Once again, we have a maintenance-free liquid cooling system for testing. This time, it is manufactured by PCCooler and has a number of differences from both the company’s previous models and competitors’ products. These include a new radiator, an upgraded pump, beautiful fans, and a removable monitoring display. Will all of this be enough for the new PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display to interest users and gain a foothold in the extremely competitive AiO systems market? Let’s find out today.
Specifications and cost
⇡#Packaging and equipment
PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display is sealed in a box of standard dimensions for 360 mm liquid cooling systems, designed in the style typical for the company’s products. On its front side, the system itself is flaunted with a screen on a water block and expressive fans.
On the back of the box you can see detailed technical specifications of the liquid cooling system.
Inside the cardboard box there is a foamed polyethylene case, in the compartments of which the components of the liquid cooling system are fixed.
The package includes a reinforcement plate for platforms with Intel processors, two pressure plates with spring-loaded screws (one directly on the water block), a set of screws, two cables, a panel with a screen and a hub for fans.
The kit also includes thermal paste – this is the branded PCCooler EX90 with a declared thermal conductivity of 14.8 W/(m °C). According to our internal tests, it is as effective as, for example, Arctic MX-4 or ID-Cooling Frost X35. The only downside is that it is quite thick, so it requires heating when applied.
The SJO model is new, but is already sold by Russian retailers at a price of 14.5 thousand rubles. The warranty period is 3 years.
⇡#Design features
The PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display is not much different in concept from other maintenance-free liquid cooling systems. It includes a 360mm radiator with three fans installed on it, two hoses, and a pump with a water block.
I don’t know if it’s appropriate to talk about the design of AiO systems, but if it is possible, then here it is extremely strict, without flashy stylistic solutions and bright inserts.
The radiator dimensions are 394 × 120 × 27.5 mm, and the total weight of the system is 1866 grams, which is more than other liquid cooling systems of this size.
The radiator in the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display is aluminum, but its configuration is slightly different from the radiators of other 360mm liquid cooling systems.
There are not twelve but fourteen channels through which the coolant is pumped. Consequently, the distance between them, filled with a perforated aluminum comb, is reduced from 7.5 to 6.5 mm.
At the same time, the density of the radiator in PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display has not changed and is equal to 20 FPI.
The enlarged end of the radiator has two fittings on which the hoses are pressed. The opposite end of a smaller size does not stand out in any way.
The hoses are rubber, in synthetic braiding, with an external diameter of 10 mm, and their length from fitting to fitting is 370 mm.
There are two plastic clamps provided to secure the hoses.
At the other end, the hoses enter the swivel fittings of the pump. The dimensions of this unit are 82 x 80 x 62 mm, the body is made of plastic, and the top panel is made of glass with a chrome edging.
The PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display uses a proprietary second-generation pump with a durable ceramic sleeve. The pump rotor speed is constant and is stated at 2600 rpm with a 10 percent tolerance in either direction. In addition, the specifications indicate a pump noise level of 15 dBA and a power consumption of 3.6 W.
A panel with a monitoring screen can be installed on top of the pump cover. It is fixed with magnets in any of four positions.
We will demonstrate the operation of the screen in the section on assembly and connection of the liquid cooling system, and here we will add that a power and monitoring cable, as well as a backlight synchronization cable, come from the pump itself.
The base of the pump has a built-in copper microchannel water block measuring 60 x 53 mm.
The quality of the contact surface treatment is typical for water blocks of this level. The unevenness of the resulting prints is caused by a slight convexity of the heat spreader of the test processor of the LGA1700 design.
PCCooler equipped its latest cooling system with the latest PCCooler F7 X120 ARGB fans, which somewhat surprise us with their impeller reduced to 109 mm and a huge, 50 mm stator. Such fans are harmful to radiators of liquid cooling systems, since they have a large dead zone under the stator.
As a result, the advantages of a denser radiator with additional channels can be leveled by the far from the highest performance of the fans. Apparently, PCCooler engineers understood this and tried to compensate for the effect by increasing the maximum rotation speed of the fan impellers – it reaches an impressive 3000 rpm. We have not seen anything like this on a liquid cooling system for home computers.
It’s worth noting that each stator has a small switch inside that can be used to limit the speed to 2000 or 1500 rpm. But to get to it, each fan will have to be removed from the radiator.
