Thermaltake Water 3.0 ARGB Sync 360 AIO Review

A Closer Look

In terms of what it represents, the Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 ARGB Sync looks to be attempting to tick as many of the boxes as possible in terms of modern, innovative, AIO cooler designs. So, just how well does it manage to do this? Well, let’s take a closer look at some of the key components of the design.

Fans

As this is a 360 design cooler, you are (of course) provided with 3 x 120mm fans. These fans are Thermaltake’s own design and when the lights are turned on, provide some impressively bright RGB effects. In terms of the design and standard aesthetics (with the lights off), however, everything looks good. The fans themselves have a nice solid design and having the vibration dampeners to the fixing points should help minimise any potential additional noise in that area. It’s a small touch as well, but the grey against black really stands out nicely.

Pump Head

The pump head has nice Thermaltake branding which, in addition to a circular ring, provides another area of RGB lighting effects. In terms of design, it is fairly standard until you take a closer look at the way the mounting bracket is fitted. It’s difficult to put into words how this words, but essentially you place the right mounting bracket in place while a 2nd attachment locks it in place. It’s a clever design and one that removes the need for any fiddly screws. Additionally, despite my abject failure in describing it well, it’s honestly really simple!

The copper coated contact plate is nice and large and does come with thermal paste pre-applied. The design should provide you with an excellent level of coverage for your processor to ensure that the all-important heat is carried away as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Radiator

As far as the radiator goes, the design is fairly standard. It’s a black 360 radiator which (at the risk of sounding a bit mean) looks very similar to the vast majority used by other brands. On a more positive note, however, the tubing which connects to the pump head is nice and flexible which should allow for a nice easy installation while still ensuring the pipe itself (and the containing liquid) is well protected.

RGB Lighting And Fan Controller

Although the Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 is sync capable, you are provided with a manual adaptor if your motherboard doesn’t oblige. This connects via a SATA power connector and, in truth, appears to be quite the improvement on previous designs we’ve seen from Thermaltake. The controller itself is nice and tactile while also feeling more than a little durable.

Overall Design

In terms of the overall design, Thermaltake has done an excellent job in giving us more than a little confidence that this cooler has been well thought out and certainly well made. Admittedly, with the RGB lights off, there isn’t much going for it in terms of the aesthetics. It does, however, have a certain ‘solid’ feel about it.

When it is fully assembled, the Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 looks highly professional and certainly built to do a job. Hopefully this means we’re going to have some nice test results to look forward to.

In Action

It is at times difficult to put exactly into words how RGB lighting appears and operates on a cooler. We can, however, say that the RGB lighting effects to this cooler are excellent. They are nice, bright and come with a number of features which allow users to really tweak this to get the setting which suits you best. This includes the mode, pattern and speed in which the effects work. If you wish, you can also turn them off completely (but why would you want to do that?!) – Personally, we were a huge fan of the 16.8 million colour rainbow.

To give you an idea as to how these operate in a ‘real-world’ situation, we have provided a brief video below showing the fans in action. We have attempted to show you as many of the functions available, but it should (if nothing else) give you a good idea as to how these look when operating.