We take a look at ID-Cooling’s new air and liquid coolers, which aim to balance quality and value with their designs

The Highlights

• ID-Cooling’s A720 AD and A720 TD represent the company’s attempt to fix its acoustic problems while being affordable
• ID Cooling has a range of liquid coolers from low-end to high-end starting around $80 to $100 for 360mm coolers
• The company’s SL360 V2 Plus cooler interestingly uses a larger radiator than it does fans

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Intro

We visited ID-Cooling’s booth at Computex 2025 and the company showed off scented paste…and a bunch of coolers.

Looking at the company’s product at the trade show, we found ID-Cooling’s products to be more expensive than Thermalright's, but they’re cheaper than others in the market. This places them somewhere in the middle but the company is trying to keep quality levels in focus for some of their designs.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 24, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

A720 AD 

ID-Cooling has updated its A720. It’s calling it the A720 AD and it’s targeting the higher-end market but still trying to be affordable at around $70. It represents a serious overhaul from the A720 that we’ve tested before, which was one of the top performers for its price. It was competitive with Noctua and was cheaper. The updated A720 now has pogo pins to deliver power to the fan. This means the fan doesn’t have a cable. 

ID-Cooling has also soldered the finstack to the heatpipes. This is something a couple companies are doing now. Some of them claim that this offers no performance improvement whereas others do claim a performance uplift. ID-Cooling says that, in a like-for-like scenario comparing the old A720 with the new one, the company is seeing about a 2 degree improvement at 280 watts. 

The A720 AD uses PBT fans. The most expensive fans typically use LCP, which uses a liquid crystal material in the middle for the blades. Sometimes they’ll do LCP for the inner and the outer part of the fan. This is what Noctua has done for its super expensive fans where the company is trying to get the tip-to-frame clearance as small as possible, hitting clearance numbers like .6mm or .8mm. This low of a clearance requires LCP or metal. ID-Cooling is using PBT, which helps with the price. The company tells us it’s supposed to be 30% fiberglass reinforced, which helps maintain the rigidity as the fan blades stretch towards the inner walls of the frame over time. 

620 AD

We tested ID-Cooling’s 620 in the past as well. It competed pretty closely with ID-Cooling’s older AK620, but the company showed off its new 620 AD. Like the A720 AD, the company is soldering the fin stack to the heatpipes so there’s some improvement from that and it also moves to a newer fan design. 

We asked ID-Cooling what is the biggest thing it’s trying to change with its revised coolers, and the company told us acoustics is the number 1 complaint it got. So the company has reshaped its blades to feature a more gradual curve to mitigate this issue. ID-Cooling has also changed the blade angle at the hub. We aim to test all of this as soon as it becomes available. It will be $55 and the company hasn’t announced a release date yet. We imagine it might come out around Q4. 

The 620AD offers 3 different levels for the RAM clearance on the front, which can be adjusted and clipped in. 

The outside fan is 28mm and the inside fan is 30mm. This allows the cooler to maintain a higher static pressure through the fin stack, especially with the dual-tower fin stacks. 

410 TD 

ID-Cooling already has its 410 series of coolers, but the company showed off its 410 TD at Computex. The TD stands for temperature display. This does increase the price a little and will supposedly make the 410 TD a $35 cooler.  It has a temperature digital display that shows the CPU temp. The finstack thickness has also changed with the TD model moving to 50mm. The heatpipes are all using a composite powder and groove style. 

It’s also made changes to the cold plate where ID-Cooling is trying to push the 4 heatpipes as close together as possible. It’s not as impressive as we saw at Scythe’s Computex booth, where Scythe basically conjoined them all into one direct touch pad, but they’re getting closer.  

ID-Cooling Liquid Coolers

ID-Cooling showed off a bunch of liquid coolers at Computex 2025, though not as much as at Thermalright’s booth.

SL 360 V2+

One of the liquid coolers, the SL 360 V2+,  immediately jumped out at us because its fans are a different width than the radiator. That’s abnormal. The fans are 120mm but the radiator measures 140mm wide and it was done to incorporate LED lights on the sides of the fans. 

To compensate for the smaller fans, ID-Cooling has added 2 water channels. ID-Cooling also added more liquid. Between the tank and the extra channels, it ends up with 36g more liquid. The propylene glycol percentage is around 15%. The reason that’s important is that the more distilled water there is in the loops, the better the cooling performance is. Propylene glycol helps with things like cold storage, transit, freight, and cold temperatures, but going too high with that compromises performance. 15% is a little on the lower end, which is a good thing for performance. The fans are AP120s and are 28mm thick. ID-Cooling tells us the cooler will have a 6-year warranty and that the surface area has been increased by about 15% compared to traditional 360 setups due to the size change. The cooler is supposed to be $190 when it comes out. 

Unfortunately, the cooler doesn’t come with an offset bracket, and we’ve requested that ID-Cooling include one. 

ID-Cooling informed us that there’s a .5mm gap between the bottom of the microfins and the bottom of the cold plate. Lian Li is experimenting with .3. The downside to that, or  something smaller, is there could be more flex/more weakness. The upside is the performance will be better because you’re getting the liquid and the microfins closer to the heat source, which is the CPU IHS.  

FX 360 TD Black  

At $80, the FX 360 TD Black is the cheapest liquid cooler ID-Cooling showed off. It offers a 360mm cooling setup that’s 27mm thick, which is standard. 

With an LCD screen, it’s $90. And it’s a 240x240 screen. 

DX 360

The company’s DX 360 liquid cooler offers a thicker 38mm radiator. It’s supposed to be $120 with its 2.8-inch LCD screen. Launch is TBD. 

DX 360 GDL 

We saw a prototype of the DX 360 GDL at the show. The key thing about this liquid cooler is that it has very short 100mm-length tubes. They go out from the block and go right into the radiator. The downside to this design is that it forces you to put your radiator at the top, which can be problematic in a super-tall case. The benefit to this design is that it looks clean.

ID-Cooling has also added 82 grams of additional liquid by changing the radiator size, which is 130mm wide and has 120mm fans that are 27mm thick. 

Its cap is also magnetic and pulls right off, which exposes the top of the tubes and the rest of the cooler’s block.

We take a look at Thermaltake’s full immersion cooling setup and several new cases that include the View 390 Air, TR200, TR300, and more

The Highlights

• Thermaltake’s full immersion cooling setup uses liquid and comically large hoses coupled with a massive radiator system
• Thermaltake’s upcoming View 390 Air case looks promising and offers a curved glass side panel
• The company’s TR200 and TR300 are budget friendly cases that include a TFT display panel on the front
• Thermaltake’s Mine Cube looks very reminiscent of another popular IP and offers a cooler block with 4 screens

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Intro

We visited Thermaltake’s booth at Computex 2025 and the company showed off its Immersion Cooling system, View 390 Air case, “Minecube” cooler, and TR200/TR300 cases.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 20, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Immersion Cooling

At the show floor, the company showed off a setup that offers 50 liters of “immersion cooling” within their new IX700 case. Immersion cooling means that the system is in liquid. The liquid is PA2, which is one of the more economical solutions, but is still expensive. Thermaltake tells us it's between $20 to $30 per liter.

The liquid is piped through 2 gigantic pipes, which Thermaltake tells us is rated for 20 bar. That’s insane. It then connects to a massive 4-radiator system. Overall, it’s a showcase for an enterprise solution, but it’s super cool. 

The PC had its CPU, an Intel Xeon w9-3495X, and GPU both at 100% load. CPU core temperature clocked in at about 60 degrees C and the GPU was about 64 degrees C. We estimate that the room the computer was in felt about 23 degrees C. 

The system is running 4 pumps and 4 radiators using a 4x420mm setup that are 64mm thick. Thermaltake is thinking that its immersion cooling setup will be a build-to-order enterprise solution. Taking a closer look at the radiators, they felt warm when we put our hands next to them.  

The system uses dielectric fluid, which means it’s non conductive. 

The hoses for the system seem overkill and we don’t know what industry they come from. 

View 390 Air

The View 390 Air is a $150 case. The company is thinking about including 2 fans for that price, but the company is still deciding between offering 2 fans in the front or in the back. In our opinion, Thermaltake should provide the 2x200mm fans in the front as users are less likely to already have those.   

The case’s glass side panel provides a solid wall all the way around the case. The glass measures 4-5mm thick, which is very large glass. Interestingly, closing off the top panel can work better for CPU thermals sometimes. The reason is that when you push air in, it’s not able to escape through the top.   

There is a screen that’s mounted above the motherboard, which is optional. If you don’t buy the screen version, there’s just a steel plate there instead. 

The case has spots for 3 sunken 120mm fans at the bottom and room for 3 fans on the side. We do like seeing the option for 2 fans in the back when there’s room for it, but it does make the case taller.   

TR100

The company showed off several different color SKUs of the TR100, which is a case that’s already out on the market. 

