A Closer Look
Valkyrie is out to create some pretty unique and powerful hardware, and I think you can see that in all of the components for the Syn 360. It comes bundled with three of their latest Valkyrie X12 High Static Pressure Fans. I actually reviewed the fans on their own recently, and they were good, so I feel confident they’ll be able to do a good job on this radiator.
The fans feature a gorgeous design that features RGB in the corners of the mounting frame. While many brands illuminate the whole frame with a ring light, or the blades of the fan, or both, this is a much more subtle approach and I like that, it’s a bit different and less in your face.
The fans are rated for 800-2150 RPM, which I think is a bit high, and in my time reviewing the fans I felt they were a little loud at maximum RPM too, but that’s to be expected at such high speeds. I wouldn’t be surprised if keeping them on your motherboard or fan controller’s silent profile or similar would be more than enough RPM for a slim radiator cooler.
Speaking of which, here’s the slim radiator! It supports mounting of the fans on either side, so you can easily place it on the front of your case pulling air in, or in a push configuration if you mount it on an exhaust point of your case.
The radiator is presentable though, with a black design, and a small Valkyrie logo printed onto the side panel.
The tubing is nice and durable but still has plenty of flex to it, so you can easily make it fit your available space.
The pump is nice and compact, with a housing that’s not much bigger than the cold plate, so it shouldn’t conflict with memory, VRM or other motherboard components. I like the design too. It’s a mixture of black, grey and red and should look pretty great given they’re common colours on most motherboards.
The top of the pump has a small LCD, this is perfect for adding photos, animations or display system information. It’s also the only screen like this I’ve seen at this price range, with rival offerings from the likes of ASUS and NZXT costing twice as much.
The additional screen does mean that you need an additional cable though, with a PWM cable hard-wired for the pump control, and an additional USB cable needed to connect the display to your motherboard.
There’s a feature-packed ARGB and fan control hub too, which not only looks great but will make you cable to control pretty much all fans and lights in your case too.
There’s a plethora of installation hardware for AMD and Intel sockets, and I’m happy to see there’s a fully metal backplate too, not one of those bendy plastic ones!
Another sneaky component? How about the pull tab to open the box being a detachable key ring!? Epic.