The lower limit is always 500 rpm. At these speeds, the airflow of one fan should be 83, 65 and 55 CFM, the static pressure should be 5.7, 3.3 and 1.7 mm H2O, and the noise level should be 33.1, 28.9 and 22.3 dBA. Note that for a speed of 3000 rpm, the airflow and static pressure indicators are far from outstanding, and the noise level is definitely understated.
The fans are based on double rolling bearings, but their standard service life is not specified in the specifications. At maximum speed, one fan consumes about 4 watts, and the starting voltage at the switch position “H” (3000 rpm) is 9.6 V.
Each fan frame has soft rubber corners inserted into the corners, through which the fans contact the radiator, reducing noise levels.
The screws that secure the fans to the radiator are hidden just under these corners.
The PCCooler F7 X120 ARGB fans are modular, meaning they are connected to each other with rigid clamps and then connected via a single power and monitoring cable, as well as a 400mm long backlight cable.
⇡#Compatibility and installation
The PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display water block can be installed on AMD Socket AM5/AM4 processors and Intel LGA115(x)/1200/1700/1851 processors. The manual is included in the package and is also available for download from the company’s website (PDF format, 10.9 MB). Apparently, PCCooler decided to simplify the process of installing the water block on the processor as much as possible, since the entire installation of the mount on the board consists of gluing the backplate with 3M tape on the back side of the board.
No bushings, guides or screws. It would seem that nothing could be simpler – just put a pump with a water block on the processor and tighten its pressure plate with screws to the holes protruding from the board backplate.
However, this method has two obvious disadvantages. Firstly, it will be extremely difficult to remove (peel off) the reinforcement plate from the back of the board, and reinstalling it will require a plate of double-sided tape, since the factory one becomes unusable after the first time. Secondly, when installing the pump-water block, you have to press hard on the spring-loaded mounting screws, while aiming them at the threaded holes. This is both inconvenient and associated with the possibility of the screwdriver breaking off right into the motherboard elements. So be careful when installing.
In turn, we installed the radiator with the liquid cooling system fans on the top panel of the case, orienting the fans to blow out of it.
Next comes connecting the fans, pump and backlight. To do this, the motherboard will need one 4-pin connector for fans, one 3-pin for the pump and one ARGB connector for the backlight (the pump and fans can be paralleled). However, if desired, the user of the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display can connect everything to the hub that is included in the system package.
Once turned on, the SJO fans will please you with perhaps the most beautiful backlight, since it is built into both the frame and the rotor circumference. See for yourself how beautiful it looks.
As for the display operation, it must be connected via a USB 2.0 cable to the internal connector on the motherboard and the utility from the PCCooler website must be installed. It implements the functions of monitoring and controlling the fans, as well as the panel itself.
Its main feature is the ability to display any static image or GIF. There are both built-in backgrounds and the ability to download/cut from any other sources.
Here are examples of such images on the pump screen.
As for monitoring, you can only display the temperature of the processor and GPU of the video card.
In our opinion, the display is very poor in functionality for its diagonal – no power consumption, no CPU/GPU load, no fan or pump speed. And in general, you can place anything you want on such a screen. It’s a pity that PCCooler chose pictures instead of really useful monitoring data.
⇡#Test configuration, tools and testing methodology
A comparison of the efficiency of the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display and its competitors was carried out in a closed system case with the following configuration:
- Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 Edge WiFi (Intel Z790, LGA1700, BIOS H.D2 dated 08/22/2024);
- Socket amplifier: ID-Cooling ABF-1700;
- Processor: Intel Core i9-13900K 3.0-5.8P/2.2-4.3E GHz (Raptor Lake, 10 nm, 8/16P+16E-core, 36 MB L3, TDP 125/253 W);
- Thermal interface: ID-Cooling Frost X45 [15.2 W/(m K)];
- RAM: DDR5 2 × 24 GB Team Group T-Create Expert (CTCED548G7200HC34ADC01), XMP 7200 MHz 34-42-42-84 CR2 at 1.4 V;
- Video card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super Fe 8 GB / 256 BIT, 1470-1650 / 14000 MHz;
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- System and benchmarks: Crucial T700 1 TB (CT1000T700SSD3, PCIe 4.0 x4);
- Benchmarks and games: Patriot VIPER VP4300 1 TB (VP4300-1TBM28H, PCIe 4.0 x4);
- Benchmarks and games: Netac N950E Pro 1 TB (NT01N950E-001T-E4X, PCIe 3.0 x4);
- Benchmarks: Gigabyte GP-AG4500G 0.5 Tbyte (PCIe 4.0 x4);
- Benchmarks: SSTC Hammerhead P990 Pro Plus 1 TB (PCIe 4.0 x4);
- Storage: Intel SSD 730 0.5 TB (SATA III, BIOS vL2010400);
- Archived: Samsung Ecogreen F4 HD204UI 2 TB (SATA II, 5400 rpm, 32 MB, NCQ);
- Case: Thermaltake Core X71 (six 140mm be quiet! Silent Wings 3: three in front for intake 800-1050 rpm, two on top for exhaust 800-1020 rpm, one in the back for exhaust 800-1610 rpm, PWM control);
- Control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC3;
- Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 (1.65 kW, 80 Plus Gold), 135 mm fan).
