NZXT Kraken X52 AIO CPU Cooler Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The NZXT Kraken X52 240mm All-in-One liquid cooler is available from Amazon right now. It’s priced at £137.41, which is pretty damn expensive for an AIO. The 140mm model is £94.92, while the larger 280mm is a whopping £150.56. It’s £30-40 more than high-end Corsair and Thermaltake coolers, and while the performance is amazing, I wonder how many people are willing to pay up for it.

Overview

I absolutely love what this cooler has to offer, it’s not perfect, but it certainly has some magic to it. Let’s take a look at the faults first, and move on from there. The cable setup is a mess, no doubt about that. Routing all those cables isn’t going to be easy, and having two sets of cables running from the pump is going to be tricky to route around your motherboard and chassis. It’s not going to be impossible, but simplicity goes a long way. Of course, all those cables aren’t useless, as you can hook it up to your motherboard for extra features in the CAM software. The mounting kit was tricky too. I had trouble with one of the thumbscrews not fitting due to a poorly aligned rubber grip; it was glued wrong but was fixable with a sharp knife.

RGB Infinity Mirrors are Awesome

The other problem is the RGB lighting. This cooler comes with a big price premium that we often see on high-end hardware with RGB lighting. However, you only get lighting on the pump, not the fans. Thermaltake and a few others offer fan lighting too, and it feels like your over paying for under implemented lighting effects. I do love the infinity mirror though, that’s a real nice touch.

CAM software is great, and while it does mean you need that extra cable to the motherboard, it has its advantages. You can control pump/fan speeds and set custom curves. This means you can get the best performance in terms of cooling and acoustics to suit your taste. You can also configure the lighting effects, even have them reactive to your system’s performance.

Exceptional Cooling Performance

The big win for the X52 is the performance. When it comes to stock or overclocking tests, this cooler did an amazing job. Of course, it wasn’t just cool, it was also surprisingly quiet. If you’re eager to push your CPU to the limit, this won’t let you down at all. Furthermore, you could easily push those fans harder for better cooling performance, and they’ll still be pretty quiet.

Pros

• Gorgeous fan design
• Sleeved cables
• RGB infinity mirror in pump
• CAM support
• Exceptional cooling performance
• Quiet fans

Cons

• Very high price relative to rival products

Neutral

• Cable routing may be tricky
• One mounting screw was hard to mount
• More RGB would be nice at this price range, but that’s subjective

“If you want premium quality performance from your CPU cooler, the Kraken X52 certainly has what it takes. It’s a little tricky to install, and it’s not cheap, but we simply cannot argue with the performance.”