ASUS ROG Ryou 240 AIO CPU Cooler Review

A Closer Look

ASUS ROG always put quite an exceptional effort into their packaging. It would, therefore, be remiss of us not to point this out as part of our review. The box opens from the front edge and has a nice design which displays their logo at an angle. We’ve seen this design from ASUS ROG on many occasions and have never failed to be impressed with this little extra touch they give to their products.

Out of the box, the power supply looks fairly similar to many other 240mm AIO liquid coolers. The radiator itself is actually rather bereft of any notable features. As far as we could ascertain, there’s no branding or logos. When you take a closer look at the pump-head, however, things get far more interesting.

Pump Block

The pump block is, without a doubt, one of the biggest features of this cooler. Initially, it looks fairly standard, albeit clearly well made. Don’t let the looks deceive you though, this gets far more interesting later on in the review! The pump head does have a rather large number of connectors including; fan connectors, SATA (for power) and a separate USB connector which is used to operate the lighting effects (more on that later).

The contact plate to the rear has a circular design which is, perhaps a little smaller than you would usually expect to see. This circular design, however, should allow for excellent coverage to all major processor chipset designs.

Fans and Overall Build Thoughts

The ASUS ROG Ryou is cooled by 2 own-brand design fans. These do not have any RGB lighting effects so, in terms of presentation, they are rather straightforward. The design aesthetics, however, do have more than a few touches that certainly make these very pleasant to look at.

When fitted to the radiator, you will notice the ASUS ROG branding to the centre of the fans. Although a bit trickier to capture in pictures (due to the black on black design) there is also ‘Republic of Gamers’ lightly embossed to the inner edges. It’s sleek design, despite being rather simple, is surprisingly good and attractive to look at!

RGB Lighting And Software

With the utilisation of the ‘Livedash’ software, the centrepiece of this cooler really comes to the forefront. You may have noticed in previous pictures that the pump head had a nice shiny surface. Well, that is actually a fully customisable 1.77″ OLED display. Yes, a display! On it you can apply a number of features. This can be as fun as a gif image, picture or even more professional by using it as a digital temperature display.

The ‘Livedash’ software is really straightforward and easy to use.

While a number of default Republic of Gamer images and animations are available, I couldn’t resist showing you just how versatile this is to customisation.