DEEP COOL Castle 280EX AIO Liquid CPU Cooler, Anti-Leak Technology, Two 280mm TF140S PWM Fans, Addressable RGB Controller and 5V 3-Pin Motherboard (Caslte 280EX)

First and foremost no item I buy I will get a five star rating unless it blows my mind. This cooler gets a four-star rating and it is a absolutely solid cooler for $80. I bought it in July 2022...now it's $100 in September 2022.Short Review:I've used this AIO for 3 months. It performs well and is a great price to performance bargain at $80...now it's $100. CPU temps dropped 14-17C but GPU temps increased 5-10 C. I would highly recommend this AIO!The one nitpick thing that doesn’t actually matter is that the AMD mounting brackets are silver in color and very visible. If you have RGB lights they will reflect off of it and I don’t think it looks good. When I replace the thermal paste I will definitely paint these brackets black.Things to know before I get into the Detailed PC Nerd Review:1. I am NOT using the included fans! I’m using NZXT AER RGB 2 fans that come with my case.2. Ambient temps are between 26C-30C.3. This will NOT fit into an H510/H510 elite case unless you modify the fan bracket by drilling new holes into it. Even then the fitment is tight by pushing the top fan against the bottom of the front case I/O panel housing. You can still see the fans RGB through the glass front panel just fine. Also, I had radiator screws that were about 2 mm longer than the included screws. These definitely came in handy getting this to fit! I bought them at Micro Center. Bonus: the tubing does not interfere with the cable management bar and is long enough to have the radiator tubes down for less noise and longevity of the cooler.4. I don’t game with this PC. I only stream, record and edit video.***THE REVIEW FOR PC NERDS**I upgraded to this cooler from an AMD Wraith Prism cooler. Rendering a one minute video with effects on Davinci resolve brought the CPU (Ryzen 2700X) to 84C and sounded like 5 PS4's with their airplane fans! Lol. With this cooler the CPU never goes above 67C and the fans are pretty quite at 1000 RPM at that temp. Streaming and recording using OBS Studio for 3-4 hours, the CPU went from 71C using the Wraith Prism to 57C with the AIO; with the fans at 600 RPM at this temp.GPU temps with the Wraith Prism for rendering video were 46C and raised to 52C. Streaming/Recording went from 48C to 58C. Even though I don’t game with this PC I’d estimate GPU temps would probably reach around 75C after a few hours.Pump noise is very minimal and you’ll probably hear it a bit if you don’t have a headset or speakers playing.If you have an H510/H510 elite case, just do yourself a favor and get a 240mm AIO from whatever brand you want cuz this will fit no matter what OR if you want to go to 280mm get the NZXT Kraken X63! This will fit (cuz the radiator is smaller than this Deepcool) without any modifications and you can still have the tubes facing down.

Ive had the Deepcool on for almost 2 months now. I have this in my NZXT H7 Flow case with four-140mm Arctic fans (3 intake and 1 exhaust). So the case is getting plenty of air to cool the PNY RTX 4080 as well as provide fresh air to the top mounted Deepcool Radiator.I have the 13900k CPU with the support pressure bracket. I also did not use use Deepcool thermal paste but had my trusty Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.Now with Prime95 in stress test mode, I immediately get 100°C causing thermal throttling. Even with the Deepcool and all case fans, radiator fans, and pump running at 100%.HOWEVER, for normal productivety usage such as video editing and using architectural software that pushes both GPU and CPU, my CPU temps max out at 90°C, still hot but within full operational limits. I will add it is in an office room which is a warm 75°F, I'm sure I can get better temps in a cooler room.While pump noise is virtually none existent...the radiator fans at 100% is loud, but that doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the fans make an annoying noise at high speeds which is hard to describe (almost like plastics vibrating and bouncing around or something; almost like a loose fan).So yes this does keep my 13900k from thermal throttling during my specific work loads but does take 100% fan speeds to prevent it from doing so.For the price I can't complain much as it's doing its job.

