NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB Review: The best on the market – and priced like it

NZXT’s Kraken line of liquid coolers dates back more than a decade. And along with its long line of PC cases, motherboards, and PSUs the company has plenty of experience dealing with PC heat dissipation. Today we’re looking at the latest flagship AIO from NZXT, the Kraken Elite 360 RGB. It features an upgraded pump, thick liquid tubing, and a fancy 2.7-inch IPS display with more customization options than a giant cephalopod has tentacles. This cooler clearly isn’t for builders on a budget – with a price tag of $294.99 USD, it’s firmly in premium territory. As such, my expectations for the Kraken Elite RGB are high. For it to make our list of best CPU coolers, performance will have to be more or less perfect.

Let’s take a quick look at the Kraken Elite 360 RGB’s specifications, then we’ll dive into its features and our benchmark testing.

Cooler specifications

Packing and included contents

The outside of the box sports NZXT’s purple and white theme, with an image highlighting the design of the AIO.

The contents are well-protected with molded cardboard and plastic coverings.

Included with the box are the following:

• 3-in-1 fan block
• 360mm radiator
• Fan cable
• Mounting for modern AMD and Intel platforms

Features of NZXT’s Kraken Elite 360

*️⃣ 3-in-1 fan shroud 

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fans have a significant impact on cooling and noise levels, as well as how the cooler looks in your case. And the included F360 RGB Core “fan” certainly has a unique look!

Rather than including three separate 120mm fans which would then have to be individually connected, NZXT includes the F360 RGB Core. This is essentially one large plastic slab with three fans installed in it. The advantages of this design are aesthetics and simpler installation. The main downside: If one fan stops working, you’ll have to replace the entire block (or add three separate fans).

*️⃣ Large copper contact plate, pre-installed thermal paste

The Kraken Elite features a large copper contact plate to cover even the largest of CPUs, with pre-installed thermal paste applied to make installation easier.

*️⃣ Extra thick, rotatable tubing

The tubing for this AIO is made of CIIR rubber with PET braided sleeves, and it’s much thicker than what you’d find on most other liquid coolers. As a result, the AIO has more internal liquid coolant and higher flow rates – which helps make it easier to cool a CPU and should, in theory, lead to better performance.

*️⃣ Robust software with lots of customization

To customize this cooler, you’ll need to download NZXT’s Cam software – as the AIO doesn’t feature traditional PWM support. The software offers a lot of functionality and customization options, some of which are shown in the images below. You can change the fan speeds, what sensors the cooler responds to, and much more! You can even set the AIO’s display to play YouTube videos – or integrate with other options online.

If for some reason you don’t wish to install the software – the AIO will still function, but it will be limited to the default configuration.

I’ve also uploaded a quick video showing the screen and some of the ways you can customize it, which you can watch below.

Testing Methodology, and how my testing differs vs the competition

I do a few things to ensure my results are useful to PC builders. I strictly regulate the ambient temperature to 23 degrees Celsius during testing. I do not accept results at 22 or 24C as valid, even though in theory there won’t be much of a difference.

I also do my best to emulate the conditions you’d encounter using the cooler, with thermal loads similar to those a person would experience in real life, and tested in a real case rather than an open bench, which can decrease the difficulty of cooling.

Many other reviewers and, in fact, most of my own older reviews, only test coolers with a load running on the CPU. While this does provide useful information, it doesn’t paint a complete picture of how a cooler will perform. Many workloads, and especially gaming, will stress both the CPU and GPU. As such, to test how well a CPU’s cooler will perform in these situations, I’ve added two tests: one with a light CPU and one with a moderate CPU load – both while running a full load with AMD’s Radeon RX 7900GRE.

Testing configuration – Intel LGA1700 platform

Many factors other than the CPU cooler can influence your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system’s motherboard can also influence this, especially if its socket suffers from bending, which results in poor cooler contact with the CPU.

In order to prevent bending from impacting our cooling results, we’ve installed Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame into our testing rig. If your motherboard is affected by bending, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected equally by this issue. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs in two motherboards. And while one of them showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, the other motherboard showed no difference in temperatures whatsoever! Check out our review of the contact frame for more information.

LGA 1700 Installation

1. The first thing you’ll need to do is attach the fan shroud to the radiator (which requires four screws rather than the 12 you’d need with three separate fans), then plug the fan cord into to the radiator.

2. Secure the radiator to your case.

3. Place the CPU bracket against the rear of the motherboard. Secure it using the included standoffs.

4. Take the CPU block and press it against the CPU. Secure it with the included thumbscrews.

5. Connect the PWM cable to your motherboard, power on your computer, and installation is complete.