Swiftech H360X3 Review: Actually Different Liquid Cooling
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Date: 2020-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 10
Jerry
I have the H320 X2 from year one (2017 I think. The original acrylic reservoir failed after a year of 24/7 use (cracks. But since they have gone to Glass reservoirs and changed to nylon pump housings they work w/o issue. They have a great warranty and replaced mine with the new pump res combo. I now have a duel loop system with a Alphacool GPX-A Vega Pro AIO for my Vega 64 connected to a Alphacool 360 45 mil thick radiator. The nice things about these type of AIOs is you can add to the systems and they are easier to clean vs. a custom hard loop system. The Fan RGB cabling is NOT an issue of the cooler. All RGB fans have the same issue. The cooling performance of this 360 was proven to me years ago when it cooled my FX-9590 OC'd to 5. 1Ghz for benching and 5. 0Ghz for gaming. It kept my temps in the high 60's when pushing it hard. The previous 200W air cooler was 20 degrees higher. And other clcs couldn't handle the load imo. Today with my 3600X on x370 it's in the high 50's to low 60's while gaming. Funny in idle I may see a spike to 71 for a millisecond. Quirks of Ryzen I think bios/windows scheduler take your pick. It fit my Corsair Air 540 like a glove back in the day. It also fits perfectly in my current Lian Li 011 Dynamic in the top. No motherboard clearance issues at all. Thanks Steve for all your guys hard work, but I think you missed a few key features of these type of coolers from Swiftech. The radiator is made of Brass tubes with copper fins, uses standard size 3/4 fittings, a new CPU waterblock, the Apogee SKF LT, custom loop DLC class pumps, maintenance ease, and expandability. Swiftech also has several full cover gpu blocks, for AMD and Nvidia that can easily be connected to the loop. The pump is powerful enough to do a cpu, and gpu, along with an additional radiator in the loop. The flexible tubing makes installations a breeze. I agree on the colored fluid part but they are easy to drain. Swiftech sells clear premade coolant too. Water Cooling is just so easy today. I hope you do more with these type of coolers, they IMO give more long term value to water cooling a pc than the Asetek type clcs. I had two previous to my Swiftech purchase fail in a year due to pump issues. With Intel being the NEW BULLDOZER class of HOT cpu's people are going to need a long lasting AIO verses what is currently sold on the market.
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I have the H320 X2 from year one (2017 I think. The original acrylic reservoir failed after a year of 24/7 use (cracks. But since they have gone to Glass reservoirs and changed to nylon pump housings they work w/o issue. They have a great warranty and replaced mine with the new pump res combo. I now have a duel loop system with a Alphacool GPX-A Vega Pro AIO for my Vega 64 connected to a Alphacool 360 45 mil thick radiator. The nice things about these type of AIOs is you can add to the systems and they are easier to clean vs. a custom hard loop system. The Fan RGB cabling is NOT an issue of the cooler. All RGB fans have the same issue. The cooling performance of this 360 was proven to me years ago when it cooled my FX-9590 OC'd to 5. 1Ghz for benching and 5. 0Ghz for gaming. It kept my temps in the high 60's when pushing it hard. The previous 200W air cooler was 20 degrees higher. And other clcs couldn't handle the load imo. Today with my 3600X on x370 it's in the high 50's to low 60's while gaming. Funny in idle I may see a spike to 71 for a millisecond. Quirks of Ryzen I think bios/windows scheduler take your pick. It fit my Corsair Air 540 like a glove back in the day. It also fits perfectly in my current Lian Li 011 Dynamic in the top. No motherboard clearance issues at all. Thanks Steve for all your guys hard work, but I think you missed a few key features of these type of coolers from Swiftech. The radiator is made of Brass tubes with copper fins, uses standard size 3/4 fittings, a new CPU waterblock, the Apogee SKF LT, custom loop DLC class pumps, maintenance ease, and expandability. Swiftech also has several full cover gpu blocks, for AMD and Nvidia that can easily be connected to the loop. The pump is powerful enough to do a cpu, and gpu, along with an additional radiator in the loop. The flexible tubing makes installations a breeze. I agree on the colored fluid part but they are easy to drain. Swiftech sells clear premade coolant too. Water Cooling is just so easy today. I hope you do more with these type of coolers, they IMO give more long term value to water cooling a pc than the Asetek type clcs. I had two previous to my Swiftech purchase fail in a year due to pump issues. With Intel being the NEW BULLDOZER class of HOT cpu's people are going to need a long lasting AIO verses what is currently sold on the market.