TR200 and TR300

Thermaltake also showed off its TR200 micro-ATX case. It’s supposed to be $80.

The TR300, meanwhile, is a $100 case. 

Neither case has a riser, which means the GPU is normally installed. Both cases use a newer TFT display panel on the front, which Thermaltake says offers better brightness and sharper resolution than their prior panels. 

The company also showed off a prototype wood front panel. 

Looking inside the TR300, we can see a lot of Yeston-inspired marketing material on the pump block. In addition, the case also has a closed-off side near its front that tries to obscure the power supply and its cables because the PSU is mounted to the front and is rotated on its side. Unfortunately, this design does limit options for intake fans in the front. The case relies on bottom intake fans and some on the side. Again, unfortunately, the bottom of the TR300 is not that elevated though the TR200 does have more room to breathe, which we liked seeing. 

Thermaltake is looking at a Q3 launch for both cases. 

Mine Cube

The font and aesthetics of the Mine Cube might look familiar, but is legally distinct... The Mine Cube is a cooler block with 4-sided screens, which includes the top and 3 sides. It sits on top of a VRM fan and RAM fan. 

One feedback we offered was that there was no vent on the north side to allow air to hit the VRM from this angle.

Internally, the block cover has some slats. The unit we saw only was able to get in air through one side, but we looked at a really early prototype. Users can orient the Mine Cube to whatever position they want. 

There’s a couple challenges for Thermaltake to overcome here. The first of which involves software, particularly if you want to try and link the screens in any way. The unit we saw at Computex had a character moving from one screen to the next. The other main challenge pertains to cost, especially as it comes to controlling the screens. To address this, Thermaltake has gone to a single IC to control all 4 screens. Regardless, the 360mm model, which is the only one we know of at the moment, still ends up around $350. When we asked them about the technological challenges of trying to drive 4 screens through a liquid cooler, the company said it was “not making it $600,” which is a totally valid answer. 

Thermaltake is targeting an August release for the Mine Cube. 

Project Edge

Thermaltake also showed off an early prototype of its Project Edge set of fans, which offers a series of progressing screens. The company thinks this is where the future of fans might be. To add some context here, Lian Li makes a bunch of money selling fans with LCDs on them. Now the direction might be LCDs on the side of fans.

We take a look at TRYX’s new Flova ATX case, updated LUCA L70, Turris air cooler, which features a 5-inch 720p screen, and more

The Highlights

• TRYX showed off its new Flova ATX case, which uses a crossflow cooling solution
• TRYX’s Turris air cooler offers a 5-inch 720p screen
• TRYX has made several improvements to its updated LUCA L70, which we originally called a disaster

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Intro

We visited Tryx’s booth at Computex 2025 and the company showed off a bold new case design that features a crossflow fan plus two axial fans at the front. The company also showed off its updated Panorama cooler and LUCA L70 case as well as a new case and cooler.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 24, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

TRYX Crossflow Flova ATX Case

We produced a story on the meshless AIO Mini-ITX PC, which used a crossflow fan, and it was a very interesting product. Now Tryx is shoving crossflow fans into an ATX case its calling the Flova. 

Crossflow fans are separated by disks. These disks cut across and create blocks of fan blades. The fan blades run along the whole length of the fan with a very slight angle to them. The point of a crossflow design is that air can enter tangentially to the axis of the fan and then it gets spat out, effectively, perpendicularly. This is a less directed flow. Axial fan blades slice through the air and push it. There’s a bit of a buffering effect from that. The downside is that there’s less targeted flow. The upside is that it’s a more laminar flow and it’s also sort of a gentler flow across a larger area. 

The Flova is supposed to be around $140, which is dependent on the tariff situation. TRYX is thinking of including the crossflow fan and a 120mm rear fan. 

The case has a fabric on the side and front, which gives it a little Fractal vibe. TRYX is going to have to figure out the porosity here as it looks like it can’t breathe too well. That’s the biggest downside to the design at the moment, but the unit we looked at was just a prototype. 

The rest of the case is very traditional. The Flova has a ventilated shroud top. The front of the case can support 120mm or 140mm fans, but using 140mm fans would force the crossflow fans out.  

The downside to this crossflow fan design is that it reduces the maximum size of the axial fans on the front. The unit we saw at Computex coupled the crossflow fans with 120mm ones. Without the crossflow fans, TRYX says it thinks it could fit 200mm fans in the front and definitely 160mm ones and maybe 180mm fans. This poses an interesting A/B testing scenario: For instance, do 120mm fans coupled with crossflow ones perform better than just 200mm fans? We don’t have those answers at the moment. 

We can conceivably see, with a really good crossflow fan design and implementation, there’s a possibility that TRYX is able to improve the cooling performance across the CPU and GPU. It’s really going to depend on how the company tunes for acoustics because crossflow fans can be noisy with their drum motors, which, in this instance, are located at the very end near the power cable. In our testing, it can make some higher frequency noises. It also runs at a higher RPM. The unit we saw was running around 2,400 RPM. The benefit is that the case is able to pull in air through the front and side. The crossflow fans are also a little closer to the front of the video card and should help with GPU performance, but will depend on how TRYX engineers it. 

The company is saying that the case will arrive later this year. We think TRYX will need to spend time on the acoustic testing to find solutions to contain some of the noise. The fans aren’t THAT loud, but they are a different type of noise than what most people are used to. We’re excited about testing it and have no idea on how it will perform thermally vs something like exclusive 140mm fans on the front. 

TRYX Turris Air Cooler

Next up, we looked at TRYX’s upcoming Turris air cooler, which isn’t due out until probably early next year. We’re told Turris means something like “hurricane.” The cooler uses 6x6mm centered copper powder heat pipes. The cooler’s fin stacks are soldered to the heat pipes. That’s not a new thing but we’re seeing more of it in the higher-end heat sinks. Everybody seems to be chasing these microscopic differences now to compete with each other, which is a good thing. We’re starting to see this in the $50-$100 cooler range. 

The fans are polybutylene terephthalate and are glass-fiber reinforced. Rather than LCP, which is way more expensive, they’re going with the PBT solution and that helps to keep costs down. The downside is that the blade tips can’t be as close to the frame.

The cooler also has a top plate that features a 5-inch 720p screen on top. TRYX tells us it goes up to 400 nits of brightness. The display uses a pogo pin solution.  

The fan speeds on the cooler differ from each other. The inner fan goes up to 1,850 RPM whereas the outer fan is about 50 RPM lower. We imagine this was done for beat frequency control to reduce some of the annoying humming noise.

The cooler also has an offset mount that’s pretty cool. Down the middle of the fin stack, where it mounts to the IHS, there’s an offset for Intel or AM5. 

Tryx Stage

The company also had an update to its Panorama cooler, which it’s calling the Tryx “Stage.” It’s going to be $200 for a 360mm solution with ARGB fans. It seems to be geared for all of the figurine collectors out there. We think it pairs well with Yeston video cards and Cooler Master’s Stage case as it will allow you to put all of your waifus (or husbandus) into the computer. 

LUCA L70 (Updated)

The company updated its LUCA L70, which we initially called a disaster and criticized its strength and structure. Outwardly, it looks pretty much the same, but TRYX has made some changes to the design. 

Taking a look at the back of the case, the company has added an extra hole to help with 3 and 1/2 -inch drive support, where there was an issue with that previously. The updated case also moves the 2 and ½-inch holes up, which was done to allow you to access the SATA connectors. We previously complained about how you couldn’t get into the SATA connector once the drive is installed so that change is supposed to fix that issue. 

TRYX also revamped the bottom front button of the case, which we called out for feeling mushy previously. It feels better now. 

Another change the case makes is that it adds pogo pins for the front fans. This gets the cable off of the front panel, which is good.  

The company says it’s also strengthened one of the front corners of the case.

The updated LUCA L70 also uses some guide pins inside of the glass and adds a screw to the glass panel, which secures it better. 

Panorama WB (Water Block)

When we were at TRYX’s Computex booth, the company showed off its new water block, the Panorama WB, one of which was supposedly signed by Jensen Huang. It comes with a Panorama screen, which has a VRM fan inside. The water block is designed for open-loop coolers and not AIO ones. There’s also software that allows users to adjust colors. The Panorama WB will cost $240.

Arc Vision Case

The last thing we looked at from TRYX was the company’s new Arc Vision case. The interesting thing about the case is that it comes with an optional screen in the front corner, which would pair well with a Panorama cooler. The front screen is sunken in a bit, which TRYX tells us was done to protect it from unintentional scratches from users and in shipping. The version of the case with a screen is targeting $240 and TRYX tells us that the Arc Vision’s screen will be able to communicate with the Panorama cooler. The example the company talked about was having Mario enter a pipe in one screen and exiting it on the other screen. We’re guessing for legal reasons, TRYX didn’t show that at its Computex booth. 

The less expensive model of the case won’t come with the screen and will cost around $120. 

