ID-Cooling Zoomflow 360X Snow Edition AIO Cooler Review

Installation

One of the most consistent gripes we have surrounding coolers, and particular AIO designs, is when the manual you are provided with, without mincing words, is pretty crap. Fortunately, while what you get from ID-Cooling is a little lacking in expansive details, you are provided with nice and clear diagrams as well as concise written instructions. Put simply, whether you are new or experienced at AIO cooler installation, if you pay attention, it should be impossible to go wrong!

Mounting

ID-Cooling has been keen to emphasize that the Zoomflow 360X Snow Edition AIO Cooler has an ‘easy’ installation method and, by and large, we would agree with that sentiment. Starting with the pump head, rather than an overly complication screwing down system (that we see a lot from other manufacturers) this design simply has a bracket that slips over and through a twisting action, clips into place. So, put simply, whether AMD or Intel, you should have your pump head ready to fit within literally seconds rather than minutes.

In terms of the motherboard mounting bracket, it is again pretty straight forward. Albeit, there are aspects of it that are not entirely easy. For example, the backplate doesn’t include any clips to hold the main screws in place, as such, I found that I had to basically fit this one at a time (one hand underneath making sure the screw didn’t drop and another from the top screwing the main spacer down). In addition, you are provided with some very small rubber washers that, I suspect, could very easily get lost. Particularly if you don’t have the luxury of an ‘open’ test bench as we did.

Put simply, it’s an installation that’s probably vastly easier with either a second pair of hands or on a motherboard that hasn’t yet been fitted within a chassis.

Overall, however, that represents the only mildly tricky aspect of this installation method and, put simply, the vast majority of other AIO mounting designs we’ve encountered have, generally speaking, been much more fiddly or time consuming than this.

RGB Lighting

Offering both a manual or motherboard sync option, users will be able to get the RGB lighting running no matter what. Well, as long as you have a couple spare SATA connection (one for the pump motor and one for the lighting power).

In terms of hooking everything up, it’s no more easier or complicated than the vast majority of ARGB setups. Better still though, ID-Cooling does provide you with a video on the official website that easily shows you where everything goes. It’s not rocket science, but it’s nice to have it there!

Overall Thoughts

From out of the box and onto our test bench, the Zoomflow 360X Snow Edition AIO Cooler took us roughly 10 minutes to install which, for a 360mm AIO design (with 3 fans and 12 screws) is significantly lower than normal.

The installation method isn’t 100% easy, but it’s in our opinion around 95% which, as we noted above, is much better than we usually see or expect. If you are, therefore, new to AIO cooler, then the Zoomflow 360X Snow Edition AIO Cooler shouldn’t provide you with any issues! – As ID-Cooling says, it is (pretty much) very easy to install!