Fractal DesignLumen S24 RGB Aspect 12 RGB x2 AIO CPU Liquid/Water Cooler

The Fractal S36 is a great AIO. It's available in 240mm, 280mm and 360mm versions and I tried the 36. A key focus of this AIO was clearly the lighting.The aspect fans look absolutely fantastic with a smooth RGB glow throughout. The water block lighting is also brilliant, essentially being one large RGB glow that pairs perfectly with the fans. The fans look and feel high quality with the 360mm naturally coming with 3x120mm versions. They are daisy chained together resulting in cleaner cable management to the motherboard. Control of the lighting is handled by your motherboard instead of requiring a separate install just for the cooling system which is great and allows everything to be in sync, though this might be limiting if your motherboard lacks these features.Installation is straightforward and cooling performance has been great. The fans are somewhat loud at max speed but not as loud as some I've previously used. Under non-heavy use they can barely be heard.Overall I think this is a brilliant cooler. It looks and performs superbly and is great value for what you get. If you're looking for stunning, synchronisable (is that a word?) RGB paired with strong performance you really can't go wrong here.

Over time, my computer got slower and slower. Little did I know it was because my AIO was slowly killing my CPU. It came to a head when my PC stopped being usable, so I did the classic off-and-on-again, but it wouldn’t turn on again. I left it for an hour and tried again. I got it to boot and went into the BIOS to see what was happening, and my CPU was up to 90°C on boot-up. I tried re-seating the cooler block. Didn’t do anything. I felt the pipes—both felt cool. I swapped out the cooler from an old PC, and it worked fine. So ultimately, I guess I had a faulty unit, but it broke just long enough after buying it that I can’t return it, so I’m just left with an expensive, useless lump. I love how it looks, but that’s not worth it.