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boatrat74
No 280mm option at all this time around (third generation of this idea from Swiftech? Why does no one recognize that a 280 is mathematically 91% of the effective radiator surface area of a 360? With 140mm fans being inherently quieter for equivalent airflow, the real-world performance/noise ratio for a dual-fan 280 will inevitably be better than a triple-fan 360, AND they fit in may cases that can't support a 3x120 configuration. How am I supposed to hold out hope for some real analysis of more high-quality 180/200mm fans (let alone 200mm radiators, when even the 140mm category is being ignored? I'm trying to go compact for any future mainstream PC builds from here on out. That means mATX or smaller. I just got done ranting on Paul's latest vid [ Wrong Motherboard ], about the dismaying lack of mATX motherboards. There ARE some good mATX cases, that do support a 280mm radiator! By definition, there are NONE that support a 360. I have no interest in the performance of any 360mm liquid cooler, because I simply refuse to needlessly chew up that much real estate.
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No 280mm option at all this time around (third generation of this idea from Swiftech? Why does no one recognize that a 280 is mathematically 91% of the effective radiator surface area of a 360? With 140mm fans being inherently quieter for equivalent airflow, the real-world performance/noise ratio for a dual-fan 280 will inevitably be better than a triple-fan 360, AND they fit in may cases that can't support a 3x120 configuration. How am I supposed to hold out hope for some real analysis of more high-quality 180/200mm fans (let alone 200mm radiators, when even the 140mm category is being ignored? I'm trying to go compact for any future mainstream PC builds from here on out. That means mATX or smaller. I just got done ranting on Paul's latest vid [ Wrong Motherboard ], about the dismaying lack of mATX motherboards. There ARE some good mATX cases, that do support a 280mm radiator! By definition, there are NONE that support a 360. I have no interest in the performance of any 360mm liquid cooler, because I simply refuse to needlessly chew up that much real estate.
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SwiftKikGaming
For those that would like to know if you can expand this H360 to hard line PTG? Yes you can, i hard-line this unit. Will this cool your CPU and GPU efficiently if you go hard line? Yes it would, its got a powerful pump. As i own this AIO cooler it works flawlessly, its 6 months and its still running strong. Swiftech haves one of best customer service, they will get in contact with you with in the same day on discord live with them, or contact you next day via email. The only con is they just need better airflow PWM fans, I went with Corsair ML120 PRO got significant 13c drop in temp. In full load with stock Swiftech fans i would hit 66-68 in both CPU and GPU at full load, with Corsair ML120 ill stay at constant 55c to 58c at full load, in hot weather no more than 62c and i live in the High desert 102F to 106F weather. So don't shy away from this cooler its really good and you can do a hard line loop on it.
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For those that would like to know if you can expand this H360 to hard line PTG? Yes you can, i hard-line this unit. Will this cool your CPU and GPU efficiently if you go hard line? Yes it would, its got a powerful pump. As i own this AIO cooler it works flawlessly, its 6 months and its still running strong. Swiftech haves one of best customer service, they will get in contact with you with in the same day on discord live with them, or contact you next day via email. The only con is they just need better airflow PWM fans, I went with Corsair ML120 PRO got significant 13c drop in temp. In full load with stock Swiftech fans i would hit 66-68 in both CPU and GPU at full load, with Corsair ML120 ill stay at constant 55c to 58c at full load, in hot weather no more than 62c and i live in the High desert 102F to 106F weather. So don't shy away from this cooler its really good and you can do a hard line loop on it.
