DeepCool GamerStorm Castle 280EX CPU Cooler Review

A Closer Look

Out of the box, the first thing that grabs your attention is that this is, 100%, a 280mm cooler. If you’re well used to handling 240mm designs, the difference in both size and weight will become immediately apparent. Albeit, it should be noted that this still isn’t that heavy or awkward to handle.

As there are several individual components within an AIO design, however, it’s important to check that they’re both good and designed to a reasonably high standard. Let’s, therefore, check some of the more important ones out!

Pump Block

Starting with possibly the single-most stand-out feature of the DeepCool GamerStorm Castle 280EX, we have the pump head. Initially, this looks like a fairly standard design with clearly indications as to where some of the RGB goodness comes from.

With a highly reflective top surface, this does, of course, change when the lights are turned on. In addition, you also get a ring beneath this area to add to the overall aesthetics. When is comes to customization, however, this goes well beyond the RGB aspect!

So, what’s so special? Well, the top of the pump head is removable exposing the GamerStorm logo. What’s interesting though is that this can be removed and, through the supplied blank cover plate, you can create and fit your very own logo design.

Installing this is really simple with the top simply twisting off with the logo plate clipping out. Better still, this can be ‘flipped’ to ensure your logo (whatever you choose) is the right way up. It’s a small touch, but honestly, we love this design for the additional customization it brings to your DeepCool GamerStorm Castle 280EX.

Contact Plate

Given that this cooler is designed to work with the AMD Threadripper TR4 socket, it’s no surprise to see that the contact plate is pretty huge. That being said though, it’s certainly not overly big and whether you’re in the AMD or Intel camp, you should have no problem getting excellent levels of CPU coverage with this.

We should note that it does come with pre-applied thermal paste which is always handy for inexperienced fitters. That being said, however, we will remove it prior to our testing!

Radiator

The radiator is fairly standard stock being a 280mm design coming in a clean black design. As a moderately disappointing factor, there is no branding present and, as such, it does kind of add to the overall generic feel of it. That being said though, with the neatly woven pattern to the fins, this should provide excellent levels of heat dissipation.

The only point of specific interest we noted regarding the radiator was the tubing used to connect it to the pump head. While it is certainly well protected, it is (roughly) 2-3cm shorter than we usually see. While we didn’t specifically measure it, let’s just say it didn’t fit onto our test bench like other AIO designs. As such, if this is going to be fitted to your PC, you might want to make certain that A) It can successfully incorporate a 280mm radiator and B) The distance between your CPU and where you install this isn’t overly (or unusually) large.

Fan

As this is a 280mm AIO liquid cooler, you are (surprise surprise) supplied with 2 x 140mm fans. Well, you’d have a pretty big problem if you weren’t, wouldn’t you?

These fans appear to be DeepCool’s own design and, in terms of aesthetics, while lacking RGB lighting, they’re certainly still very attractive.

As a TF140S design, we can’t honestly say that we’ve seen this particular fan used before and are therefore left to speculate whether this is a new design specifically for the DeepCool GamerStorm Castle 280EX. On the whole, however, they fit the remit for the cooler and certainly look very pretty indeed!

Overall

As an assembled unit, the DeepCool GamerStorm Castle 280EX certainly looks very impressive with its sleek black and silver design. As we noted above, even without an RGB option, the radiator looks really slick and eye-catching with those black fans fitted.

The overall look, however, is only one part of this review. There are still important factors to come such as how easy this is to install and how it performs in our testing. If you are, therefore, interested to see if this is as practically good as it is aesthetically, then keep reading!