The cases are supposed to have 4x120mm fans included. Our understanding is that it will have 3 fans on the side and 1 in the rear. 

Another interesting thing about the case is that it has a scooped shroud, which should help boost the air up into the rest of the case but we’ll need to verify that in our testing. 

There’s a lightbar included in the case and 3 of the fans are reverse blade. The case has 4mm-thick glass.

We looked at Scythe’s Scycopter liquid cooler, Magoroku air cooler, Big Shuriken 4, and more

The Highlights

• Scythe showed off its liquid cooler, which is currently going by the working name “Scycopter”
• The Magoruku is a $50 CPU cooler that’s supposed to be relatively high performing with 6x6mm heat pipes coupled with a nickel-plated copper cold plate
• We talked to Scythe about the news of its European branch closing down

Table of Contents

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Intro

We visited Scythe’s booth at Computex 2025 and the company showed off several new coolers, including a mockup of a liquid cooler. Our visit comes off the heels of the news that Scythe will be closing its European branch, which we discussed with the company.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 22, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Scythe Liquid Cooler

To our knowledge, we saw Scythe’s first liquid cooler at the show. We spoke with Kitagawa-san, lead designer at Scythe, who told us that he spent about the last year studying liquid coolers. 

The company also showed us a 3D-printed prototype peg with a piece of tape underneath it, which allows you to essentially stick it to any fan you want. A fan can then socket on top of the cooler and be angled to shoot air down toward the VRM or RAM, etc. 

The working name of the liquid cooler is the “Scycopter,” which is really cool and is a combination of Scythe and helicopter. Currently, the radiator thickness is pretty standard at 27mm, but that might change. 

The standard pump block will have an option that will allow you to install a fan on top of it. 

For the fins, the pitch is .1mm. That makes them pretty close together. Scythe also tells us that the total height of the copper coldplate is 1.6mm. 

Magoruku

We showed Scythe’s Magoruku CPU cooler at last year’s Computex, but it’s coming out now. It’s supposed to be $50, but the company tells us that it might be able to bring it down to $44 in the US depending on market conditions. 

The Magoruku is supposed to be a relatively high-performing, mid-range/budget cooler. Scythe is going with a flat nickel-plated copper for its cold plate coupled with 6x6mm heat pipes. 

The company is using 2x120mm “Wonder Tornado” fans as Scythe calls them. They are 25mm-thick fans and use metal brackets to adjust the fan height. 

Mugen 6 TUF

The Mugen 6 TUF is an ASUS-themed version of the CPU cooler. 

Big Shuriken 4

Scythe also showed off its Big Shuriken 4 CPU cooler, which the company also showed last year, but is now about final. It has cut-outs on the side of the fan, which Scythe says helps with performance as it allows air to escape from the sides. 

One of the things that Scythe is trying to figure out with the Big Shuriken 4 is whether to make it all black or ARGB. 

Scythe Closing Its European Branch

In regards to Scythe’s closed European branch, it sounds like the company is restructuring and moving operations to Taiwan. Scythe tells us it will still ship and sell to European customers.

Cooler Master is doing some really interesting stuff with its new cases

The Highlights

• Cooler Master’s upcoming MF600, MF500, and MF400 reconfigurable frame cases are assembled from columns and corners
• The company also showed off interesting stone facade case front panels
• Cooler Master is working on a “GPU” with Asus

Table of Contents

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Intro

We visited Cooler Master’s booth at Computex 2025 where the company showed off several new cases. Arguably the most interesting one is a modular case. It comes with, we believe, 8 corners and 12 columns.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 20, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Cooler Master MF Cases

The case comes with a front panel that has a dust filter in it. 

With it all assembled, it looks like the cases in the image above. The cases are the MF series, with the largest one being the MF600, which we assume translates to “Motherf***ing 600.” There’s also the MF500 and the smaller MF400. 

Initially, Cooler Master is basically going to be selling pre-configured models. Eventually, the company wants to allow people to customize the case on their site and have it assembled and shipped from around the City of Industry. It’s pretty cool as it’s a fully modular approach.

The side panels are secured to the case via magnets, which is actually a nice touch. 

Internally, the MF600 we saw came with 3x140mm fans on the front and 1x120mm fan on the back. The motherboard tray is pretty standard for the most part. Exceptions include a rail system that provides numerous holes for screws to go in, which allows Cooler Master to reconfigure things. 

Inside the case towards the back, there’s also a rail system, which forms bits and pieces of the motherboard tray that allow for more customizability. 

Cooler Master has been kind of on-and-off in the DIY space over the years where they’ve had some really big wins and some really big losses. They were also kind of absent for a while, but these MF cases represent a better showing from what we’ve seen in a while from the company. 

According to Cooler Master, a pre-configured MF600 is supposed to cost $200. We expect to test and review the case. 

The MF500 is supposed to go for $165 and includes 2x200mm fans in the front and 1x120mm fan in the back. 

The smallest MF case, the MF600, which is a very large micro ATX box, is going for $150. In terms of fans, it has 2x120mm ones at the bottom coupled with a 1x120mm fan in the rear.  

Cooler Master also showed off different panel types they’re experimenting with. One of them included a facade-style stone. 

One of the pre-built MF cases we looked at had stuff flipped around in an inverted layout. One of the benefits of its rail system allows the case to have a bar that screws in which can support the GPU. Looking into this system, you can see that the PSU is at the bottom next to a bottom intake fan. 

Updated Cosmos

Cooler Master’s updated Cosmos has the NVIDIA-like DGX style front. 

We also saw a variant of the Cosmos with thermal baffles in it. We have some criticisms of its execution, but overall, it’s an interesting idea.  

The way the baffles are designed, Cooler Master is trying to bring air straight in through its channels. There’s a channel for the CPU that exposes the fin stack and Cooler Master's V8 CPU cooler. It conveys an idea similar to an engine cover. 

The GPU has a separate baffle beneath the CPU one. The company is trying to isolate air flow. In theory, this should work well and we would love this idea applied to more affordable cases, like the MF series, especially since they’re already kind of configurable. 

Looking at the back, fans can be mounted on the rear, which can help pull air out. 

We also saw another variant of the Cosmos case running liquid cooling with a distro block. It was coupled with 4x180mm fans and a “720” radiator, which pulled air into the case. Unfortunately, the air is blowing straight into the wall of a motherboard tray, but Cooler Master says the plan is to pull the air up and out of the case with additional 180mm fans on the top and to move the PSU towards the bottom of the case. 

Looking closer at the front of the special edition of the Cosmos cases, we can see the NVIDIA DGX shroud, which Cooler Master manufactures. It’s essentially like a sponge-like mesh. 

The special edition of the Cosmos doesn’t have a price yet, but the non-special edition variant is supposed to be around $400, which is before any potential tariffs. 

Cooler Master Coolers

Cooler Master showed off some CPU air coolers that had some 3D heat pipes, which had more heat pipes protruding from the center. 

The company also showed off its V8 cooler and a full-metal fan. The fan’s blades and frame are both aluminum.  

Cooler Master Elite Series Cases

Cooler Master does some really cool sh*t but has a branding problem. For instance, the company’s “Elite” series cases, shown in the image above, are actually budget cases. From left to right, we believe they are called the Elite 482 ($50), Elite 600 ($65), Elite 490 Wood ($50), Elite 691 Wood ($60), Elite 693 ($60), Elite 692 ($70), Elite 302 ($40), and Elite 502 ($60). Our advice to Cooler Master here is for them to unf*ck these names.

Most of the Elite series cases don’t come with fans with the exception of the Elite 302 and Elite 502, which come with 3 ARGB fans. 

MF360

Next up are Cooler Master’s MF360 cases, which conveys that you can see inside the case from all sides. While it’s going to have some thermal challenges, to give the company credit, it’s actually really good looking. 

The MF360 is a showcase fish-tank style PC that you can see through from both sides. Inside the case, we saw a distro block and tubes routed through on both sides.

Cooling X

The case in the image above, which goes by "Cooling X,” and uses the company’s new MF frame system. If you look at the corner, you can see the individual columns. At Computex, we saw it as a pre-built system.

The top of the case has a magnetically attached panel, which just pulls right off. The panel itself provides really good porosity and the material is pretty nice. Removing the top panel exposes 2 offset fans. The back fan tries to pull in air with the front fan trying to exhaust air out of the top, which is why they’re offset. That’s kind of cool to see.  

Cooler Master Fans

Cooler Master showed off all-aluminum fans, which include the blades and frame. The MF120 XT is a 120mm model, is supposed to be $35, and the company says it goes up to 4,000 RPM. 

The fan’s RPM can also be button-controlled via an external remote and it uses a dual-ball-bearing solution. 

