ASUS ROG RYUO III 360 ARGB AIO Cooler Review

ASUS is one of the biggest and the best when it comes to high-end PC hardware. They're well known for their motherboards and graphics cards most of all, but they do dabble in the world of power supplies, coolers and much more beyond that too. When it comes to high-end coolers, however, few come more high-end than the ASUS ROG TYOU III 360 ARGB liquid cooler. Featuring the 8th generation ASetek pump, and a 360mm radiator adorned with three ROG MODEL 12 ARGB fans, it should be able to tame the heat from even the most savage high-end CPU, such as our new test-bench that runs on the often toasty i9-12900K! The downside is that it does cost £299.99, which is a lot, but keep in mind this isn't just a high-end cooler, but also a bit of an aesthetic statement. The pump and fans are truly premium stuff, and there's an animated pixel display they call "Anime Matrix LED" and that's putting a big premium on the price. Features The latest 8th gen Asetek pump is armed with a 3-phase motor that delivers ultimate cooling performance with higher flow and lower impedanceThe ASUS-exclusive Anime Matrix™ is a mini LED array that can display ROG-exclusive anime content, core system stats, and customized animationsPremium ROG ARGB fans offer high airflow and optimized noise levelsAluminium components and vacuum coating provide high durability and flagship aestheticsThe ROG Ryuo series is styled to complement the ROG motherboards at the heart of a high-end build For more in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page via the link here! What ASUS Had To Say? "Tame the thermals of your high-performance rig with the ROG Ryuo III 360 ARGB. Its premium alumninium shell houses the customisable AniMe Matrix display. Uniquely express your favourite pixel matrix icons. THe 8th Gen Asetek pump spins coolant through a high capacity radiator which is chilled by 120mm ROG ARGB fans, giving your CPU the headroom to power through everything" A Closer Look In the box, you'll find all the usual bits and bobs, with the cooler supporting all the modern and major AMD and Intel sockets, but overall, it's the standard fair for an Asatek pump AIO mount and should be pretty easy to install. There are three fans included in the box too, and I'm happy to say that they are very high quality too. That being said, the cooler is three hundred quid, they bloody better be good! They have durable frames, anti-vibration mounts, and all black cables, so a big thumbs up from me. ASUS love their AXIAL fans too, which have a ring that joins the fan blades to each other. They've opted for larger and wider fan blades too, which combined should give us excellent static pressure. The fans are all 12v ARGB too, with lights built into the central section and frosted fan blades that will glow when powered on. The radiator is 360mm slim, and pretty much what you would expect for an AIO really. What I do like, however, is that ASUS has given it a protective insert on each side to prevent damage before you install it. I have never seen this done before, and let me tell ya, I think I've put a dent in every AIO I've ever handled too, so this is a good idea! The tubing is very thick but still offers a good amount of flexibility, so getting it all into place shouldn't prove to taxing. There's a Velcro strap in the middle too, which will help keep the tubes in line with each other. The side of the pump looks great, with a diamond-cut aluminium finish that makes it extremely easy to grip, but also just looks good too. There's a ROG logo on the side, with the cables recessing into the pump between the pipes, which should make hiding the cable a little cleaner. The pump has a mirror look to it with the power off, but when powered on the lights below the glass will illuminate its pixel matrix display. There's a huge copper base too, which will be more than enough to cover any of the consumer-focused flagship gaming CPUs. The fans are easily installed with a simple screwdriver too, and now it's just a case of getting it installed into our new test system! Shiny, curse that handsome devil! Test System & Methodology As you may appreciate, we review a lot of coolers here at eTeknix. As such, our prior results sheet was getting more than a little crowded. We have, therefore, applied a new system in which we have picked those coolers we consider most popular, recent, or most relevant to this design. Test system: NZXT Z690 ATXIntel Core i9-12900K @ stock and & 4.9 GHz all P-Core 4 GHz E-Core 1.3vAorus RTX 208016GB Crucial DDR4 4400 MHz512GB NVMe SSDThermaltake