The list in brief1.Best 360mm2.Best 360mm Alternative3.Best Budget 360mm4.Best Multipurpose AIO5.Best 420mm6.Best 280mm7.Best 240mm8.Best 240mm Altenative9.Best 120mm10.Savings
Whether you’re pushing for the highest sustained clock speeds with your new Ryzen 9 9590X3D or Core i9-14900K, or you just want your modest rig to stay quiet under load, there are some important things to consider when choosing the best AIO (all-in-one) cooler for your new PC (or if you’re just upgading your CPU and / or cooling).
AIO coolers are much more convenient and affordable thancustom liquid cooling loops. And, traditionally at least, AIOs have been able to deliver lower CPU temperatures with less fan noise than air coolers. That’s not always the case these days, though, as air coolers have gottenbetterand, in some cases,bigger.You’ll need to be sure there’s room to install an AIO cooler in your PC case, preferably in the top or rear in most cases, exhausting your CPU heat out of the chassis. AIO coolers mostly come in three sizes, defined by the dimensions of the radiator and the fans the radiator is designed to fit: 120 (one 120 mm fan), 240 (two 120 mm fans), or 360 mm (three 120 mm fans). And some coolers have thicker radiators, like Arctic’s impressive newLiquid Freezer III Pro.There are some 140, 280 mm, and420 mm AIOcoolers as well, but they are far less common. As you might expect, the larger the radiator (generally speaking), the greater the cooling potential. That said, radiator thickness, materials, and fan and pump performance can factor heavily into cooling capability and noise output, too.
If you aren’t running a flagship CPU with lots of cores and 5-6 GHz speeds, and you don’t plan on overclocking, a 120 mm AIO (which you’re able to usually mount in the rear exhaust fan area of your PC case) should suffice. That said, Intel’s 13th and 14th Gen CPUs are generally more demanding on coolers. And AMD’s Ryzen 9000 lineup, while less thermally demanding than Intel’s chips,isn’t exactly easy to cooleither. So if you want better temperatures and slower-spinning fans, a good 240 mm AIO cooler is a better starting point, but it won’t fit in as many cases. A 360 mm
In your quest for the best AIO cooler, don’t forget to consider thermal paste or another thermal interface material (TIM) to use with your AIO cooler. Most coolers these days will come with some kind of paste, either in a small syringe or pre-applied to the metal cold plate (sometimes both). But to make sure you’re getting the most efficient thermal transfer between your CPU and cooler plate, check out the many products we thoroughly tested to findthe best thermal paste for your CPU.
22-05-2025 Update:We did see some interesting new AIO coolers at Computex 2025, but most flaunted features like screens over absolute performance. Still, we are working on getting these emerging coolers in for testing. For now, though, our picks below remain the best AIO coolers we’ve tested.
Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake S cooling tests
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If you’re considering buying one of Intel’s latest Core Ultra desktop processors, you may not need to spend as much as you think on cooling. Arrow Lake S is generally a more efficient design (though there are some serious tradeoffs in performance, particularly in gaming), so you generally don’t need as much cooling performance as we saw with Raptor Lake chips.Check out our testing below to see what kind of cooler you’ll need to keep the latest Ultra 7 and Ultra 9 CPUs running fast and cool.
➡️Intel Core Ultra 9 285K cooling testing
➡️Intel Core Ultra 7 265K cooling testing
Best 360mm
Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler
The Liquid Freezer III Pro raises the bar for performance and value, handling the hottest-running CPUs with ease while costing less than the competition.
Read more below
Best 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler Alternative
Once again, Thermalright raises the bar on performance and value with its latest screen-equipped AIO cooler, the Grand Vision 360. This reasonably priced $130 cooler delivered the best overall performance yet in our testing and has more screen presets than the competition.
Best Budget 360mm
The FX360 INF delivers strong thermal performance, low noise levels, and a budget-friendly price. Unless you have more money to spend and you’re after a cooler with a screen or other high-end features, the ID-Cooling FX360 INF should be on your liquid-cooling shortlist.
Best Multipurpose AIO Liquid Cooler
Unlike any other competitor, Silverston’s IceMyst AIOs have optional stackable VRM and RAM fans that provide additional cooling for other on-board components. CPU cooling results were also very good in our testing, with the best results we’ve seen from any cooler with the fans set to a quiet 38.2 dBA.
Best 420mm
Best 420mm AIO Liquid Cooler
A large 420 mm radiator helps deliver the best cooling we’ve seen yet, and the IPS display is attractive and useful. Just be ready to pay up (and maybe buy a bigger case) if you crave this level of powerful and attractive cooling.