Cooler Master’s mixed fans, which use plastic blades coupled with an aluminum frame, come with fluid dynamic bearings (FDBs). The clearance between the fan blade tip and the frame is important as the smaller that clearance is, the better performance you get. The major downside is that as the fan ages, it can start to clip the interior of the frame. Having it too close can also negatively impact yields. The solution to this is LCP, which is incredibly expensive, or metal, because it doesn’t deform, but that’s also expensive. Right now, Cooler Master says it’s about a .8mm distance, which is pretty good. The company is targeting 0.6mm by the time the fan launches. 

Cooler Master Video Card Shroud

Cooler Master also showed off some video cards, which is not something the company is typically involved with. 

Cooler Master created a GPU shroud with adjustable slats that can accommodate 15-30mm fans. This solution is geared towards pre-built PCs and isn’t planned to be sold separately.

Examining one of the fans, we saw a standard 25mm-thick fan, which Cooler Master’s GPU shroud solution can adjust to via different notch options.

Cooler Master is also using a vapor chamber, which is supported by 8x8mm heat pipes running through the shroud and a gigantic fin stack. In total, it weighs almost 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms).

Cooler Master claims that, in terms of cooling, it performs similar to the 4-fan Astral solution at lower noise levels, but we don’t have those numbers. 

With 4,000 RPM fans running on a 600-watt heat load, Cooler Master claims a 5090 will run at about 49 degrees C or so for the GPU.

Noctua's Computex 2025 showcase includes engineering and design information on their new Thermosiphon cooler and CPU liquid cooler

The Highlights

• Noctua shows off its upcoming AIO liquid cooler
• The company also shows off its new NF-A12 G2 fan
• Noctua also discusses its Antec Flux Pro Noctua Edition PC case

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Intro

We visited Noctua’s booth at Computex, where the company showed off its upcoming liquid cooler, which is set to launch in Q1 2026. 

Once again, we have to give Noctua an award for least RGB LED BS we’ve seen at a trade show as we couldn’t find any in their booth.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 20, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

The company showed off its AIO liquid cooler prototype, which consisted of 3D printed pieces that are intended to go into the pump block to reduce some of the most annoying aspects of liquid coolers with pumps as opposed to thermosiphons. 

The fan that goes on top of the pump block is an existing Noctua fan that they’ve reshaped the frame for. And it’s optional to mount on top and it projects the air out towards the memory and VRM components. 

We also looked at the company’s thermosiphon, which was briefly shown at Computex last year. It is a 2-phase thermosiphon, which means that it does a phase change. This makes it comparable to a heat-pipe in a way. 

We also got to see a bunch of different types of cold plate designs.

We also got another look at the Noctua x Antec Flux Pro case, which we previously covered at Antec’s booth.

G2 Fans

Noctua showed off its 120mm G2 fan, which also appears in the shroud top of the Antec Flux Pro case. A couple things have changed about the fan, which include the RPM offset being a little different.

When we reviewed the NH-D15 G2, the RPM offset between the 2 fans was about 25, but the fans we saw at Computex are about plus or minus 50.  

Noctua provided some first-party data and stated that on a 120x49mm water cooler radiator comparing the G2 fan versus the company’s NF-A12x25 fan under a 200W heat-loud, the G2 fan performed roughly 3 degrees cooler, which is really good.    

Paired with an air cooler, there was about a 1 degree difference between the 2 fans, which is a lot for an air cooler. 

Noctua Liquid Cooler

For its liquid cooler, Noctua is working with Asetek, using the company’s Gen 8 V2 platform.  Asetek has been around for a long time and they’re one of the biggest suppliers. In the old days, they worked with Corsair, NZXT, and basically everyone’s stuff.

The landscape has diversified a bit. Apaltek has gotten really big as a supplier. For as much s*** we’ve given Asetek over the years, in our experience, they’ve had fewer widespread failures of gunk buildup compared to competing solutions. 

Noctua Mouse

We don’t cover mice, but Noctua also showed off a mouse with a small fan built into it. 

Noctua's Jakob Dellinger Interview

We wrapped up our Noctua coverage by interviewing Noctua’s Jakob Dellinger. Make sure to watch our Computex video where we do a deeper dive into the company’s upcoming liquid cooler, how a thermosiphon works, and more.

We take a look at Thermalright’s crazy amount of air coolers, closed-loop liquid coolers, fans, and examine the company’s first case

The Highlights

• Thermalright continues to overwhelm the CPU cooler market with a crazy amount of coolers at cheap prices
• Thermalright showed off its first case, the TR M10 MATX
• Thermalright is experimenting with fans of all kinds, ranging from high-end all-LCP and metal fans to more modest PPT ones
• The company also unveiled a number of new closed-loop liquid coolers

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Intro

We visited Thermalright’s booth at Computex 2025 and the company handed us a big booklet showing everything the company was showing at the show. It’s impossible for us to remember the names of everything the company was showing at the event as there just too much of it, but we'll try to highlight the most interesting products.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 20, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Thermalright Air Coolers

The biggest thing that Thermalright is doing when it comes to coolers is mostly in digital displays and screens. The company showed off many CPU air coolers at Computex and only a few don’t have them. 

Frost Tower

The company’s Frost Tower comes with a 140mm fan in the middle coupled with a 120mm front fan. The middle fan is 27mm thick and the front fan is a standard 25mm. Thermalright is targeting about $50 for the Frost Tower. The company is using LCP blades, which is very expensive, and a 30% fiberglass reinforced PBT for the frame, which is a balancing mechanism for cost. 

It uses a 6-pull fan and its fin-stack is soldered, which is higher quality than press-fit.

Royal Lord

The company’s Royal Lord cooler is supposed to be a $43 cooler and it uses 2 fans. Thermalright says it’s an extra $10 if you want to add an extra LCD to it. Like the Frost Tower, its fin stack is also soldered. It uses 7 heat pipes with a 30% fiberglass reinforced PBT for its fans, which are both 2x25mm. 

Thermalright Fans

R-Series Fans 

The company will release its R5 and R9 fans. The number denotes how many blades the fans will have. Thermalright says the R5 fans are designed to push air through radiators. 

The R9 fan has 9 blades and is a 28mm thick fan. 

The company is moving towards LCP on a lot of its fans. 

X12 Fan

Thermalright showed off a fan with 17 blades that’s completely made out of metal. It’s got a zinc alloy frame and aluminum blade set. It’s just a prototype for now and costs the company $100 to make, which tells you a little about how much it might cost for the company to mass-produce it. The unit we saw was fully CNCed. 

17 blade fans are very abnormal. The company says it would mostly be useful in mini PCs. The fan uses an all-metal design to get the blade-tip clearance to functionally be 0. The fan also has an inner ring to it. 

Thermalright Stream Vision Liquid Cooler

Thermalright showed off numerous liquid coolers, but we’re only going to focus on one. 

Thermalright’s Stream Vision is supposed to be $100. The liquid cooler comes with a screen on it and there’s also a fan that cools the memory and VRM. One of our suggestions to Thermalright is to angle the grill on the sides of this fan away from the mounting brackets. The company is trying to compete in the liquid market more. 

Rainbow Vision and Wonder Vision

The company is also competing with Tryx’s panoramic cooler. Thermalright has an interchangeable screen with one of the 2 options providing a full separate cold plate. They are 2400x1800 resolution from what the company told us and leverage a 60Hz panel. One of the options is a 6.67-inch OLED display. Thermalright says that both options should be about $200. 

TRM10 Cases

Thermalright also showed off a case that it’s been working on, the TRM10. The company hasn’t made computer cases before. It’s one of the few products that it’s not making in its factory. 

Thermalright’s plan for cases is to do what they’re doing in the cooler industry, which is to be extremely competitive when it comes to pricing. 

The cheapest version of the TRM10 will be $45 and the more expensive one will be $65. The more expensive model will come with an LCD display on the side and a digital display on the front to display numbers like the time. The cheaper one, on the other hand, will most likely just come with a steel plate instead.  

The mATX case is mostly steel with a bunch of perforations on the top and glass for its sides. The top of the case also has plastic that is made to look like brushed aluminum. Inside the chassis, there’s a good amount of depth for the cable management and it has passthrough for the cables at a side angle with the exception of the EPS12V, which is on the top. Everything else about the case is pretty standard. 

Looking inside the case, there’s a lot of perforation, like at the top and bottom of the hard drive cages, which is a good thing to see. The top of the power supply shroud is also heavily perforated along with the bottom of the case. There’s about as many holes as you can get in the case.  

The case is going for airflow with its panel design, with the exception of the front, but the side makes up for some airflow. The steel in the middle of this panel adds some rigidity and is also probably a play on Thermalright’s logo.   

Thermalright Mini PCs

With its mini PCs, Thermalright is trying to compete with Minisforum and the company tells us that the mini PCs we saw will be liquid cooled. This theoretically means it should have better thermals and be a little quieter compared to competing systems if it’s done well. Pricing is still TBD but Thermalright says they will be cheaper or equal to competing mini PCs, which we take as Minisforum. 

The company started running a benchmark on one of its mini PCs with a 100% load and we saw the CPU, which is an AMD 395 SOC, temps being 61 degrees C, though that may ramp up as it hits steady state. 

