Raijintek Cyclops 360mm ARGB LCD AIO Cooler Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I couldn’t find stock of this cooler anywhere. However, this isn’t uncommon; things sell out and restock all the time, and could change on a day-to-day basis. However, I will update this section as soon as I see the product available at any major retailers. Of course, you can check yourself or check with the smaller or local PC retailers of your choice. What I do know, however, is that the cooler comes with an MSRP of just $105, and if you can find it for around that price, it’s a bargain that’s too good to ignore.

While there’s no shortage of $100-ish AIO coolers on the market today, a lot of the time they can be from no-name import brands, and while that’s fine for some, their quality and reliability are usually something of an unknown. However, Raijintek has a pretty solid reputation, and while they’re not as big as the likes of Corsair (for example), reputation still goes a long way. Raijintek has won many awards over the years for their cooling products, and not just from us here at eTeknix, but from many media around the world, so I have a lot of confidence in the quality of the Cyclops, despite its wallet-friendly price tag.

Conclusion

The Raijintek Cyclops 360 AIO CPU cooler gets a lot of things right, and it’s clear from the performance and features that you get a lot of value for money here. However, at this price, there are obviously a few cost-saving elements as you might expect, but they’re vastly outweighed by the added features, or at least some value-focused approaches to premium features.

Cables

Firstly, the cable system is well-equipped, with a USB Type-C to power the AIO LCD and provide you access to the desktop software for colour and display customization; that’s very nice indeed. However, the pump and ARGB lighting on the pump are still traditional 4-pin PWM and 5V RGB header controllers. The fans are daisy-chainable, but don’t expect any premium magnetic headers or custom cables; they’re just PWM and 5V RGB cables like the pump, with a male and female header on each cable. However, that’s no bad thing, as it means you can hook up a single RGB header to your motherboard, and a single PWM header for everything, which is going to mean cleaner cable management on the visible side of your PC build.

RGB Lighting

The RGB is nice too, offering three gorgeous Raijintek fans with illuminated fan blades, offering vibrant colours without being overly bright. I don’t like when RGB hardware acts like a disco ball in my room, but there’s plenty of colour and brightness here to light up what’s needed within your PC case. There’s a very unique design on the pump too, which has a ring of RGB lighting within the pump, and you can see the impeller turning within, and it just gives it something more interesting and dynamic to look at vs just some transitioning colours.

LCD

Of course, the pump has another party trick, a small LCD right in the middle. Of course, while the likes of Corsair, NZXT, MSI, and a few others have been going crazy with massive display sizes, and prices often getting close to £300 for their coolers, Raijintek has kept the display small, which keeps the price small too, and I can certainly appreciate that. There’s no other cooler in this price range with an LCD that I know of, at least from a well-known brand. What’s clever is that while the display is small, the surrounding pump interior and RGB make it feel bigger, and there’s just a lot going on there visually.

Added Value

But it’s the added extras that really push the Raijintek Cyclops to the next level. It comes with a full metal backplate rather than a plastic one, the Intel and AMD kits simply slot in, and overall its mounting kit is very easy to use, the pump surface area is increased for better heat dissipation, there are anti-vibration pads on both sides of each fan, and you get both regular thermal paste and liquid metal compound included in the box, which is something I’ve never seen bundled with an AIO cooler, especially at this price range. Liquid metal can be a challenge to use correctly, as it is conductive, but if you follow the instructions, it can help drop your temperatures by a few more degrees.

Should I Buy One?

Honestly, I’m super impressed with this cooler. While some of the aesthetics can look a bit garish, and some of the plastics aren’t particularly attractive, the overall feel and quality of everything feels very good. The fact the fans come pre-installed makes it easy to set up, and with two kinds of thermal compound and a load of really cool features, it’s frankly amazing that Raijintek has managed to keep the price so low.