To obtain stable and objectively comparable results, the main processor parameters were fixed in the following values: BCLK frequency – 100 MHz, performance core multiplier – 54, frequency – 5.4 GHz, energy-efficient core multiplier – 43, frequency – 4.3 GHz , Vcore voltage is 1.145-1.15 V. In the BIOS of the MSI motherboard, the third level of voltage stabilization on the processor core (CPU load-line calibration) was set.
According to HWiNFO64, the processor’s heat output with these settings reached 260 watts. The effective RAM frequency was recorded at 6.933 GHz with voltages of 1.305/1.295 V (VDD/VDDQ), and its main timings were fixed at 34-42-42-54 CR2 with additional adjustment of secondary and tertiary timings. The VCCSA voltage was fixed at 1.055 V. The ring bus frequency was set at 4.7 GHz.
The testing was carried out on the Microsoft Windows 11 Pro operating system version 24H2 (26100.3915). The software used for the test:
- Cinebench R23 – to create a stress load on the processor (Test Throttling mode, two consecutive cycles of approximately 10 minutes each);
- HWiNFO64 8.25-5715 – for temperature monitoring and visual control of all system parameters.
A screenshot of the monitoring during one of the testing cycles looks like this.
The processor load was created by two consecutive Cinebench R23 cycles. 10 minutes were allocated between cycles for stabilization of the CPU temperature. The final result, which you will see on the diagram, is the maximum temperature of the hottest of the eight productive CPU cores at peak load and in idle mode, as well as the average maximum temperature for all such cores. In addition, a separate table will show the temperatures of all productive CPU cores, their average values, and the temperature delta between the cores. The room temperature was monitored by an electronic thermometer installed next to the system unit with a measurement accuracy of 0.1 °C and the ability to monitor the room temperature change hourly over the past 6 hours. During this testing, the temperature fluctuated in the range of 23.6–25.9 °C (the delta was taken into account in the results).
The noise level of the cooling systems was measured using an OKTAVA-110A electronic noise meter from midnight to three o’clock in the morning in a completely closed room with an area of about 20 m2. The noise level was measured outside the system unit case, when the only noise source in the room was the cooling system and its fans. The noise meter, fixed on a tripod, was always located strictly at one point at a distance of exactly 150 mm from the fan rotor. The cooling systems were placed in the very corner of the table on a foamed polyethylene substrate. The lower limit of the noise meter’s measurements is 22 dBA, and the subjectively comfortable (please do not confuse with low!) noise level of the cooling systems when measured from such a distance is around 36 dBA. We take 33 dBA as a conditionally low noise level.
The first competitor to the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display today is the PCCooler DC360 ARGB Digital 360mm liquid cooling system.
Also added to the testing was one of the best liquid cooling systems in the 360 mm form factor – DeepCool LQ360.
And the final part of the list is the PentaWave Z06D SRB air supercooler.
Let us add that the rotation speed of the fan impellers of the tested cooling systems was regulated in the range from 800 rpm to their maximum in steps of 100 or 200 rpm using a special controller, the accuracy of which is ±10 rpm.
⇡#Cooling efficiency
Judging by the results, the efficiency of PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display seriously depends on the fan speed. At maximum speed, the system is more efficient than its related PCCooler DC360 ARGB Digital and successfully competes with one of the best systems in this class, DeepCool LQ360. It also looks confident at 2500 rpm. However, already at 2000 and 1800 rpm, the liquid cooling system reaches the same indicators as its competitors, and with a further decrease in fan speed, it begins to yield to them. As a result, at 900 rpm, DT360 ARGB Display is 1 degree Celsius less efficient than DC360 ARGB Digital, and 5 (!) degrees Celsius less than LQ360. Well, at 800 rpm, the new PCCooler system did not cope with the thermal load. Moreover, we are not surprised by this state of affairs, since in the review of its fans we noted the reduced impeller and the stator of a huge diameter, which could not but affect the efficiency of the liquid cooling system as a whole.