Thermalright showed off 3 models.

One of the mini PCs at Computex was just there for show. The unit in the image above is fully CNCed. It looks super nice with its red accents, but it’s not something the company is planning to sell unless there’s a lot of demand for it.  

Thermalright Tank PC

Leveraging its factory, Thermalright wanted to build something cool and took 3 months to make a computer that looked like a tank. The company told us it’s composed of around 450 pieces.

Thermalright CEO Interview

We also conducted a brief interview with Thermalright’s CEO. To check that out, make sure to watch that portion in our Computex video.

During Computex 2025, Lian Li showed off several new cases that include the Lancool 4, Lancool 217 Infinity, Lian Li O11 Mini V2, and more

The Highlights

• Lian Li's Lancool 4 case has gigantic holes cut into the glass for intake fans, coupling airflow with glass
• The company’s Shifting Block PSU has a rotating plug that is geared for back-connect motherboards
• The company’s Vector 100 cases are very cheap, starting at $45 without fans

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Intro

We visited Lian Li during Computex, where the company showed off several of its upcoming products. We think the most interesting one is the Lancool 4, which has fans built into its glass front panel. It’s supposed to be a $130 case that will come with 6 fans.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 19, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Lancool 4

The big thing about the Lancool 4 is that it embeds its fans into the front glass panel. This kind of takes us back to about 20 years ago, but instead of glass, the fans were integrated into acrylic and people would take a hole saw and would mount their own fans into it. 

One of the challenges with this design pertains to potentially reducing the yields with glass breaking being a concern. This wasn’t something that case companies did before, but Lian Li CEO Jameson Chen tells us the glass manufacturing process has improved dramatically lately. The CEO says that the failure rate used to be abysmal but has gotten down to about 5% to accommodate for the curve of the glass. Drilling holes into the glass brings the failure rate down at least another 5%. To mitigate failure rates, Lian Li found that there needs to be at least a 3cm gap between the holes. 

Chen revealed that the glass is 4mm thick, which is to bolster its quality.  

In between the fans are plastic pieces which are used to hide the cables. The fans also use Pogo pins, which are integrated into the bottom of the front panel. 

When we asked Chen what happens if one of the fans dies, the CEO stated that Lian Li would provide a 5-year warranty. He elaborated that the fans are a new design and that they are 10% fiberglass PBT. Chen also revealed that the fans use fluid dynamic bearings (FDB). Considering Lian Li is still prototyping the case, the company is still thinking about whether to put RGB LEDs on the fan blades or to put the RGB LEDs around the fan’s frames. 

The Lancool 4 has an aluminum top and the rest of the chassis is made of steel, which is 1mm thick.

The back glass panel releases via a button. Chen says this was done so that people could open up the glass panel without opening up the bottom side panel. 

Looking at the design of the rest of the case, it has a lot of similar panels as seen in the Lancool series. It’s got 4 doors and the 2 on the bottom sides are ventilated mesh and there are fan-mount options on the side. 

While we were there, Chen told us that Lian Li is considering shortening the case from the front to the back a little bit. This would bring the fans in closer to the components. This will benefit an air cooler and GPU. In our experience, performance in shorter cases, in a like-for-like scenario, is better. Chen also thinks the aesthetics of the case would improve as well with a tighter design. The downside is that the case would no longer support 420mm radiators and would support 360mm radiators max. 

The back panel of the Lancool 4 uses glass, which would normally expose the cable management but the case will come with a cable cover. There would be 2 screws to remove it. A downside here is that there’s less cable-management space to work with.

The Lancool 4’s PSU mount is towards the back and bottom of the case. The bottom front has a cut out, which provides some space to route cables. 

Shifting Block PSU

The company also showed off a new interesting power supply, which has a rotating plug. This creates a shifting layout for the cable connections and allows users to re-orient the PSU. 

Chen tells us it's designed for top and bottom chamber cases and it’s also geared for back-connect motherboards.  

Looking at the PSU, it has its 24-pin connectors off on one side. It also has an optional fan and USB 2.0 hub.

Lian Li O11 Mini V2

Moving on to the Lian Li O11 Mini V2, it has mesh on one of the side panels that’s popped-out about 3mm, which is to accommodate for ATX PSUs that protrude past the frame of the case. The company designed it this way because it had a very specific width it wanted to tackle to avoid the case looking too chunky. Currently, the volume of the case is 45 liters, which includes the feet, but does not include the protruding mesh side panel. 

The case we saw used bottom intake fans, which are slanted at 25 degrees and the only place for air access is underneath the back panel side. This is coupled with a tiny dust filter on the bottom, which slides out through the back. 

In terms of other fan mounts, the case has 2 on the side, 1 on the back, and 3 fans can fit in the top. The Lian Li O11 Mini V2 is targeting $89 without fans and $99 with five 120mm fans (2 on the side and 3 on the bottom). 

Dan Case B4

Moving on to Lian Li’s Dan Case B4, we’ve reviewed Dan cases before. The unit we saw at Computex isn’t done yet. We’re told it’s about 60% completed. The case can rotate and has feet and an extension that allows the case to support up to a 360mm radiator. The downside is that about 30% of one of the radiator’s fans would be obstructed by a metal wall. It’s possible that they may perforate this wall to help with cooling. 

Lian Li is planning to put some mesh or covering on the front panel of the case. The unit we saw was fully exposed and open. What’s interesting about this layout is that the GPU fans are right up against the case’s front intake fans, which is going to be about as cool as you can get for the video card. Most GPUs these days have vertically-oriented fins where the air is going to come out the sides. In this case, air should come out through the punctured side panel but may re-circulate into the back radiator, especially if its fans are intake. If the fans are oriented to be exhaust, that might work better in this case. Lian Li is planning to provide 2x120mm fans along with the case. 

The case can also be rotated to look like the image above. 

217 Infinity Case

Lian Li also showed off its 217 Infinity case, which is the 217 case with an updated front and leans on some of the changes that the Lancool 4 has made to get its fans into its front glass panel. 

The tooling is mostly the same. The things in the back of the case are all basically identical. The changes pertain to the front panel, which have some giant holes in them to accommodate 170mm fans that are 30mm deep. The glass panel has the infinity mirror styling. 

The only other major change pertains to the IO. Some people complained that the original 217 had its IO on the bottom side, so now the company has moved it to the top with an option to have it on the bottom side. The case comes with 2x170mm front fans and a rear fan. 

The black version of the case is targeting $120 with a white version targeting $125. 

Lian Li Vector Series

Another Lian Li case we looked at had some “functional gimmicks.” On the back side, it has a cut-out area that looks like a handle, but definitely isn’t. Instead, there’s a very fine mesh filter that’s an area that’s meant to help with intake. This should also help with GPU cooling. The case is targeted at the system integrator market, but will still be sold at retail. Lian Li is targeting $110 for it without any fans, but includes an 8.8-inch IPS screen that carries a 1720x4080 resolution. Pricing may change in the US based on tariffs. 

Vector 100 and Vector 100 Mini

The main reason we’re bringing these 2 cases up is price. The Vector 100 is targeting $60 (without fans) and the Vector 100 Mini, which is geared for MicroATX, is targeting $45 (without fans). 

Lian Li Wireless Fans

Lian Li also showed off its new wireless fans, which comes with a battery pack. There’s currently no price on it, but it’s designed to allow its users to “flex,” as Chen put it. It comes with a built-in receiver. The fans and RGB LEDs use up to 12 volts. In terms of battery life, the CEO says that 3 fans with their LEDs on will last for about 20 minutes. 

Hydroshift 2 Liquid Cooler

The Hydroshift 2 Liquid Cooler has a click actuation ring around the cooler, which can be used as a software-less switch for the display and all of that is pre-written to the device. This means that toggling it doesn’t require software, though you could use software. 

Compared to Lian Li’s previous Hydroshift 1, the radiator size has been reduced to offer more compatibility but Lian Li says it’s tried to improve flow within the cooler. The company also pushed the micro fins closer to the heat source.

We take a look at several of Montech’s upcoming cases and coolers, which the company showed off at Computex 2025

The Highlights

• Montech is preparing to launch new air coolers to battle Thermalright, especially when it comes to pricing
• Montech is trying to take over the space that DeepCool left in the US market
• Montech is releasing several new cases in the coming months that include the Sky 3, King 45, King 15, X5 budget case, X5M, the "ten," and more

Table of Contents

• AutoTOC

Intro

Every single cooler company we talk to does not understand how Thermalright can have the prices that they have. The only thing we can think of is their factory relationships, but the point is that it’s become a serious challenge for others to compete on price. 
Montech is trying to compete with Thermalright on price and attempting to replace DeepCool’s spot in the market. Before DeepCool got kicked out of America, which is a hell of a thing to put on your resume, the company really started dominating in the cooler market before Thermalright came in and kicked their ass on price. Where DeepCool was able to compete was in build quality. So, Montech is looking at that and they want to take that part of the market.