Tough Power 750WNZXT H7 Flow RGB CaseAll testing is conducted using NT-H1 thermal paste We’d like to say a big thank you to Gigabyte, Noctua, Crucial, Intel, Thermaltake, NZXT and more for providing us with the above testing equipment and their ongoing support. Testing Methodology We always use Noctua Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal pasteCinebench R23 is run for 10 minutes to calculate “load” resultsUnigine Superposition is run for 10 minutes to calculate “gaming” resultsMultiple readings are taken with the average of the package temperatures calculated for our recorded resultFans are left to operate at default PWM profile speeds unless otherwise statedFor water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts unless otherwise statedAmbient temperatures should be between 21-23 degrees in all our tests unless otherwise statedAcoustic measurements are taken 10cm horizontally and 10cm vertically away from the CPU cooler with the VGA fan disabledStock tests are performed using “out of the box” settings for the CPUAll coolers were tested under identical settings unless otherwise stated.There is approximately a 1-degree Celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW MonitorThere is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meterIn all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit within that category for comparative purposes. Software Used CPUID HWMonitorCinebench R23Unigine Superposition Performance There's no point mucking about here, the ASUS ROG RYUO III ARGB is an absolute beast when it comes to cooling performance, it made light work of the i9-12900K, coming in 7c cooler than the mighty Kraken 360, which I didn't think would be beaten quite so quickly. Overclocking proved little concern either, and while it was only 1c below that of the NZXT Kraken, it kept a consistent volume level of 41 dBa making it extraordinarily quiet despite its mighty cooling performance. Stock Temperatures Stock Acoustics Overclocked Temperatures Overclocked Acoustics How Much Does it Cost? The ASUS ROG Ryuo III 360 all-in-one liquid CPU cooler with Asetek 8th gen pump solution, Anime Matrix LED Display and ROG ARGB cooling fans are available now from Amazon in either black or white for £299.99. That's obviously a lot, and arguably, you could get a great performing cooler for half that price, but this isn't just about cooling performance, and ASUS has really pushed the overall build quality and aesthetics to the next level here. If that sounds like something you like, then the price is the price, but as much as I love this cooler, I'm not sure I'd pay that much for a cooler for my own rig, then again I don't even have a window of my case these days. Overview ASUS has really gone above and beyond with their latest CPU cooler, and while I personally wouldn't feel comfortable spending this amount of money on a cooler, I can't really fault it in any way... because some said and some unsaid, it does everything it promised to do. It promised to be a marvel of ARGB lighting and to wow with its matrix LED display, and well, it most certainly does that and it looks amazing. I never look in the side of my PC, so the display on the pump and all that ARGB is not my thing, but if you want to look into your computer and marvel at the sexy hardware, this cooler is AAA stuff. It was surprisingly easy to install, as you may know, Mike did the cooling reviews for a couple of years and I only recently took them back on, so having to deal with AIOs again was an expected struggle, but there have certainly been improvements. Cables can be a pain, given there are two from the pump, and six fan cables when you include the RGB stuff, and then the splitter cables. How people get that looking neat behind the motherboard, I'll never know, but thank god for cable management cut-outs! It's extremely quiet, which startled me, as the flagship ASUS coolers used to use Noctua fans, but switching to their own design has clearly worked well enough, as the noise levels were consistently quiet throughout all testing. Then there's the cooling performance, I mean, you expect a flagship 360mm AIO to be pretty good. However, it's the price that made me think "This thing better be a total weapon of a cooler or I'm going to point at it and laugh" but well, I'm eating my own words, as it's just a fantastic cooler. Price goes right out the window for the enthusiast users, if it cools the best and looks awesome, they'll buy it. That's all there is to it really, if you don't mind spending £300 on an AIO, buy this one, it's pretty fantastic.