Conclusion
Today MSI is launching a whole new series of AIOs in its MEG (MSI Enthusiast Gaming) series of products. That is how you know this is a top-tier, top-of-the-line piece of hardware from MSI, with all the bells and whistles. The MEG CORELIQUID S series of AIOs consists of the S360 ($279.99) and S280 ($249.99). Today we reviewed the MEG CORELIQUID S360, a 360mm AIO with three fans, and an impressive IPS display that is fully customizable under MSI Center built for performance and quiet operation.
When we started our adventure, we wanted to push this cooler to its absolute limits and our test bench certainly delivered that when its 18 cores were clocked to 4.7GHz. We’ll recap the performance below and see how the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360 stood up to the heat in our kitchen!
Summary of Temperatures
From a temperature performance perspective, the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360 did a respectable job keeping our Intel 10980XE in check at both stock clocks and when overclocked to 11. When the fans were running at or above 1500 RPM, it outperformed every AIO that has crossed our test bench thus far.
As the fan speeds drop on the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360, it becomes a bit less effective at its job and lands around the middle of the pack from a performance perspective. For maximum cooling, you’ll want to set your fan curves a bit more aggressively, however, as you’ll see next, you still won’t hear it when you do. The important part is you can set manual fan curves easily with MSI Center.
Summary of Sound Levels
Quite frankly, the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360 is the quietest unit AIO unit that we’ve experienced by a fairly significant margin. This is with the caveat of the water block fan being set to 50% of its load and the radiator fans at 100%. Setting the water block fan to full speed will ruin the tranquility of the room that you’re in.
Overall, your ears won’t notice if you’re running the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360 at 1500 RPM which gives it a great intersection between performance and sound levels.
Final Points
Even though we first furrowed our eyebrows at it, MSI’s tag line for its MEG CORELIQUID S360 is “CAN’T HEAR IT COMING” and it’s quite fitting for the unit. It’s a very solid performer while being very quiet at the same time. It was also better able to tame our Intel 10980XE than any other unit that has crossed our test bench. We are also happy to see that it has full support for Intel’s upcoming LGA 1700 socket. You will need new mounting hardware for Alder Lake CPUs, and so this one specifically has it in the box ready to go. In fact, MSI has announced support for LGA 1700 in many of its cooling lineups.
When you combine its performance with the added 2.4″ IPS LCD that will let you put a looping rickroll on top of your CPU to keep an eye on when you’re gaming, it’s really hard to find a fault in this product other than perhaps price. Of course, we’re going to throw a price out the window here and say if you want the best AIO cooler that we’ve seen to date on TheFPSReview, then look no further than the MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360.
Discussion