Editor's note: This was originally published on May 17, 2025 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Host, Writing

Steve Burke

Video Editing, Camera

Mike Gaglione
Vitalii Makhnovets

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

Montech specifically told us that its objective is to sort of compete with Themalright, which is everybody’s objective.  

NX400 CPU Cooler

Looking at one of Montech’s new CPU coolers, the NX400, the company pointed out that its fan is 28mm, which should help with pressure and performance. 

Pricing on the single-tower NX400 (non ARGB) is supposed to be $25.90. When you’re down to the 10 cent mark, that’s how you know there is zero margin left in the product.  

The cooler uses a 2-post mount. It has a C-shaped bracket for the actual board. There is no offset mounting for AM5. The one thing we’re curious about is how much an offset mount might or might not matter for the 4-heat-pipe approach. The cooler is supposed to sort of be as cheap as possible while still actually being kind of good. This is a very fiercely fought over category right now, which is a good thing. 

Again, Montech is using 28mm fans. Typically fans are 25mm, but that has been scaling upwards. The reason for this is to increase static-pressure performance. 

When you stick a fan onto a fin stack, you introduce a ton of resistance behind it. This is the nature of a heat sink as opposed to a fan on the front of a case, where it’s basically accessing the open air and the only thing it’s fighting is whatever’s in front of it to filter the dust or perhaps glass. 

As the cost for larger fans starts to come down (as more people make them) then we should see the prevalence of more, larger fans. 

We asked Montech if they’ve done a comparison testing of a 25mm fan vs 28mm one and the company told us it did. Montech says that on the NX400, there was about a 1 to 2 degree difference in favor of the larger fan, which makes sense and is actually a large difference for an air cooler.    

Again the non RGB NX400 will cost about $26 whereas the ARGB variant will cost about $30. 

NX600 CPU Cooler

The NX600 is a 6-heat-pipe version of the NX400 that uses a 2-tower approach to its design. Its price is currently TBD, but it sounds like it may be in the $40-$50 price range from what we’ve heard. It will also use 30mm-thick fans but there are 2 of them. Its cold plate uses an enclosed nickel-plated copper base plate with 6 heat pipes going through it.   

Montech X5 and X5M Cases

We originally talked about how Montech used a “molex centipede” for its X3 case, which was a bunch of daisy-chained molex connectors, but that’s gone with the company’s X5 case, which is supposed to kind of replace that series. The X5 is targeting $75.

It has a wavy mesh front panel. Montech is experimenting with either painting or placing a sticker on the case to make it look like carbon fiber. They kind of did that with a wood veneer in the past. It’s not real carbon fiber, but that shouldn't be expected out of a $75 case. They tended to do pretty well overall thermally despite using cheaper quality fans. Hopefully the company will be able to deliver on that front again because the below $80 case market is largely dead. The 4000D was supposed to be a case around $80 and that was kind of the last major one that was really successful. So, it’s nice seeing a $75 case, especially if it’s not made out of scrap metal. 

Internally, the case comes with 3x140mm fans in front and 1x120mm on the back. The reason the X3 was so interesting was the amount of fans it provided for the price. As a matter of fact, we started paying attention to Montech due to their super cheap cases coming with a lot of fans. 

Looking at the back, we can see that they colored all of the wires white in an attempt to match the rest of the case. The plastic isn’t the same white exactly, but that’s apparently hard to do across all of the different materials like metal, plastic, and rubber. On a $75 case, that isn’t as big of a deal, though.  

Looking at the PSU shroud, there’s an option to mount 120mm fans, though there isn’t a ton of room against the power supply. There is some ventilation on the side, however, which might help the GPU.  

The case also has an integrated GPU support. 

Otherwise, the case is simple and cheap. 

The X5M, which is smaller and aimed at MicroATX, is targeting $60. Pricing is higher than what Montech wanted to target as a result of cost increases and potential tariffs, etc.

Montech Sky Case

The thing that jumps out to us about this case is its canted tray for its 2 bottom fans, which are reverse blade ones that act as intake. 

On the back of the case, it has large ventilated holes both vertically and horizontally. Taking the back panel off, one thing we’d like to see is refinement on the magnetic filters. Currently, they’re not done yet but you can see a lot of metal ending up in the hexagon-shaped cut-outs. If they could punch out larger holes or use a finer mesh and get rid of the dust filter or something like that, that would help a lot with thermal performance and letting air through. 

Looking at the glass side panel, we can see an alternative to traditional Pogo pins, which are used to power the case’s light strip. This design is supposed to be more resilient to damage and it’s located towards the front corner of the case and Montech says this design was incorporated to avoid breaking. 

Overall, we have some critiques to the case, but it's finalized. The biggest ones we have for this case include the aforementioned side-panel ventilation and the fact that when the fans are oriented towards the front bottom of the case, the drive cages underneath end up blocking potential air intake from underneath the chassis, but then again, there’s not a lot of space for air to come in through the bottom to begin with. As a result, the bottom fans don’t have much access to intake aside from small ventilated areas.  

In terms of pricing, it’s supposed to be $80 for the mesh-fronted version and $100 for the glass version. The case will come with 3 fans. 

HS02 3D

Another case we looked at is one that we’ve already reviewed, the HS02, but the biggest difference with the unit we saw at Computex is that it has glass on the back. Montech is calling it the HS02 3D.

Montech Ten

Montech’s Ten case kind of reminds us of Lian Li’s O11 DYNAMIC MINI, where the case can be rotated and modified into 3 different configurations. The Ten can be flipped, pulled apart, and users can swap around all of its panels. Montech tells us that it takes about 5-10 minutes to do this. 

The case has excellent side panels. They are basically giant pieces of mesh and also provide air access to the GPU, which is great. Using a glass-side panel in front of the GPU would really suffocate the card. The challenge with the case’s design is that flow-through video cards will dump heat to the power supply fan, which is fine as the PSU can take it. The question becomes where does the air go after that?

We think Montech might want to pull down a wall under the power supply to block re-circulation. Other than that, it’s an all-mesh box, which is hard to complain about. Externally, it represents about 27 liters of volume when you factor in the feet. 

ITX is an option and Montech is calling that the I3. There’s also an mATX variant, which is being called M1 or M2, which designates whether it’s flipped or not.  

The Ten is supposed to start at $90 but that’s not finalized yet. 

King 15 and King 45

The King 15 and King 45 are just continuations of the existing King series. They already have the King 95 and King 65, and we reviewed the 65 somewhat recently. The 15 and 45 both still have the curved glass to their fronts, making them very familiar overall.   

One thing worth pointing out is that its bottom fans are sunken into the bottom, which means they’re pretty close to the floor and the intake is primarily relegated to the back side panel of the case, where there’s a bit of an angle which should help with intake a little, but it’s still somewhat boxed in.  

For the King 15, they are targeting 3x120mm fans and a 1x140mm fan at $110. Without fans, they are looking at $90. 

Air 2000

Moving on to the Air 2000, we saw a black one with a glass front and a white one with a mesh front. The case has a digital display panel on the side. It tells you the fan speeds but also provides controls as well. Each button press up or down targets 10% increments in control. There’s also a button that defaults to the motherboard’s controls. Looking at the backside of the display panel, it’s just one big PCB coupled with a wire that connects to the fan hub. The upside to this approach is that no software is required. This has been done before by a couple of companies, but it isn’t that common. Being able to control fan speed externally is a nice feature, especially if it doesn’t require software.

The Air 2000 is supposed to be $100 with 4x140mm fans and that is with the screen. They will also have a screenless variant as well. 

Taking a look at the mesh variant, the case’s top panel has 70% whole porosity and the thickness of the steel means that it doesn’t end up being flimsy. 

The power supply shroud is ventilated with perforations on the top and bottom. Even the top of the drive cage has perforations, which is a nice, small attention to detail. That probably won’t matter a lot but it’s nice to see. The rest of the case has a pretty standard layout. Thermally, the case should be one of the more interesting ones, especially the mesh-fronted version.

Our round-up includes the best CPU coolers for value, budget, noise-normalized thermals in both air and liquid categories, best mechanical design, and best overall.

The Highlights

• Best Overall CPU Cooler of 2024: ID-Cooling A720
• Best Value CPU Cooler: Thermalright Frozen Prism
• Best Budget CPU Cooler: ID-Cooling SE-214-XT
• Best Mechanical Design CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 G2

Table of Contents

• AutoTOC

Intro

Today, we’re rounding-up some of the best CPU coolers that we’ve tested in recent years, including air and liquid coolers.

This is a continuation of our favorite series each year, where we get to have some fun comparing only the best-of-the-best products we looked at and avoid the usual disappointments. But there was some huge news this year: DeepCool got banned and is now gone from the US market. With that, a power vacuum has formed among cooler manufacturers, and Thermalright’s former nemesis has been replaced with Arctic and ID Cooling aggressively trying to fill it. We can’t say that was on our bingo card.