Next, we increase the load by increasing the frequency of the processor’s productive cores to 5.5 GHz at a voltage of 1.175-1.18 V.
According to HWiNFO64, the processor’s heat output with such settings at peak load reaches 270-275 watts. We should also add that PCCooler DC360 ARGB Digital was not tested in this mode, so its results are not on the diagram.
The picture is the same: PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display looks great at maximum fan speeds, even slightly winning in efficiency against DeepCool LQ360. At 2500 rpm at 56.2 dBA, everything is also very good – more efficient than DeepCool with its 2000 rpm at 56.0 dBA. At a fan speed of 1800 rpm and a noise level of 48.7 dBA, PCCooler can be compared with DeepCool at 1600 rpm and with a noise level of 49.6 dBA, where DT360 ARGB Display already loses by two degrees Celsius. Well, a further decrease in fan speed again confirms our conclusions about their low efficiency. In the end, the limit of PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display with such processor overclocking is 1200 rpm at 40.5 dBA and peak 90.9 degrees Celsius, while DeepCool LQ360 with almost the same noise level of 40.0 dBA operates at 1100 rpm and wins over the heroine of today’s material by more than four degrees Celsius. Well, at least the supercooler PentaWave Z06D SRB is not its rival, and thank you for that.
As usual, we tested the new liquid cooling system using the motherboard’s automatic BIOS settings, using only the TDP limit of 320 W and then 340 W. In this case, the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display was tested only at maximum fan speed (3000 RPM), and the results are shown below in the form of screenshots with full monitoring data.
320 watts
340 watts
At a load of up to 320 watts, the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display cools the processor to 93 degrees Celsius, and at 340 watts, the temperatures are already close to critical, but throttling has not yet been detected.
⇡#Noise level
The high-speed fans of the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display are predictably noisier at maximum speed than the fans of other liquid cooling systems, but if you compare them at the same speed, the difference (and quite a decent one) will be in favor of the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display. This is true up to a speed of 1340 rpm, and with a further decrease in speed, the advantage in noise level of the new liquid cooling system comes to naught, and at the very end it still loses to three competitors. At the border of subjective comfort of 36 dBA, the PCCooler fans rotate at a speed of 940 rpm, and at the border of relative silence – 760 rpm. Unfortunately, in the PCCooler F7 X120 ARGB fans at low speeds, the rustling (or even swishing) of the rolling bearings was clearly audible, which is not so rare with this type of bearings. We have no other complaints about these fans.
But the pump in this model of the liquid cooling system is very quiet (even without installing a screen on it) and is among the top three in the following summary diagram.
If you try to hear the PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display pump outside the system unit case in complete silence, you will need to bring it to your ear at a distance of no more than 25-30 cm. However, this is not surprising, considering that its rotor speed is only 2530 rpm.
⇡#Conclusions
Let’s sum it up. PCCooler DT360 ARGB Display is mainly focused on bringing aesthetic pleasure – the liquid cooling system has very beautiful fans with backlighting and a screen on the pump with the ability to display any images on it. Yes, the screen monitors the temperature of the processor and video card, but this is rather a secondary function. And if you choose a liquid cooling system specifically for the beauty of the system unit, then, perhaps, you will not find a better option. In addition, the system is universal, not difficult to install (although it requires accuracy), has a very quiet pump, is equipped with a hub for fans and is provided with a three-year warranty.
But in terms of cooling efficiency and fan noise level, the DT360 ARGB Display does not look quite convincing. The whole point is in the fans, which, due to the reduced impeller and large stator, effectively cool the radiator only at high speeds. When the speed drops below 1600-1800 rpm, the system efficiency is worse than that of competitors, and in the quietest operating modes, the difference becomes quite noticeable. The low-speed pump also makes its contribution, after all, 2500 rpm is the lower speed limit in AiO liquid cooling systems. So, from an aesthetic point of view, everything is fine, but in terms of efficiency, PCCooler has more successful models.
