Gigabyte has a number of all-in-one (AiO) water coolers that employ in-house pump design (in collaboration with an ODM) as a substitute of Asetek IP. The corporate not too long ago offered the Waterforce X II 360 AiO liquid cooler because the successor to the preferred Waterforce X 360.
The Waterforce X II 360 builds upon its predecessor and is derived with some nifty quality-of-life enhancements equivalent to daisy-chained enthusiasts and a bigger pump meeting.
Opposite to its predecessor, the Waterforce X II comes handiest in 240 and 360 choices. Moreover, Gigabyte additionally provides a Waterforce II collection centered at mainstream Intel and AMD CPUs with none of the customized show pizzaz and with hydro dynamic bearing (HDB) enthusiasts.
On this evaluate, we check the efficacy of the Gigabyte Aorus Waterforce X II 360 in maintaining an Intel Core i9-13900K acting properly with out hiccups.
In the beginning look, the Waterforce X II 360 is not too other from its predecessor or its cousins. With dimensions of 87.6 x 87.6 x 77.7 mm, the X II 360’s pump is 20% larger than that of the Waterforce II 360, making it amenable to successfully cool AMD Threadripper HEDT CPUs. Consistent with Gigabyte, the coolant is a proprietary anti-freeze recipe.
Not like the Waterforce II, the X II’s show can’t be bodily circled. On the other hand, the Gigabyte Keep watch over Heart (GCC) permits rotating the picture at the LCD show to fit the required orientation.
The pump sports activities a 60 mm x 60 mm LCD show that may be custom designed the use of a number of presets and information choices to be had in GCC. The LCD is not tremendous hi-res however is crisp and shiny sufficient to turn maximum information with no need to squint.
Not like the X 360, the X II’s pump show does now not function a microSD card slot. As an alternative, Gigabyte provides 40 MB of onboard garage to retailer your favourite GIFs and MP4 movies.
The bottom of the pump places up a refined mild display in tandem with fan lighting fixtures, which can please RGB afficionados.
The Waterforce X II 360 uses a 360 mm aluminum-fin radiator with 3x 120 mm PWM enthusiasts that may be magnetically interlocked and daisy-chained to one another. This successfully reduces a large number of litter and makes cable control a breeze.
Gigabyte has long past the additional mile to direction the cables by way of the tubing itself. Due to this fact, the one cables which are noticed outdoor are the fan cable that incorporates the fan and ARGB connectors, the USB cable from the pump that connects to a USB 2.0 header at the motherboard, and the SATA energy cable.
The Waterforce X II makes use of fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) enthusiasts as a substitute of the graphene nano lubricant sleeve bearing within the older X 360. Gigabyte says that FDB enthusiasts must be offering 25% longer lifestyles span in comparison to HDB ones.
Notice that there’s no connector that plugs into the CPU fan header at the motherboard. You’ll have to disable tracking of this header within the BIOS, if vital, to steer clear of boot error messages.
The Gigabyte Keep watch over Heart permits converting quite a lot of parameters of the Waterforce X II together with fan keep an eye on and RGB results. The app consolidates settings for different Gigabyte/Aorus merchandise put in within the gadget as properly.
GCC has come some distance since we first attempted it out whilst reviewing the Aorus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Grasp 12G final yr. On the other hand, it is not a wholly bug-free revel in.
One of the crucial problems we encountered come with the app turning into randomly unresponsive, issues throughout reinstallation, CPU clock show at the pump getting caught at a hard and fast worth, and basic efficiency considerations.
That being stated, to their credit score, Gigabyte has been very aware of our real-time comments and has issued more than one updates over the last few weeks to deal with lots of our considerations. The app is now extremely useful however can nonetheless use some steadiness enhancements. The corporate showed that optimizing GCC in accordance with consumer comments stays a most sensible precedence.
Neither the consumer handbook leaflet nor the app signifies explicit necessities for importing movies to the Waterforce X II’s pump. On the other hand, lets verify with Gigabyte that customers can add movies with a most solution of 320 x 320 pixels, as much as a ten MB record measurement prohibit, and as much as 4 such movies.
We used the next check setup for assessing the Waterforce X II 360’s cooling efficacy:
- Cooler MasterFrame 700 check bench
- Intel Core i9-13900K with PL1=PL2=253 W
- Asus GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Tremendous GPU
- Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Grasp motherboard
- Gigabyte Aorus Gen 4 2 TB NVMe SSD
- 2x 16 GB Kingston Fury Renegade DDR5-6400 RAM with timings 32-39-39-80 at 1.40 V
- Gigabyte M28U 4K 144 Hz track
- Cooler Grasp MVE Gold V2 1250 ATX 3.0 absolutely modular PSU
We want to thank Cooler Grasp for supplying the check bench and PSU, Gigabyte for the motherboard, CPU, SSD, AiO cooler, and track, Kingston for the reminiscence, and Asus for the GPU.