Editor's note: This was originally published on December 15, 2024 as a video. This content has been adapted to written format for this article and is unchanged from the original publication.

Credits

Test Lead, Host, Writing

Steve Burke

Camera, Video Editing

Vitalii Makhnovets

Camera

Andrew Coleman

Writing, Web Editing

Jimmy Thang

These tests will include results from our new 250W and 200W Intel heat loads in addition to our 200W and 123W AMD heat loads. The categories this year are for Best Overall CPU Cooler, Best Budget CPU Cooler, Best Value CPU Cooler, Best Noise-Normalized Thermals, and Best Mechanical Design. Let’s get started.

Setting Expectations

These Best Of articles are intended to get newcomers up to speed quickly, so we won’t go into the same crazy depth we normally do for the standalone reviews. Each of the coolers that has a review will be linked in the description below so that you can find the full details if you want them, including all the 3D laser scanning, pressure maps, and downsides. This article will be more of a flyover.

We’re testing both air and liquid coolers for this one. We’ve added a lot of coolers to the charts that aren’t in our prior reviews, specifically tested for this round-up, so there’s new data mixed with old in here.

Additionally, keep in mind that our noise testing methodology changes between charts. For the AMD platform, we use our old room-scale noise testing.

For our Intel platform we just added, we’re testing in our hemi-anechoic chamber with a lower threshold of 25dBA normalization in a noise floor around 14 dBA.

As always, for cooler round-ups, we can only discuss coolers we’ve directly had hands-on time with. There are hundreds of coolers out there. We have a pretty good cross-section of the big options, but if you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for, we’d encourage you to check other content and expand your research.

You can find the full charts on our CPU coolers Mega Charts page. As a reminder, gamersnexus.net is a free website that is totally free from third-party ads and funded by the audience. We just got done running another 18 cooler tests on a 250W and 200W Intel platform with noise-normalized results in our hemi-anechoic chamber.

That’ll set us up. If you want to check out our Best CPUs and Best Cases round-ups, those are already live. All the review links and product links are in the description. Let’s get into it.

Overview: Best CPU Coolers of 2024

Best Overall CPU Cooler: ID Cooling A720

Amazon

Runner-Up: Arctic Freezer 36

Original review | Newegg | Amazon

Up first, our category for Best Overall CPU cooler this year. This category requires the pricing to be competitive, as it considers the value, the build quality and assembly features, ease-of-installation features, the thermal and acoustic performance, and everything else. Last year, we gave this to the Peerless Assassin 120, which is definitely a GOAT and remains one. This year, we’re giving it to two Thermalright competitors, depending on CPU: Overall, the ID-Cooling A720 gets the award this year. For our Intel bench specifically, we’re giving a tied rank award to the Arctic Freezer 36. 

Let’s start with the Intel results and the Freezer 36, since that one is isolated as a winner to just this bench.

The most heavily weighted element in favor of the Freezer 36 (read our review) is its price. Arctic said it’d increase the price within just months of launch, but seemingly never did. Even today, the Black model that we tested is about $28 -- an incredible value considering its performance, at least on our Intel bench, and fiercely competitive with the Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 that won our award last year.

Our new Intel 250W noise-normalized charts also include the Peerless Assassin 140, which was eliminated because we discovered quality control issues and variance between our two units that resulted in a 2-degree spread of results, which is actually huge. Unfortunately, one of the Assassin 140 units we have just doesn’t have a good pressure scan or laser scan, while the other is fine. We were able to prove the source of the difference was a combination of the coldplate and mounting hardware.

You can see the two entries for the PA140 here. It’s not because the white model is better, but because the other unit has contact issues.

Anyway, that eliminates the new PA140 even if only the best entry were here. Of the remaining coolers, the Freezer 36 is the best performer after Noctua’s D15 G2 HBC. This is impressive with the Freezer 36’s $28 price. The G2, on the other hand, is $150. Some of this comes from Arctic’s mandate of a contact frame for the Intel version of its Freezer 36, but considering that’s all included in the price, this is a strong positioning. 

One other note here: The D15 2023 model we have here performs a little better than our original D15 from a decade ago, which is a result of minor tweaks or refinement in manufacturing processes along the way. We talked about this in the G2 review. If you’re on an older D15 from around when it launched, it’s likely it is marginally different in performance today.

On to the A720: In our Mega Charts for 200W testing previously, the Freezer 36 fell behind compared to its Intel results with the frame. This reveals our choice that’s tied for the category: The A720, which was also among the top two performers for Intel and is the best performer behind the D15 G2 (read our review) in this 200W, AMD noise-normalized test.

The combined chart-topping performance in both our AMD and Intel test benches is what leads the A720 to the Best Overall rank, with its relatively high build quality and moderate price securing the position. 

At $55, with occasional drops to $50, it’s competitive with the best (like the $150 G2) and manages a 55.2 degree over ambient result on our 200W AMD bench. This improves on the GOATed Peerless Assassin by 1-degree, which does have a little bit of an advantage in price. 

The Intel result improved on the Peerless Assassin 120 (read our review) by 1.6 degrees.

We recently tested the Phantom Spirit as well, but it didn’t outperform our Peerless Assassin 120. The Phantom Spirit EVO has a slightly smaller tower than the Assassin and also has a disadvantage with noisier fans, found in our chamber testing. The Spirit’s fan RPM is higher than the Assassin, but that doesn’t matter when normalizing for noise.

Overall, for the A720, we think it has surprisingly good build quality. The fans are well-fitted to the cooler, with the central fan sinking to benefit VRM cooling as well. We like the simplicity of the black model that we have. The mounting solution is overall straight-forward and the bulked-up 7-heatpipe design helps with coverage across the IHS. The cap plates are a nice touch without overdoing the branding. The central fan also levels-out nicely with the top plates and each fan has rubber bumpers on the corners to reduce vibration, which benefitted it in noise normalizing. Its biggest downside is size, where the 163mm height makes it about 6mm taller than a Peerless Assassin 120. This could limit some cases.

We think ID Cooling and Thermalright both are worth seriously paying attention to in 2025, especially with DeepCool’s disappearance from the US and the Freezer 36 is also worth considering if you happen to go Intel.

Best Value CPU Cooler: Thermalright Frozen Prism

Original review | Newegg | Amazon

Our Best Value award this year goes to the Thermalright Frozen Prism. Value is judged by a combination of performance for the price, not just pure price. We have a Best Budget category as well for what is simply one of the best, cheap coolers.

Thermalright’s Frozen Prism is an enigma: It’s $52.71 at the time of this writing. This is somehow even cheaper than when we reviewed it. It’s cheap enough that we remain skeptical of whether it may have some sort of defect down the line. In some ways, it seems too good to be true. Concerns we have might involve gunk build-up, but we have no evidence of any such issues at this time. What we do have evidence of is impressive performance: The Frozen Prism (read our review) was a competitive liquid cooler in our testing, brute-forcing much of its performance with a hugely protruding copper coldplate, almost comically so. Our laser scans made this protrusion even more clear, with our pressure maps showing how the cooler leverages the design to brute-force high pressure dead-center, which is where the silicon often sits. 

Even on AMD, which has less-centered silicon than Intel’s prior monolithic CPUs, the pressure spreads wide enough that it’ll catch everything.

In our 200W heat load thermal benchmarks from the review, the Frozen Prism 360 ran at 49.7 degrees Celsius over ambient when noise-normalized, whereas the best liquid cooler we’d tested at the time, the Liquid Freezer III, ran at 46.7 degrees Celsius over ambient. That’s a big difference. At the same time, achieving such close performance at under $60 was previously unheard of.

In our prior test bench configuration for Intel, using a 250W heat load on the 12900KS, the Thermalright Frozen Prism was a chart-topper when at 100% fan speeds. If you look at the 53.2dBA noise levels though, it was incredibly inefficient compared to the Liquid Freezer III 360, which ran at 39.8dBA. This is over a 2x increase in perceived noise to the human ear for the Frozen Prism, yet it drops only a couple degrees. That’s an inefficient trade-off, and although fan speed could be lowered to compensate for noise, it’s clear the cooler isn’t some mastery of thermal and acoustic engineering.

What the Frozen Prism actually is, though, is a mastery of cost engineering. 

The Frozen Prism doesn’t have any real quality-of-life features to speak of or anything abnormal. It delivers what it promises, which is cheap cooling. Our only criticism of the physical construction, beyond some cheaper plastic-y feel of some parts, was the stiffer tubing. This can be worked around.

Thermalright has become known for flooding the market with countless options, to the point where it’s overwhelming even for its own staff to remember them all at tradeshows. The company is saturating listings and driving prices down, which is ultra-competitive and in some ways good for consumers. It’s also pretty cutthroat, and is why we now have name-brand coolers also dropping in price. Following-up its success with the Peerless Assassin 120 in years past, Thermalright is looking for a repeat in liquid. We’ll see how the Prism ages, but so far, it’s competitive, especially in thermals. That’s why the Thermalright Frozen Prism 360 gets our best value award.

