Conclusion
Today we looked at the performance of the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 Cooler and stacked it up against various competitors that we’ve previously reviewed to see how it would perform against our second-generation AIO testbed featuring the Intel i9 13900K CPU. We’ll recap the performance below and see how the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 stood up to the heat in our kitchen!
Summary of Temperatures
From a temperature performance perspective, when the fans were at or above 1000 RPM, the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 trailed the Cooler Master 360 ATMOS and PL360 FLUX offerings by a significant margin. However, at the lowest fan speed of 600 RPM, the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 was able to maintain its cool while the Cooler Master units shipped themselves to the moon. When looking at the 250W load, the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 kept going when they could not.
The fan curve on the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 is an interesting one – its fans spin at a lower maximum speed (1800 RPM vs 2300-2500 RPM) than the Cooler Master competition and perform much worse when at the upper end of the range, but as the speed levels drop, it produces a resounding victory (sans the sound, of course).
Summary of Sound Levels
The MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 was among the quietest AIO units to cross our test bench with its lowest sound level recorded at 35.8 dB(A). At full blast, it announced its cooling power at 50.7 dB(A) but quickly stepped down to inaudible as it sunk to and below 1000 RPM.
Overall, your ears won’t notice if you’re running the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 at 1000 RPM which gives it a great intersection between performance and sound levels.
Final Points
Looking at the charts, there’s a bit to unpack here with the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 ‘s performance. Most of the charts appear to be a solid loss at fan speed RPMs of 1000 and higher to the Cooler Master competition that we brought in. At the same time, at the minimum fan speed testing of 600 RPM (which is also the quietest level), the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 significantly outperformed the competition.
This performance profile tells us that the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 is best suited for use cases where strong performance at a low RPM and noise level is more important than the maximum possible performance. Was it the best performer compared to the Cooler Master units? Absolutely not. Was it the best performer at its quietest configuration? Absolutely.
With all this considered, we have a king of quiet performance in the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 through testing on our second-generation AIO testbed. Considering that its MSRP is $30 below the Cooler Master 360 ATMOS that we recently reviewed, it also provides an interesting value proposition when building your rig. If you’re in the market for a new AIO that performs well in a near-silent configuration, the MSI MAG CORELIQUID E360 should certainly be on your shortlist.