8th generation Asetek pump and daisy chain fan, flagship water cooler ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB

Although all-in-one water coolers have become much cheaper, high-performance models are still not easily available.

Among them, pumps designed with proven technology such as Asetek are only applied to expensive all-in-one water coolers.

The product we will introduce today is one of them, with Asetek’s 8th generation pump and the latest technologies added. The ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB water cooler released by ASUS last year is that product.

■ Upgraded in every way, ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB

ASUS ROG RYUJIN series has been using Asetek pumps since the 2nd generation model. The recently released ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB adopted the 8th generation version, the most recent version among Asetek pumps, and was able to cover an area 32% larger than before.

The ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB introduced today has expanded the tube connecting the pump and the radiator to 7mm instead of the existing 5mm to enable more flow, and has also expanded the radiator thickness by 3mm to further enhance cooling performance.

As the shape changed due to pump replacement, the proprietary embedded fan of the ROG RYUJIN series was also upgraded, and the connection structure of the fan was also changed to a daisy chain method in line with recent trends.

The cooling fan that has been changed to the daisy chain method uses magnetic connectors placed on the fan itself to contact each other without connecting individual connectors. This structure only requires connecting power and aRGB signals to one fan, so there is no need for complicated cable connections like before, and all fans can be operated with just one cable.

ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB also adopts this structure, allowing all three fans mounted on the radiator to be controlled simultaneously by connecting just the included cable.

In fact, the most noticeable change in the ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB is the magnetic daisy chain fan structure. Thanks to this structure, the AIO fan controller added to the previous generation is no longer needed and installation is easier.

■ 3.5-inch LCD display with improved picture quality

Although not mentioned earlier, the LCD display of ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB has also been upgraded.

The LCD display, which is used for monitoring various sensor values ​​and playing animations, does not change in size, so at first glance, you might think it is no different from the existing model.

You can only feel the difference in the design of the cover covering the LCD display, but the key is in the memory.

The 3.5-inch LCD display of ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB has doubled the internal memory. It supports 32MB of internal memory, which is twice the size of the previous generation, which was 16MB, and this has improved basic animation, picture quality, and playback time. The playable FPS is 60 and 24-bit color allows for better quality animation playback.

For reference, the sensor information displayed on the LCD display is provided through Armory Crate or AIDA64, and only one of them must be used. Armory Crate provides more information and has the advantage of being able to play in the background, but if you trust AIDA64 more, please use it after turning off the display function in Armory Crate.

To display sensor information on ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB in AIDA64, you must click the ROG Custom Display tab on the main screen. If you do not see this tab, click ASUS in the LCD section of Options (Properties) and save it.

■ What is the effect of the 8th generation Asetek pump, 7mm tube, and 30mm radiator?

ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB, upgraded with 8th generation Asetek pump, 7mm tube, and 30mm radiator, was installed on AMD Ryzen 7 7700X.

It is difficult to say that the Ryzen 7 7700X is AMD’s flagship processor, but it generates enough heat to stay in the low 80s even with most water coolers, so it is not enough for evaluating the ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB.

The motherboard used the soon-to-be-introduced ASUS ROG STRIX In this system combination, ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB’s pump and fan control used Armory Crate.

For reference, ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB, unlike other all-in-one water coolers, is designed to handle the fan control function on the motherboard. Rather than controlling it from the pump, it uses the fan control function on the motherboard. If you were thinking of a typical all-in-one water cooler, it may be an unfamiliar method, but it can be said that there is no technical difference or problem.

After installing ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB, run Cinebench 2024 and CPU temperature measured in HWINFO64[CPU
케이스(평균)]I checked the average value. At first, we tried to check the highest value, but since there was a large deviation from the real-time measured temperature, we used the average value that would be most similar to the temperature that would be felt in an actual use environment.

As a result of such measurements, ASUS ROG RYUJIN III 360 ARGB maintained the temperature of Ryzen 7 7700X in the 70s, and depending on the combination of pump and fan speed, achieved a significantly lower temperature of as low as 75.7 degrees.

Of course, 75.7 degrees is a result that can only be achieved when the pump and fan speeds are at their maximum, so the results of the ‘Standard’ or ‘Quiet’ options will be closer to the actual environment, but the difference between the maximum speed and the results is not large, so don’t be disappointed. .

■ ASUS ROG RYJIN III 360 ARGB, can it survive with the lowest noise?

The option values ​​provided by Armory Crate may not suit individual preferences. In particular, if you are sensitive to noise, the results will be even more different from reality, so I thought it was necessary to conduct a test that meets these conditions. So, I checked how the CPU temperature was measured based on minimizing the pump, embedded fan, and radiator fan noise.

First of all, the pump noise was the maximum that could operate without noise around 2500 RPM, and the noise of the embedded fan was not bothersome around 2600 RPM. The maximum radiator fan that could be selected for low noise was around 1300 RPM.

After setting this, I ran Cinebench 2024 twice in succession for 10 and 30 minutes, and the results showed that neither temperature exceeded 80 degrees. It was a quite surprising result that the temperature did not exceed 80 degrees even when the RPM was fixed by controlling all noise-generating elements manually rather than automatically. However, it must be said that the flagship water cooler is different.

■ Embedded fan, how much does it lower the power supply temperature?

How much can the embedded fan installed in ASUS ROG RYJIN III 360 ARGB lower the VRM temperature? To find the answer to this question, I checked the VRM temperature with the embedded fan turned on and off.

With the embedded fan turned off, the VRM temperature rose to 56 degrees. This is the result measured after running Cinebench 2024 for 10 minutes.

Under the same conditions, the embedded fan was measured in four stages according to Armory Crate’s options. As a result, the VRM temperature decreased by 2 to 3 degrees and reached 46 degrees at the fastest maximum speed.

Since noise cannot be ignored under the maximum speed condition, the standard level is considered to be the level for actual use. Still, the VRM temperature was 51 degrees, so it seems that the effectiveness of the embedded fan has been clearly proven.

For reference, all test results previously conducted were measured in an open case state. If it had been in case, the VRM temperature difference may have been larger, but ASUS is introducing that it lowered the VRM temperature, which had soared to 105 degrees, to 70 degrees.

■ Flagship water cooler with improved performance and easy installation

ASUS ROG RYJIN III 360 ARGB is not a cost-effective product.

It is an optimal product only for those looking for a high-performance water cooler that displays various sensor information on an LCD display and adopts Asetek’s latest and proven pump.

In particular, it is undoubtedly the best product for ASUS enthusiasts who want to unify everything with Armory Crate without having to install separate control software for each device.

Not only does it have excellent cooling performance, but it also has proven technology and a long service period of 6 years, so if you don’t have to worry about price, give it a try.