Best Budget CPU Cooler: ID-Cooling SE-214-XT

Amazon

The next award is in the same vein, but simpler: Our Best Budget award goes to the ID-Cooling SE-214-XT ARGB and it’s challenging the GOAT in Thermalright. ID-Cooling is vying for Thermalright’s strategy. Last year, we praised it for its overall value -- though it has been shifted into the pure budget category with the Frozen Prism’s addition to our charts.

The SE-214-XT ARGB has dropped in price and is now somehow $15.19 at the time of writing. We normally wouldn’t cite the pennies, but when 19 cents is over 1% of the total price, it suddenly becomes relevant. The SE-214XT ARGB is a simple, 4-heatpipe cooler that revives the approach of the old Hyper 212. It’s dirt cheap, its quality is flimsy, its plastics feel like they’re from McDonald’s toys, its coldplate is spartan, and yet somehow, the thing can handle moderate heat loads. It won’t handle a 250W CPU in our test suite with any level of satisfaction, but it’s good enough for cheaper and lower power CPUs with users on more extreme budgets. This would also be a good consideration if you’re buying a used CPU to save money and need something that ticks the “good enough” box.

In our 123W heat load on AM4 last round, the ID Cooling SE-214-XT ARGB held 58 degrees delta T over ambient when at 37.9 dBA, which had it more noise efficient for the result than the lower-ranked Hyper 212 RGB cooler. It was bordering on Noctua’s aged NH-U12S (watch our review). The Thermalright Assassin Spirit (watch our review) ran at the same noise levels and a little more than 1 degree cooler and is likewise a cheap cooler, but at $16.79, somehow, and this is really weird to say, it’s almost 11% more expensive. What a bizarre world of coolers we’re in.

In our 14900KF 200W heat load and with 100% fan speeds, tested instead in our hemi-anechoic chamber that purchases from the store help fund, we landed at 60.6 degrees Celsius delta T. That had the SE-214-XT ARGB as the worst performer on the chart, but still somehow capable of holding a stable operating temperature. In other words, it’s fine. The next lowest performer is the Scythe FUMA 3 (watch our review) with its combination of two fans, a massive 9 degree improvement.

Our 25dBA noise-normalized testing still has it at the bottom of the charts for this heat load, but even at this slightly reduced speed, it’s still a capable performer.

We wouldn’t call the SE-214-XT “good,” but we do think it’s one of the best in class at its seemingly impossibly cheap price, considering it also has to sit in freight to ship to wherever it’s sold. If you need a cooler to just get a system going, this is a good value. ID Cooling seems poised to challenge Thermalright in the future.

Best Thermals (Noise-Normalized) CPU Cooler: Liquid Freezer III, D15 G2

Liquid Freezer III original review | Newegg | Amazon

D15 G2 original review | Newegg | Amazon

Runner-Up: ID-Cooling Frozn A720

Amazon

This is for the Best Noise-Normalized Thermals, and because we have both liquid and air coolers in the charts for this round-up, we’re assigning the award to one liquid cooler and one air cooler.

The Arctic Liquid Freezer III firmly receives the Best Noise-Normalized thermals award both overall and for liquid, but air can’t be expected to compete at the same level of liquid and large radiators (especially when dropping fan RPM). For air coolers, the award goes to the NH-D15 G2 HBC for Intel (or LBC for AMD), with a runner-up award for ID-Cooling’s Frozn A720. We’ve listed the latter because it’s $100 cheaper than the NH-D15 G2.

This is a thermal category, so we’ll focus on charts.

Starting with the Liquid Freezer III (read our review): Arctic’s revision of its Liquid Freezer II tried a number of new things, like shipping a mandatory contact frame with its Intel variation. This complicates matters and isn’t always for the best. 

We found that Arctic’s contact frame was worse than other options on the market, but its cooler design was such that other options couldn’t be used instead. It was still better than Intel’s ILM, though.

For thermals, the Liquid Freezer III is just as impressive as its predecessor, and its price is similarly competitive. In 200W testing on AMD with our older noise-normalized approach, the Liquid Freezer III was the clear chart topper when we limited the pump speed to 70% (which helped reduce noise and allowed higher fan RPM instead). Running the pump at 100% and sacrificing some of that noise budget for it, it was still tied for second place, behind only itself and matched with a cooler that’s now banned in the US. The next closest non-Arctic option is the Trinity Performance from Lian Li, which is specifically performance-focused in its design. 

In our Intel 250W heat load thermals on a 14900KF (read our review), also noise-normalized, the Liquid Freezer III with its mandatory frame climbs to the top of the chart. It’s ahead of the Frozen Prism by enough to not be margin of error or test variance. It’s also ahead of the Light Loop 360 and predictably ahead of all the air coolers.

The Liquid Freezer III remains a top recommendation of ours, though we do find its contact frame solution frustrating for Intel. On AMD, it’s much simpler.

Moving to the air coolers, the victor of the noise-normalized category on pure performance is the Noctua NH-D15 G2 HBC for our Intel 250W bench or LBC for AMD. Previously, we found that the G2 HBC outperformed even its closest competitor, the A720, by a couple degrees. This gap alone is impressive, as finding more than single-degree differences between air coolers is rare. Noctua’s work on the high base convexity cooler really worked for Intel -- but it’s also the recipient of our Best Mechanical Design category, so we’ll save that discussion.

On AMD 200W testing when noise-normalized, we also found Noctua’s D15 G2 LBC (or its flatter model) to be the current best noise-normalized air cooler result, behind only a huge stack of liquid coolers.

As some honorable mentions for runners-up here, since most are in the market for something cheaper, the ID Cooling Frozn A720 Black takes a clean second place in both our Intel and AMD CPU cooler testing. The Frozn A720 well balanced between the 2 platforms. It’s a relatively large tower that may have some clearance issues in some cases, but its $56 price-point makes it one of the more affordable, competitive coolers, and it’s $100 below the D15 G2.

Best Mechanical Design CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 G2

Original review | Newegg | Amazon

The next award is for Best Mechanical Design. This covers the total execution of every physical feature of the cooler: Pressure distribution, laser scans, ease-of-installation features, a highly usable design, aesthetics, and the cooling itself. This year, we can easily give it to the Noctua NH-D15 G2. Like last year’s winner for this category, which was the Assassin IV, Noctua’s NH-D15 G2 isn’t a good value cooler (it’s $150, which is insane for an air cooler) -- but this category isn’t for value. We can still appreciate the engineering.

It’s extremely well-built and takes careful consideration of factors often ignored by other cooling solutions. The NH-D15 G2 was secretly developing something similar to what we showed with some custom-made Scythe cooler coldplates that we had Scythe make early this year, which was trying to game the coldplate convexity to better match the CPU heat spreader’s surface concavity or flatness. 

Noctua was working on this for years and launched three models: The standard G2, HBC (or high-base convexity), and the LBC (low base convexity, sorry, Long Beach City) models subtly modify the convexity or flatness of the coldplate to better pair with deeply deformed Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPUs or with the relative flatness of AMD’s AM5 and AM4 CPUs with the LBC. Standard is meant to work on anything. We used our 3D laser scanner that we bought for cooler testing on the D15 G2 and discovered that the names really match the curvature.

We found that this wasn’t a gimmick and that there were actual, measurable and repeatable differences in benchmarks.

Noctua also lands on this list for its careful attention to detail on the fans, which it pairs and matches with slight RPM offsets intentionally in order to avoid a potential beat frequency phenomenon that could be annoying for some users. We have an interview with one of Noctua’s team members to talk about the engineering topics behind this. 

The D15 G2 also had excellent pressure distribution as a combination of its mounting hardware and the coldplate, shown in our mix of pressure maps across AM4 and Intel. 

An included washer mod added some further fine-tuning and small touches, though it was also clearly an attempt to try and bulk-on a value-add with the high price.

Thermally, the D15 G2 didn’t blow away any of the other coolers by massive margins. It’s a good cooler, but spending $120 more than competition doesn’t mean it’s suddenly competing with a 360mm liquid cooler. The G2 with the HBC solution and a washer mod ran at 52.5 degrees delta T in our review results for the 250W Intel heat load, which was better than coolers like the Peerless Assassin by several degrees (and is impressive), but predictably behind a high-performance liquid cooler. The physics just won’t support beating water and the huge surface area of a radiator. Being realistic about performance expectations is healthy, though, and Noctua never claimed that.
We appreciate what Noctua has done with its mechanical and thermal engineering. The company may move slowly, but thus far, it has moved with purpose. As we said in our review, this is the type of thing you buy if you have your heart set on it and can afford it. You are buying Noctua’s name with the G2 and, likewise, its support. It has already delivered one free update for owners of G2s with a relatively minor rattle complaint.