GCC provides a number of fan presets to choose between, however there is no way to manually outline fan curves. We examined the Waterforce X II’s efficiency basically in 0 RPM, Balanced, and Turbo modes.
The Waterforce X II guarantees a perceivably throttle-free efficiency of the Core i9-13900K in Balanced, Turbo, and 0 RPM modes within the Cinebench R15 multi-core loop check.
Environment the radiator enthusiasts to 0 RPM (Pump: Balanced) ends up in an approximate 10% lower within the Cinebench R15 multi-core rating after 30 runs. That is nonetheless considerable bearing in mind that it is just the Waterforce X II’s pump this is doing the heavy lifting right here with out the radiator enthusiasts kicking in.
The adaptation between the primary and thirtieth run in each Balanced and Turbo modes is negligible indicating superb cooling efficiency. Turbo permits for well-sustained efficiency on the expense of louder fan noise, which we can glance into in a while.
Within the 0 RPM preset with the pump set to Balanced, the Core i9-13900K can spice up to a most of four.72 GHz. Whilst the Waterforce X II’s pump velocity oscillates throughout the preliminary a part of the run, the expanding core temperature to 95 °C forces the pump to handle a constant max velocity to stop CPU throttling up to conceivable.
However, the benchmark crashed throughout the twenty seventh loop because the core temperatures began hitting 100 °C.
With the enthusiasts kicking in at about 1,834 moderate RPM within the Balanced mode, the pump’s task turns into so much more straightforward. Turbo ends up in each the pump and the enthusiasts keeping up near-consistent max RPMs. Each presets make sure that the utmost core temperature does now not go 75 °C.
Cinebench R15 single-core efficiency for the Core i9-13900K stays the similar throughout all 3 examined modes (300 issues).
Stressing the Core i9-13900K with Prime95 in-place huge FFTs displays anticipated tendencies in clocks with a max spice up of as much as 4.7 GHz in each Balanced and Turbo modes.
Each those modes permit for the same top core temperature of 78 °C. Max bundle powers hover across the 280 W mark with Turbo taking into account as much as 286 W.
Gigabyte formally charges the Waterforce X II’s fan noise ranges as much as 37.5 db(A). On the other hand, the degrees can move so much upper, specifically within the Turbo preset.
The next desk illustrates quite a lot of fan presets and corresponding sound force ranges (SPLs). Notice that the values can momentarily building up even in quieter presets relying at the load.
As demonstrated within the Cinebench R15 multi-core loop and rigidity check above, the Balanced preset permits constant CPU efficiency with out throttling.
With emissions of on the subject of 30.5 dB(A), this preset is advisable for many productiveness and gaming workloads with no need to fret about working noise.
Turbo is helping in maintaining the CPU cool below sustained load over longer sessions of time, however the enthusiasts can get distractingly loud at 46.5 dB(A) particularly in the event you want operating in a quiet atmosphere.
The Aorus Waterforce X II 360 is Gigabyte’s newest AiO water cooler aimed on the fanatic crowd. The Waterforce X II 360 is a vital improve over the Waterforce X with some nifty options equivalent to FDB enthusiasts, magnetic daisy-chaining, a bigger pump with a cool-looking RGB illumination at its base, and a configurable LCD show.
We preferred the truth that the Waterforce X II’s cables run inside the tubing itself, which lends to a blank shopping construct. The Waterforce X II did an excellent task in maintaining the Core i9-13900K acting properly even within the 0 RPM fan mode.
The Gigabyte Aorus Waterforce X II 360 is a extremely succesful fanatic AiO liquid cooler that guarantees throttle-free CPU efficiency, however the added bling and daisy chaining comes at a top class.
Fan noise is inside of tolerable limits for many duties except you actually crank issues up within the Turbo mode. That being stated, the Waterforce X II isn’t with out a couple of shortcomings.
Gigabyte’s Keep watch over Heart tool can surely use some added polish. The LCD show can have been a better solution providing. The Galahad II LCD, as an example, provides a 480 x 480 24-bit show at a identical or cheaper price.
The facility to outline customized fan curves could also be lacking. Firmware updates take relatively a while to finish as properly. The loss of a 280 mm radiator possibility can disillusioned some potential consumers.
In case you are already the use of a Waterforce X or your present cooler is operating simply advantageous, there may be little incentive to splurge with reference to US$300 at the Waterforce X II. The Asus ROG Ryujin III (US$330 on Amazon) and Lian Li Galahad II LCD (US$274 on Amazon) are different worthy concerns that supply a customizable LCD and magnetic daisy-chaining.
The Gigabyte Aorus Waterforce X II 360 can also be had for US$290 on Amazon US whilst the white Ice model retails for US$300. The Waterforce II 360 can also be had at just about part the cost (US$150 on Amazon, Ice model) if a configurable LCD, magnetic daisy-chaining, and cooling a Threadripper don’t seem to be your priorities.
In India, the Waterforce X II is but to develop into broadly to be had in retail. Amazon India continues to inventory the older Waterforce X 360 for ₹22,222.
Allow 48h for review and removal.