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Charlie
I think you might want to re-assess the efficacy of running distilled water in a liquid cooling system. It almost always leads to significant corrosion which simply doesn t occur with fluids developed specifically for this use such as Mayhems Pastel. Dan from Singularity Computers (who probably has more experience with high end liquid cooled systems than any one individual) has tested this quite extensively and his results are pretty definitive. He s also followed up with clients whose systems running pastel have gone over five years without requiring maintenance. By contrast, have a look at Linus personal rig which had been running distilled water for less than a year, after which all blocks were dreadfully corroded. Since you guys do so many great quantitative studies to get to the bottom of PC lore, perhaps looking into this would be worthwhile.
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I think you might want to re-assess the efficacy of running distilled water in a liquid cooling system. It almost always leads to significant corrosion which simply doesn t occur with fluids developed specifically for this use such as Mayhems Pastel. Dan from Singularity Computers (who probably has more experience with high end liquid cooled systems than any one individual) has tested this quite extensively and his results are pretty definitive. He s also followed up with clients whose systems running pastel have gone over five years without requiring maintenance. By contrast, have a look at Linus personal rig which had been running distilled water for less than a year, after which all blocks were dreadfully corroded. Since you guys do so many great quantitative studies to get to the bottom of PC lore, perhaps looking into this would be worthwhile.
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cyphre
I actually picked this up quite a while ago and was surprised at all the features and design of this. I recall a lot of the amazing watercooling stuff swiftech made way back in the day, and decided to just go for it, since it was price competitive with the other Asetek solutions (EVGA didn't have a 360 out that I could find at the time. I primarily picked it up because it was one of the few solution that had at least some color options, with much fatter tubes and a more mainstream coolant that could be found elsewhere if I needed to flush the system. The expandability was also a nice idea, but I haven't yet bothered to add a GPU cooler. Honestly, the EK MLC Phoenix was my first choice, but their pump/rad setup just wouldn't fit in my case anyway; also incredibly expensive for what was still basically an AIO.
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I actually picked this up quite a while ago and was surprised at all the features and design of this. I recall a lot of the amazing watercooling stuff swiftech made way back in the day, and decided to just go for it, since it was price competitive with the other Asetek solutions (EVGA didn't have a 360 out that I could find at the time. I primarily picked it up because it was one of the few solution that had at least some color options, with much fatter tubes and a more mainstream coolant that could be found elsewhere if I needed to flush the system. The expandability was also a nice idea, but I haven't yet bothered to add a GPU cooler. Honestly, the EK MLC Phoenix was my first choice, but their pump/rad setup just wouldn't fit in my case anyway; also incredibly expensive for what was still basically an AIO.
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Colton
I've got the Swiftech H240X3 and after a week the pump died. I came back to my desk after chilling with my wife to see my CPU over 96C and a noticeable air bubble in my loop from what I believe to be boiling. For what it's worth Howard at Swiftech customer support has been really helpful and my unit has been with them since early last week. Hopefully they can fix it or replace it soon because I've been out of use with my main workstation for going on two weeks now. I had it mounted on the front of the case. Do you think the pump being upside-down would have affected it's performance? I can't seem to find documentation or teardown to see how the flow exactly goes through the system and better understand filling and draining the system. Thanks for the video!
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I've got the Swiftech H240X3 and after a week the pump died. I came back to my desk after chilling with my wife to see my CPU over 96C and a noticeable air bubble in my loop from what I believe to be boiling. For what it's worth Howard at Swiftech customer support has been really helpful and my unit has been with them since early last week. Hopefully they can fix it or replace it soon because I've been out of use with my main workstation for going on two weeks now. I had it mounted on the front of the case. Do you think the pump being upside-down would have affected it's performance? I can't seem to find documentation or teardown to see how the flow exactly goes through the system and better understand filling and draining the system. Thanks for the video!
