Lian Li HydroShift LCD 360S Overview
With the cooler out of the box, you can see that it is a fairly basic AIO. Sure, there is an LCD screen on the pump housing, but three out of the last five AIOs we reviewed had one as well. Simply put, LCDs on AIOs are starting to become the norm on anything but entry-level coolers. As the name implies, the HydroShift LCD 360S is a 360mm AIO cooler, pairing three of Lian Li’s 120mm fans with a 27mm thick 360mm radiator. My review sample sports the white color scheme, though you can also get a black version if that is more to your liking. With the overall look out of the way, lets take a closer look at individual components.
First up is the 360mm radiator, which comes in at 27mm in thickness, which is pretty much the standard that we have seen from other manufacturers. With 18 fins-per-inch, the wide fin density is able to provide adequate surface area while still confined to a 27mm thickness. The 120mm fans included with the 360S have an impressive static pressure rating of 5mm-H2O, which should be plenty in order to get air flowing through the radiator’s single-wave fin design.
The entire radiator exterior is outfitted with a smooth white paint job, and centered along the exterior-facing edge is a Lian Li nameplate, etched into a brushed aluminum trim plate. This plate can be removed and placed on the opposite side if you need to orient the radiator in a different manner.
Things get a little bit funky with the HydroShift LCD 360S when it comes to the cooling lines, as Lian Li has implemented what they call a “tubeless aesthetic” in this series of coolers. Instead of a traditional setup where the cooling lines exit from one end of the radiator and are then routed where needed, the HydroShift routes the tubes at a 90-degree angle around the fans and along the motherboard-facing side of the radiator, hidden under the aforementioned shroud.
This design feature seems like a great idea to tidy up your build, but I found it to be a bit difficult to work with, and will go into detail about that a bit later. Being swivel fittings though, you can choose to use the other included shroud to route the tubes to the other side of the radiator should your build require that.
Regarding the tubes themselves, they are sleeved in a white mesh loom and have the standard amount of flex you would expect, though there is not a lot of “loose” tubing between the radiator and the pump housing due to the “tubeless aesthetic” design. Inside the loom, the tubes themselves are similar to those found in server implementations, and can better bend around the radiator and fans without experiencing any reduction to the inner diameter or flow of fluids.
Lian Li has outfitted the 360S version of this cooler with three 120mm x 28mm fans – slightly thicker than the standard 25mm. With an RPM range of 200-2500, these fans are capable of providing 5mm H2O air pressure, along with 73.14 CFM of airflow. Thankfully these fans were mounted to the radiator from the factory.
Rubber pads are standard at the corners of the fans, and are there to help alleviate any unwanted sounds or vibrations between the fans themselves and the radiator frame.
And while you can remove them to change orientation if needed, their daisy chain cabling is hidden from sight and may be more of a hassle than one might expect. I do however like that the cabling is concealed by snap-in side panels on the fans, and look forward to seeing this on other fans in the future if they do not use some other sort of hidden connectivity option.
Taking a look at the CPU water block and pump housing, you find a pretty basic LCD-equipped design. Our white review sample has a very basic frame surrounding the 2.88″ LCD on the top part of the housing. Surrounding the sides of the pump housing are plain white plastic panels, with no real design elements to speak of.
The cooling lines that exit the pump housing are at the top of the block, which helps facilitate the routing of the tubes to the radiator. Each line is connected via a swiveling fitting, which I did find to be quite necessary during installation.
Centered between the cooling lines are two cables that exit from the interior components. A single 4-pin PWM cable is there to provide connectivity to the motherboard’s CPU fan header, while a more robust combo cable routes the following connections to the rest of your system: SATA power, USB 2.0 header, and a 4-pin female PWM for radiator fan control via L-Connect 3.
The base of the cooler is a full copper heatsink with a semi-gloss finish to it, and this oversized base is large enough to support modern CPU designs. Internally, the HydroShift LCD 360S features a custom designed pump based on the previous Galahad II Trinity Performance cooler. Improved coolant pathways and changes to the impeller size were implemented, resulting in better cooling than Lian Li’s previous AIOs while maintaining a smaller footprint and noise level.
Lian Li has chosen not to pre-apply thermal interface material to the cooler, but has instead chosen to include a small tube of their own thermal paste, as well as a unique application template and spreader. As seen below, the template must first be applied to the bottom of the copper plate, and then thermal paste applied via the included spreader. I have now seen this approach to applying paste a few times, and while it was a novel concept, I do prefer to either see pre-applied paste or no template at all. I did however use the template method for installation and testing, as that was the recommended method from Lian Li.
Making my way back up to the top of the pump housing, we find that 2.88″ IPS LCD screen. With a resolution of 480 x 480, and a maximum brightness of 500 nits, Lian Li has outfitted the HydroShift LCD 360S with a good-sized screen for displaying an impressive amount of included media and information options that come with the L-Connect 3 software, as well as your own custom media.
A nice brushed aluminum look is applied to the frame directly around the LCD for a higher-end look.
