Fractal Design Kelvin S24 Expandable AIO CPU Cooler

Introduction

Fractal Design is one of those companies that always make me a little excited. Instantly I think of clean edges, simplistic looks, sleek style and quality. Fractal Design is a Swedish company which look to their Scandinavian roots to create not just quality products, but products that people actually want to look at. Cases such as the Define R5 White are a perfect example of what I mean, it looks great, yet it is also functional. As well as cases, Fractal Design also manufacture power supplies and now AIO water cooling products. The new Kelvin Series has a single, dual and triple fan coolers which all look stunning, but let’s see how they do on our test bench.

The Fractal Design KELVIN S24 box is quite a simplistic in design, yet it does look stylish, this is something that I expect that we will see throughout this review as we look at this product. The box has a nice picture of the product on a black background with a bright blue trim. There is information regarding the radiator and pump on the sides of the box as well as a bit of text from Fractal Design letting us know that the KELVIN S24 is expandable, cools well and is quiet.

Other information that can be found on the box includes the specification. As you can see it supports many of the Intel and AMD sockets that we’re used to, so it will fit most modern motherboards and we can also see that we have a dual radiator and dual 120mm 800-1700 RPM PWM fans.

Inside the box we get a nice bunch of fittings to allow us to mount the CPU block and the radiators, there are fittings for both AMD and Intel, plenty of thermal paste, hex top screws and a hex key so you have everything you need to get started. You also get a fan adapter so that you can split your fan headers, this will allow you to run both fans from your motherboard as well as the pump.

Following the simple, yet stylish design again are the fans; they are a nice simple black and white design that look fantastic when they’re attached to the 240mm radiator. The blade design is simple and there is no branding on the front which means everything is clean and tidy. On the back there’s a little bit of branding and the Fractal Design logo as well as a bit of information about the fan.

Again, keeping it simple, Fractal Design has been able to make a pump and CPU block combo which looks stunning. This is something that I was really impressed with and my pictures just don’t do it justice at all. The Kelvin S24 is powered by an Alphacool DC-LT pump which is slightly worrying, they are renowned for being a little louder, yet they are cheap, powerful and of good quality overall. Using a pump such as this has allowed Fractal Design to make this AIO expandable. They have used standard G1/4 threads on both the radiator and the CPU block/pump, this is the most common thread you will find when doing custom water cooling loops, which means you can add more to the loop, such as a GPU, with ease.

The underside is made of 100% copper as is the radiator, which ensures excellent performance, as well as a little more eye candy.

The tubing on the Kelvin S24 is very soft and bendy so it’s no surprise that they have used an anti-kink coil to ensure that there are no blockages caused by any kinks. I do prefer softer tubing as it allows you to fit the cooler easier and with the addition of the anti-kink coil you shouldn’t run into any major problems when fitting it to cases that don’t allow you a shed load of space.

Installation is very easy, it’s just a case of using the correct bracket, connecting it to the pump using a nice nifty quick connect system and then just screwing it to the back plate that is provided. The fans are easily attached to the radiator with the hex key that is provided, with the screws having a hex top they are lower profile than most radiator screws and again this keeps everything looking very sleek and tidy. It’s nice to see that fractal design have thought about these little details as it does make the difference.

There is plenty of space between the CPU block and the RAM, even if we fit the Kelvin S24 with the fittings next to the RAM you still have enough clearance to use RAM with large heat sinks, so you’re certainly not limited to low profile RAM.