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Jerry
Steve why didn't you guys go over the cpu block? It too is unique in that it is skived, unlike the other AIO's you've reviewed. Also that reservoir is made of borosilicate glass. What about the pump, what kind of flow rate did it have compared to the others. How does it perform with a gpu waterblock attached? There was a lot of testing you left out that would of made this even more interesting. Still thanks for reviewing it. I bought this unit 4 years ago, after two years the pump started making noise. So I did send it in to get the pump replaced under warranty. They now use an even more powerful pump and use better materials in it. You have the same pump as I, it works great.
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Steve why didn't you guys go over the cpu block? It too is unique in that it is skived, unlike the other AIO's you've reviewed. Also that reservoir is made of borosilicate glass. What about the pump, what kind of flow rate did it have compared to the others. How does it perform with a gpu waterblock attached? There was a lot of testing you left out that would of made this even more interesting. Still thanks for reviewing it. I bought this unit 4 years ago, after two years the pump started making noise. So I did send it in to get the pump replaced under warranty. They now use an even more powerful pump and use better materials in it. You have the same pump as I, it works great.
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Darren
Now if they could only get someone to carry it so that you wouldn't get such a terrible price on the shipping from them. The Mayhem Pastel line uses that dragon nanofluid that came out like 8 years ago. The entire point of the H240/220/360 line is it's expandability. That you haven't looked at swiftech products before show that you haven't been reviewing the breadth of the market for very long, since they used to be one of the go to names. I had 2 of the crappy H220s that came out when they violated the patent. The crappiness was from the pump, not the rest of it. The innerds are nice in that they always use all copper.
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Now if they could only get someone to carry it so that you wouldn't get such a terrible price on the shipping from them. The Mayhem Pastel line uses that dragon nanofluid that came out like 8 years ago. The entire point of the H240/220/360 line is it's expandability. That you haven't looked at swiftech products before show that you haven't been reviewing the breadth of the market for very long, since they used to be one of the go to names. I had 2 of the crappy H220s that came out when they violated the patent. The crappiness was from the pump, not the rest of it. The innerds are nice in that they always use all copper.
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Joel
A simple design change would be for them to extend the res/pump away from direct contact with the rad, or even make it detachable so it can be placed elsewhere in the case. I think this would make it both less expensive and perform better. If they are going after a pseudo open loop, then go all in and make it an AIO Open Loop cooler along with providing expansion parts for the purpose of including gpus etc. If they can price it at AIO levels, but make it easy to expand, they would upset the market. Open loop stuff is way too expensive. There is a niche in the market for just this sort of thing!
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A simple design change would be for them to extend the res/pump away from direct contact with the rad, or even make it detachable so it can be placed elsewhere in the case. I think this would make it both less expensive and perform better. If they are going after a pseudo open loop, then go all in and make it an AIO Open Loop cooler along with providing expansion parts for the purpose of including gpus etc. If they can price it at AIO levels, but make it easy to expand, they would upset the market. Open loop stuff is way too expensive. There is a niche in the market for just this sort of thing!
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Rocky12345
Great video thank you. I actually have the EVGA 280mm CLC and like it a lot as it does it's job very well. I will say though you never ever want to crank the fans as they scream rather loudly. I leave mine on auto and 90% of the time it runs the fans at 850-950 RPM which is pretty much silent. If the room is really warm on a hot summer day it will get into the 1350 RPM range which is just starting to be able to be heard slightly but still pretty quiet. In between PC clean up of dust I will crank the fans 100% for about a minute to make sure there is no dust collecting in the 280mm rad.
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Great video thank you. I actually have the EVGA 280mm CLC and like it a lot as it does it's job very well. I will say though you never ever want to crank the fans as they scream rather loudly. I leave mine on auto and 90% of the time it runs the fans at 850-950 RPM which is pretty much silent. If the room is really warm on a hot summer day it will get into the 1350 RPM range which is just starting to be able to be heard slightly but still pretty quiet. In between PC clean up of dust I will crank the fans 100% for about a minute to make sure there is no dust collecting in the 280mm rad.
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