Cooling

Sapphire NITRO+ AIO 240 & 360mm CPU Cooler Review

Performance

In terms of temperature control, both models of the Sapphire NITRO+ are undoubtedly impressive. In fact, sticking strictly with temperatures, they are among some of the best AIO liquid coolers we have ever encountered and clearly demonstrate that there these are more than competent at not only generic usage but also offer more than a little wiggle room for those of you who enjoy a bit of overclocking.

If there is an Achilles heel, however, it’s undoubtedly seen in the acoustic performance. Put simply, both the 240mm and 360mm versions of the NITRO+ are amazingly loud when hard at work. This wouldn’t even be so bad if the idle temperatures were fairly low, but we regularly encountered some rather large noise spikes as the CPU would occasionally be tasked into work. – The issue with noise might be something that can be solved within the PWM settings in the BIOS. At the same time, however, we do have to wonder whether Sapphire’s choice of fan (and particularly so this third-party manufacturer we’ve never heard of before) wasn’t perhaps the smartest. – I mean, they clearly keep the CPU nice and good, but with a very vocal payoff!