Review: NZXT Kraken Z63 – Screen time for AIO coolers

The mystical domain of water-cooling your PC has become a little bit simpler in recent times. It used to be the case, much like magician’s tricks, people would be happy to show them to you, but would never go into detail about how you could do them yourself.

Those magnificent builds with massive tanks full of neon liquid cooling down your CPU looking like something out of a Frankenstein movie.

Sure, you heard horror stories about leaking lines and sparking motherboards, but it still didn’t put you off.

Then along came AIOs and the world changed. All-in-One liquid coolers may not be the real nirvana of true water-cooling. Still, performance-wise they began to take enthusiast gamers closer to the cooling temperatures achievable by the neon water crew.

The other, and many would say, the major benefit was they came pretty much put together. All you really need to do is bolt them to your CPU and motherboard, and your PC can be chilling out in minutes: no dangerous dripping or leak testing anywhere in sight.

That last point about not having to leak-test your system is a big one. No longer do you have to have your pumps running for the best part of a day with bits of tissue everywhere looking for wet patches. Nope, here you get the water block, tubes, radiator, pump, and fans all pre-assembled, tested (you would assume) for ultimate ease-of-use.

For a while now, one of the best features of AIO coolers is they just look cool. The CPU blocks have been happily flashing away synced to whatever you use to control your RGB shenanigans.

They cool your processor, that almost goes without saying, but now companies are genuinely at war to bring the most PC bling to your box.