UPDATEContacted DeepCool and they were on it! I used a air blower to see if that would help the fc120 fan, which it did momentarily. Recorded a video of the fan in a working condition and how the fan stopped when I powered the pc down (which it stopped quicker and more abruptly than the other two fc120 fans), so something was still up, but it was running. Turned on the pc and let it run for 1 or 2 hours and what do you know the fan was seezing up, was making a loud noise, and had a burning smell to it. I expect something was wrong with the bearings but I now think it's more that something is up with the fan motor. Sent another video in of it not working correctly and they are sending a replacement! Great service and help from Jarrett. Just unfortunate that the fan didn't work in the first place with the LS720.Upon installing the Ls720 fans, I turned the computer on and all the fans spun. One of the ls720 fans slowed down and made a wurring metallic sound. Very unfortunate as I just got this product and the fan has stopped (was so excited!) I expect this fan is faulty and has bad bearings.Mind you all plugs were connected right and radiator/fans were installed correctly.Will send this in for RMA for DeepCool to check out and will update the review once it’s completed.

OK, so this was easy to fit, working in no time. The default profile on my MSI z490 board was way off for water cooling, so I made my own profile. Is cooling a in 10850k at 4.9ghz, most of the time at 100% on all 10 cores. The fans and pump continously cycle, unless you set a curve to keep them on, then just loud all the time. It's really load, like if you are in a room at night with this on the go at full whack, and no TV or radio on, you will hear this real loud. Maybe my profile is a bit off, cpu max temp is 70c for me, can do 100, but I underclocked cpu to keep things cool. Would I buy again, maybe its the same for all AIO, when they busy, they shift a lot of air. Maybe a 3 fan rad and fans is quieter, but would not fit in my case. So no, I would not buy again as its so loud, but I needed machine for a deadline.

Doing a bit of research I liked the appeal of the anti-leak technology and thought I would give this a go. I am very pleased at the results. Im currently running a Treadripper 1950x/TR4. The product fits very well, even though the plate doesn’t cover the entire chip, it covers the main area. Overall heat at the moment is around 34-40 IDLE and around 50+ under load.Very pleased and looks fabulous on my motherboard keeping that chip nice and cool.The cooler comes with some thermal paste pre-applied so you wont need to buy additional paste? But if you are a little OCD on things, I'm sure you will replace it with a more premium grade paste.But overall for the price, how it looks but most importantly how its works I would say this is the cooler for you. 9/10

Bought this AIO to replace a Cryorig C1 cooler as i had moved from an ITX to ATX case.The cooler itself is excellent, easy to install and performs exceptionally well. However, the unit i received may have had issues, but i don't know for sure, as the pump, when set to max as the pump in an AIO should be, made a slight, but noticeable buzz. This was with the Input / Output pipes angled appropriately to allow proper flow.It may have just been an issue with the unit i was sent. Apart from this, the Unit was excellent, cooled extremely well, fans were obvious, but a pleasant background him that didn't cause any issues and the LEDs were bright, clear and colourful.Would be five stars, but the pump noise was just to much.

Honestly I had a cooler master 240 lite before this and I thought a 360mm aio would help with my 9700k thermals. Don't get me wrong it indefinitely is a good upgrade, the gaming load is about the same however the 100% load is much better, at around 80° when I use prime 95.However I'd say just get a good 240mm, you don't really need this unless you bought it like me for purely aesthetic reasons.(The LED is nice and works in gigabyte software)

I bought this item a while ago, so I could have time to test it and see how it performs. I have a hot CPU, an i9-11900k, and whether I’m gaming or doing some editing, the temperatures do not even hit 60 degrees Celsius. I haven’t changed the thermal paste already applied on it, seems to be a good one.In my pc case fits perfectly and the design is Cool for real!If you buy it, you won’t regret it.