Best 280mm
Best 280mm AIO Cooler
The vibrant IPS display makes this 280mm AIO eye-catching. But its top-tier cooling performance and best-in-class low noise levels make it stand out from the competition.
Best 240mm
Best 240mm AIO Cooler
Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance 240mm offers an unbeatable combination of cooling performance and value, outperforming many larger 360mm AIOs.
Best 240mm AIO Cooler Alternative
The MasterLiquid 240 Atmos is one of the best 240mm AIOs on the market, offering premium aesthetics, strong cooling performance, and quiet noise levels for $135.
Best 120mm
Best 120mm AIO Liquid Cooler
Enermax’s LiqMaxFlo SR 120mm delivers very good thermal performance and low noise levels at a reasonable price. It also sports a fan on top of the CPU block that circulates air around the socket, helping to chill VRMs and RAM.
Reasons to buy
Reasons to avoid
If your primary cooling concern is the lowest possible CPU temperatures and you don’t want to pay extra for RGB or a screen, Arctic’s 360 mm Liquid Freezer III Pro is, hands down, the best option I’ve ever tested, whether you’re using a high-end AMD or Intel CPU. Nothing else even comes close.
Just note that its radiator and fans together are 63 mm thick, so it won’t fit in every case. And its default settings are arguably overkill for even a 9950X3D or a 14900K. So if you’re sensitive to fan and pump noise, you’ll want to tune things down a bit. Aslo, Intel users will have to install an included contact frame, which makes installation more complicated. Installation is pretty standard for AMD users.Aside from performance, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro also wins on price. Its $125 U.S. MSRP is competitive or below many other big-name cooling brands. But the cooler is also often on sale for much less. When we wrote this, the Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro 360 mm was selling for just $88 onAmazon. At that price – or really at any price around $100 – it’s hard to argue for any other AIO cooler.Read:Arctic Liquid Freezer III Pro review
Thermalright continues to prove it’s a market leader, raising the bar for performance and value with the Grand Vision 360. This 360mm AIO’s thermal results were better than previous coolers we’ve tested, both with Intel’s current Core Ultra 9 285K and the older Core i7-14700K.
Its cooling performance wasn’t drastically better than close competitors from Be Quiet and NZXT, but at $129 in the US, its more affordable than those alternatives, while offering up more features.Unlike most AIOs in this price range, the Grand Vision 360 includes a fancy LCD screen with tons of preset customization options. And while not everyone wants or needs that in their cooler, Thermalright at least delivers the feature at a lower price than most competitors, and doesn’t sacrifice cooling performance for a flashy LCD. If you’re looking for an LCD-equipped AIO that cools extremely well and doesn’t break the bank, Thermalright’s Grand Vision 360 is the liquid cooler you’re looking for.
ID-Cooling, much like rival Thermalright, has established itself as a company that delivers solid colling performance at budget-friendly prices. Its FX360 INF 360mm AIO, while not the cheapest in the company’s lineup, is still quite affordable at around $80. For that price, you get RGB fans and an infinity mirror on top of the CPU block, a tube of one of thebest thermal pasteswe’ve tested, and shockingly great performance for the price.The ID-Cooling FX360 INF was within striking distance of the best coolers we’ve tested, just one watt below the best results we’ve seen cooling the Core i7-14700K with no power limits. And it kept our newer Core Ultra 9 286K more than 10 degrees Celsius below its throttling threshold. And even more impressively, it did all that with a maximum noise level of just 44.4 dBA – and when tied to our test system’s default fan curve during our heavy gaming test, the cooler topped out at just 40.9 dBA. Those are both some of the quietest results we’ve seen from an AIO.You could spend more – and you’ll likely have to spend a lot more – to get slightly better cooling performance and / or aesthetic features like a customizable screen on the water block. But if all you care about is keeping your CPU cool and your system quiet while adding some RGB lighting to your rig, ID-Cooling’s FX360 INF is one of the best – and most affordable – 360mm options we’ve tested to date.Read:ID-Cooling FX360 INF review
Silverstone’s IceMyst AIOs show that there’s still plenty of room for innovation in the CPU cooling market. Apart from doing a good general job at CPU cooling, this cooler lets you add multiple fans ($16 extra per fan) around the base of the CPU block and direct them over your VRMs, RAM, SSD, etc. This is a feature unmatched by any existing product on the market. And the IceMyst coolers also cost less than many high-end AIO cooler alternatives.In our CPU cooling tests, the IceMyst AIOs (we tested both the 360 and 240mm models) performed very well, usually landing close to the best-performing coolers in terms of chip-chilling abilities. And when all coolers’ fans are set to the same low noise level of 38.2 dBA, Silverston’s IceMyst 360 performed the best of any cooler we’ve tested, handling 237 watts. The 240mm model also did well, handling 228W.
