EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux White – Simply gorgeous liquid cooler

Key Features

I probably don’t need to introduce EK Water Blocks here. It produces high-end components for water loops and for the last few years it has been using its experience in this field in designing AIO coolers as well. The EK-Nucleus CR360 Lux represents the top of the current range and will impress you above all with its clean and elegant design. With good test results, one can expect an attractive ratio of price, quality and efficiency, considering its price.

Conclusion and evaluation

EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 Lux D-RGB White is simply a beautiful cooler. Quality workmanship, attention to detail and elegant design will impress you very well, as is typical of EK products. However, what is also fairly typical of EK is the somewhat pointless overlooking of acoustic optimization of the supplied fans. This can be seen quite clearly in the tests and acoustic spectrograms, where I swapped the supplied EK-Loop FPT 120 fans for the acclaimed Noctua NF-A12x25 fans, which are still among the absolute top of their class.

However, if you tame the supplied fans to somewhere in the 40–60% PWM duty cycle range, they are acceptably quiet without sacrificing the overall efficiency of the cooler. I would just strongly recommend avoiding their maximum speed.

The price of the EK-Nucleus CR360 is a bit higher than high-end air coolers, but its certainly acceptable considering its very good design, overall efficiency, abundant accessories and length of warranty. It can thus deservedly take home the Approved editorial award.

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

• Contents
• Key Features
• Measurement methodology
• Results – 39 dBA
• Results – 42 dBA
• Results – 45 dBA
• Results – 48 dBA
• Results – maximum speed
• Spectral analysis of noise
• Conclusion and evaluation