First off, let's start with the 2 big cons with this AIO liquid cooler. 1) Installation is a bit of a pain until you've done it the first time. First up, like some cheaper coolers, on AMD you have to place 4 plastic standoffs, then rest metal plates onto these, before screwing all of this into the sockets from the motherboard backplate (the ones that come ready fitted on AMD motherboards, obviously you have to remove the plastic lug system before starting this, but that is easy using the included tool). Needless to say, often the standoffs refuse to stay put, and you end up having to put them back and start again with this. Better is the method used on the Deepcool AIOs where you just screw metal standoffs into the backplate, even if they combined this with a mounting plate it would be easier to use. Then you come to actually installing the CPU block. It attaches using 2 screws captive in a sprung plate, thing is that once you get the one in just a little bit, the 2nd becomes very difficult to coax in due to the spring mechanism. I much prefer individually sprung screws in the 4 corners to this method honestly. Then you finally get the block installed, having followed the instructions, to realise that the instructions skipped the step of installing one of the 2 control cable options, which plugs into the CPU block, and threads through a slot in the very bottom of the plastic cover right at the very bottom by the motherboard, and you can't do this now without uninstalling the CPU block again, then doing it all over again, so yeah the instructions are missing a step as well, take not of this and installing your chosen cable BEFORE you install the block. The 2nd con is also a pro. This AIO is oversized in many ways. The radiator is VERY VERY thick. I thought I would have more than enough space in my case (a Gamemax Infinity dual chamber model), and also my motherboard only has a small VRM heatsink at the top. However the fan screws are literally pressed against the VRM heatsink, and the cables from the CPU power connectors at the top of the board have a LOT of pressure on them from the fans too. This is with an offset placement in a fairly large mid tower case... If you have something smaller, or a motherboard with big heatsinks, this cooler is not going to fit, end of. Then there's where the pipes exit at the bottom of the CPU block/pump. The pipes are larger than usual, I had to remove my vertically mounted GPU before I could install the block at all, and now I have to have it mounted closer to the side window to give the pipes clearance as they come out of the block, these pipes also sit right over my top M.2 slot, so if you have an M.2 drive with a tall heatsink on it, be aware of this also, as again you are going to have issues. Onto the pros. No, this isn't going to give you temps lower than say a DeepCool LS720 (I literally compared it, and got roughly identical temps), what it WILL do however is give you the same temperatures QUIETER. I've been able to change my case fans over to monitor motherboard temps rather than CPU temps, leaving only the fans and pump on the Liquid Freezer 3 set to monitor CPU temps (and these fans are fairly quiet and efficient ones), meaning that the case fans never have to spin up as high as they used to, but I am still getting the exact same temps under load in Cinebench R23. Thus making for MUCH quieter operation of my PC, whilst maintaining sub TJmax temps on my Ryzen 7 7800x3D CPU. My wife is much happier now, as she kept complaining about the hurricane on her side of my PC whenever my CPU was under heavy load (I didn't like to point out that the fans on that side are intake fans, so if anything they'd be pulling not blowing.. lol).... TLDR; Awkward to install, seriously big for a 360mm liquid cooler, but nice and quiet way to get decent temps on hot running CPUs, at a really fantastic launch price right now that won't last forever.