My only complaint is that by default, the IceMyst’s included radiator fans run much louder than needed – but that’s easily fixed by implementing a custom fan curve. If fan noise bothers you, don’t worry too much because when set to run silently the 360mm IcyMyst provides the best noise normalized results I’ve seen from any cooler on the market.
Read:Silverstone IceMyst 360 and 240mm AIO Review
Corsair’s iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT AIO offers the best cooling performance we’ve tested yet with Intel’s i9-13900K, handling over 325W in our most intensive thermal tests. And unlike other coolers, the noise level of the H170i Elite is tied to the CPU coolant temp, resulting in quieter operation during most common tasks and the elimination of bursty fan behavior. The tradeoff is that we saw noisier operation under the kinds of sustained loads that we use for testing.
The Corsair iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT is one of the best coolers currently available in terms of performance and features. It’s also quite expensive at $310, but if you don’t mind going without the pretty 2.1-inch display, the company also sells aniCUE H170i Elite Capellix XTwith the same radiator and pump for around $240.That’s still no small amount of money for a cooler. But if your needs are extreme enough to warrant a 420 mm radiator, you can probably afford to spend a bit extra on keeping your powerful CPU as cool as it can be under load.
Lian Li’s Galahad II LCD 280 shows that with the right design, you don’t need a 360mm AIO or a loud cooler to keep modern high-end CPUs from throttling. Its performance is amongst the best we’ve seen from any AIO, and its limited 280mm size means that it will fit in many cases where a 360mm model won’t. The included LCD screen is vibrant and adds eye-catching functionality to the cooler’s aesthetics.
At $229, the Galahad II LCD 280 is on the expensive end of the AIO spectrum. But if the LCD display isn’t your thing or you’re on a budget, the non-LCD versions of the Galahad II are available for $159.99 for the 360mm version and $119.99 for the 240mm model.
If you’re looking for a strong 240mm AIO, you can’t go wrong with Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity 240mm. Our testing shows it’s the best-cooling AIO of its size on the market. It’s also quiet in most workloads, and it has a very reasonable price of only $119.99.
I never imagined that a 240mm AIO would have this level of cooling domination. Lian Li’s Galahad Trinity II Performance 240mm managed to sidle up to or outperform 360mm AIOs that were previously considered among the best available.
After installing and testing it, I foundCooler Master’s new MasterLiquid 240 Atmos especially impressive. It’s clear the company has improved its flagship AIO in several key areas. Noise levels are low in most common workloads, and despite its smaller 240mm profile, the 240 Atmos is one of only a handful of AIOs I’ve tested that’s capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature, even in the hottest of workloads.
The attention to detail is also apparent in the packaging (which incorporates installation instructions) and RGB lighting. And Cooler Master backs the quality of this product with rated lifespans of over 160,000 hours for the fans and 210,000 hours for the pump, combined with a 5-year warranty.Lian Li’s Galahad II Trinity Performance 240cools just slightly better and sells for a little less. But Cooler Master’s Atmos includes an ARGB controller box for syncing your lighting with other components. If you’re able to make use of this controller, which would cost about $20 on its own, the two coolers are effectively evenly priced.
In most instances, you can get better performance with air cooler at a lower price than a small 120mm AIO. And an air cooler won’t add pump hum to your PC. But there are certain kinds of systems, whether they be extremely compact, or just with very little clearance above the CPU socket and no space to mount a larger 240mm radiator, where a small 120mm AIOs will be your best (or perhaps only) choice.We tested four popular models of these compact liquid coolers. And while the Enermax LiqMaxFlo SR 120mm wasn’t quite the best performer when it comes to cooling, it offered the best balance of cooling ability, quiet noise levels, and price (selling for around $80 when we wrote this).Enermax’s cooler also brings a unique feature in its block-mounted RGB fan, which adds a some glow, while also helping to circulate air around your VRMs and RAM. In very tight cases where you might have to use a 120mm AIO, the extra airflow in this area can be a very helpful feature.Read our 120mm AIO roundup:Testing Be Quiet, Corsair, Cooler Master, and Enermax models
Savings on the Best AIO CPU Coolers
Whether you’re shopping for one of the products that made our best CPU coolers list or one that didn’t, you may find some savings by checking out our list ofNewegg promo codesorCorsair coupon codes.
MORE:Best Air CPU Cooling
MORE:How To Choose A CPU Cooler
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After a rough start with the Mattel Aquarius as a child, Matt built his first PC in the late 1990s and ventured into mild PC modding in the early 2000s. He’s spent the last 15 years covering emerging technology for Smithsonian, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports, while testing components and PCs for Computer Shopper, PCMag and Digital Trends.
