PSU: Corsair AX Series AX760
PC Case: Be quiet! Silent Base 802 Window Black

I purchased this AIO because, as the pump blocks on these types of units keep getting taller, this one is one of the few best remaining options for the Lian Li A4 H20 case. In general, the cooler is fine. One of the other deciding factors in buying this one is that it has been rated by many tech reviewers as one of the quieter units at a normalized temp available in the 240mm form factor. I have to say that my expectations were really high given the reputation this thing has in the PC building community and I am pretty underwhelmed by it. Here are some of the issues:

1. The mounting on this is not necessarily difficult but when I was mounting the pump, there was quite a lot of play once seated over the bracket. That meant that this thing was sliding all over the place as I was trying to center it and tighten the screws with one hand. I am pretty sure that messed up the pre-applied thermal paste.
2. I basically have to get a tube of thermal paste and reseat this thing. You might call it user error given above but if this unit takes two people to mount correctly (so one person can hold it in place while the other person deals with the hardware), then that is a design flaw IMO. Regardless of whether it is the quality of the pre-applied paste or I mucked it up on install, it just isn’t doing a good enough job cooling. The result is higher temps than I am really comfortable with and the fans reving up ALL the time, making this not as quiet as I was expecting given the reviews. I will report back after I do a fresh install.
3. The included USB cord for the pump block is way too big. I am building in on an ITX platform (as many people are these days) and the cable presses against the first RAM Dimm. This is a commonly reported issue and I knew it might be a problem. I was less comfortable with just how much pressure it was placing on the RAM than I anticipated. Given the price of this thing, I don’t see why NZXT doesn’t just throw in some right and left angle cables or just use those by default. For me, I was mounting this with the tube junction on the bottom and needed a left facing cable to avoid the RAM. That cost me an extra $10 for something that should have been just dealt with in the design of the product. If you are reading this and looking for a solution, Duttek makes right and left angled cords that work with this unit.
3. This one is small but I never see anyone mention it, so I will. The NZXT logo in the middle of the infinity mirror is actually on top a rectangular rod that juts out from the middle of the pump block. This means that if you view the unit from an angle, it covers up the rings and it looks really dumb. If you want it to look great, you have to turn the computer to view from head on. I am realizing that tech reviewers do that all the time to make their shot look clean but they never mention this aesthetic issue for potential buyers. Not a big deal, but an unexpected ‘issue’ for me.

Is my CPU cooled? Yes. Does it look good doing it? Yeah pretty cool. So, it checks those basic boxes. But I shouldn’t have to buy a $10 cable to make it work on ITX. It shouldn’t be such a struggle to center on the die. I should have to spend $10 on thermal paste to make it cool properly. I shouldn’t be contemplating buying $60 of Noctua fans to make it quiet enough. All these issues make me a little bitter. When I bought my last AIO about 8 years ago from NZXTs primary competitor in this space, I had no problems with the install and that thing ran perfectly off its pre-applied paste for like 5 years. I will likely be going back to them next time around unless better options present themselves.

EDIT: I can confirm after pulling this thing out and reapplying thermal paste, that the current pre-application that they use is just insufficient for recent CPUs, which have a larger die than when this cooler first released. When I pulled the cooler, I hadn’t significantly marred the preapplication. It simply wasn’t enough to cover the CPU. Put some Arctic MX-4 on there and the cooler stopped ramping up all the time.

One last thing I forgot to mention in the original review: When I would set the pump to higher RPM in the Cam software, I got really loud coil whine. That might be just my particular unit with my particular board, but it seemed important to mention.

No entiendo como a estas alturas siguen teniendo stock de los AIO’s sin el adaptador LGA1700. Como quienes vivimos fuera de EE.UU. sabemos, conseguir piezas de ese estilo es muy dificil de este lado del muro. NZXT no contesta los correos de soporte y a juzgar por la experiencia de otros, tardan mucho tiempo en surtirlos. Compre uno de EVGA por 300 pesos muy enojado.

De buen material enfria bien y esta mas barato q el Z73 y hacen lo mismo se los recomiendo

Great Design with good construction qualities and very efficient, easy to configure with your program.

This is a lovely AIO and my top choice in terms of looks (and a close tie for performance). The white variant is particularly nice and the radiator isn’t too thick that it won’t fit in some cases like the Corsair 5000x (the Arctic 360mm AIO doesn’t fit). My only complaint is that I was sent an older model that didn’t come with the LGA1700 bracket which is rather annoying. I’ve reached out to NZXT to acquire an LGA1700 bracket for my intel 13th gen CPU.