In the current water cooling market, the cold head + screen is one of the most popular designs, which not only retains the industrial toughness of DIY hardware, but also provides a high degree of freedom to play, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone. As a high-end sub-brand of Xingu, the Kunlun series will naturally not lag behind the trend. Recently, the series launched the Shanhai MU-360 ARGB liquid cooling radiator, equipped with a square cold head and a 2.4-inch IPS HD hard screen, although it is an entry-level in the series positioning, but in terms of exterior design, the Shanhai MU-360 ARGB liquid cooling radiator already belongs to the high-end water cooling category.
So what exactly does this water-cooled radiator with a design that follows the trend of the market actually perform?
Appearance impression: The name has ancient charm, but the appearance is cyber
Judging from the name alone, the Shanhai MU-360 ARGB is easily reminiscent of the ancient "Classic of Mountains and Seas", but the actual packaging is full of cyberpunk flavor. The packaging is made of hard paper, available in black and white, and the design elements are identical except for the different background colors. The model name "MU-360 ARGB" is written in the lower left of the front, and the font seems to be written with a brush, but the corners are treated as straight lines, revealing a fusion of ancient and modern. The upper right side is marked with product features, surrounded by a multi-angular border, with light green arrows and gray analog power patterns on the right and bottom of the features, respectively, with the mecha wind dividing line between the model name, the whole front is very cyber-style.
The back of the package is marked with the basic information of the product in nine languages such as Chinese and English, such as radiator size, fan size, maximum airflow and noise, etc.; the left and right sides are marked with the motherboard interface model supported by the fastener. After opening the package, the radiator body is covered with a buffer sponge, and the internal filling module is designed with sufficient space for the user to easily access. When you take out the product, you can see that the fan has been installed on the radiator, and it can be installed after unpacking.
The included accessory box includes the fasteners of the current mainstream Intel and AMD platforms, of which the Intel platform has a plastic base, and the AMD platform can use the motherboard's own base, as well as a small tube of silicone grease (weighing 0.5g) and a plastic spatula with silicone grease, as well as a data cable to connect to the cold head screen.
The cold head of Shanhai MU-360 ARGB adopts a rounded square design, with about 12.5 cm brushed metal panels embedded on the upper and lower sides of the cold head, which has a delicate texture, and the side is made of plastic, and the half near the base is decorated with glossy twill, the overall appearance is low-key and not monotonous.
In the center of the cold head is a 2.4-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 320×240, which not only supports custom pictures and GIF animation playback, but also captures the content in the display through the official KL-CENTER software for screen projection, and users can also make and share their own themes through the software, and the playability is quite good.
In terms of performance, the maximum speed of the water pump of Xingu Shanhai MU-360 ARGB is 3000±10%RPM, using a new generation of water pump design, built-in 3-phase 9-pole motor, bearing material is ceramic, small vibration and long life, and the official claim that the pump life can reach 40,000 hours.
As for the fan, Shanhai MU-360 ARGB is equipped with three infinity mirror ARGB fans, according to the official introduction, it adopts an iron-shelled steel mandrel sleeve design, with an anti-oil dumping structure, to ensure the life of the fan bearing. Each fan is dynamically balanced to keep it running smoothly and quietly, and the fan blades are optimized with a large 111mm blade design to provide more airflow. Under the above configuration, the official maximum airflow of this fan is 68.98CFM, and the maximum speed is 2200±10%RPM.
It is worth mentioning that these three fans are all designed with module splicing, and only one cable is required to connect the radiator fan, which effectively reduces the number of cables in the case and makes it easier for users to manage cables.
Shanhai MU-360 ARGB radiator size is 397×120×27mm, 6 cold and 6 hot 12 waterway design, waterway wall thickness 0.3mm, waterway width 26mm, officially claimed to bring higher heat dissipation efficiency.
Installation experience: Pre-installed LGA1700 cold head bracket, easy to install
We have carried out the installation experience of the Shanhai MU-360 ARGB on the LGA1700 platform and the AM5 platform respectively, because the cold head is pre-installed with a LGA1700 cold head bracket, it is more friendly to Intel users and saves some effort, but the installation of the cold head bracket of the AM5 platform is not complicated, after aligning the corner of the bracket with the card hole on the cold head, you can push the bracket into the cold head card slot by hand and card it.
Let's talk about the installation experience of LGA1700 platform, LGA1700 the base is made of plastic, which can be deformed to a certain extent, which is convenient for users to install. The screws on the base slide to fit the LGA1700 and LGA1200 platforms, and the base has double-sided tape for easy installation of cold heads with the chassis upright. There is a certain amount of space between the cold head bracket and the fastener screw, which is convenient for the user to fine-tune the cold head position.
For the AM5 platform, you need to fix the two buckle rings on the cold head bracket with a nut, then buckle the cold head to the AM5 platform through the buckle ring, and finally tighten the nut. The installation process is simpler than that of LGA1700 platforms, and it is also possible to install cold heads with the chassis upright.
Overall, the cold head of this product is very simple to install, and it is not much different from the water cooling products of the same price on the market, but the LGA1700 platform base may not be reused by fixing it with double-sided tape, and users who often disassemble and maintain it need to pay attention.
In addition, it is worth noting that this water-cooled radiator fan is tightly buckled with each other, which requires more force when disassembling and assembling, and there is a power supply data interface at the fan connection, which cannot be staggered up and down to avoid damage.
Software experience: The interface is simple and easy to understand, and you need to put a lot of thought into it if you want it to look good
Shanhai MU-360 ARGB's control software is KL-CENTER, download it from the official website, decompress it, run the application in the folder, and a selection page will appear, you need to select "Kunlun MU-360" before installing the corresponding control software.
The software homepage can be divided into 3 areas: preview area, data visualization area, and local theme editing area. The preview area is in the upper left, which shows the content displayed on the current cold head screen, and has the functions of importing, exporting, and saving themes, and the data visualization area is in the upper right, showing the real-time status of the current CPU, GPU, and memory. Below the two is the local theme editing area, which is divided into two sub-modules: one is the theme selection module, which allows you to select some preset themes, and the other is the detailed theme editing module for users to customize their own personalized themes.
The cold screen shows the CPU temperature by default, if you want to change the position of text and data, you can drag it directly with the mouse in the preview area. To go one step further and edit the content of the screen, you need to go to the Theme Editing module. This module is divided into five options: Basic Settings, Custom Text, System Information, Background Display, and Streaming Display.
The basic settings include temperature unit selection and screen content orientation adjustment, if you want to display more hardware information at the same time, you can open the system information column and check it, such as CPU frequency, GPU frequency and usage rate. Moreover, this hardware information is not fixed, as long as you click the setting button next to the corresponding option, you can change the sensor information source of this information (as shown in the second figure below), and you can also change the font format, color, and spacing, which is quite free.
If you also want to display personalized text, images, or GIFs on the screen, you can turn on the custom text and background display for editing. Text content editing is similar to hardware information, enter the content in the text box, adjust the font size and color, and drag the text in the preview area.
After uploading the image, you can drag the slider below the image to zoom in or out, or you can choose height or width to quickly crop. There is no editing function for GIFs,You can see it on the cold head screen after uploading it directly,Measured 5M and below GIFs are compatible。
In addition, Xingu also provides a special function of push display for the cold head screen of Shanhai MU-360: under the push display option, click the "Boundary" button, you can select a 320×240 size area on the display screen, and the cold head screen will automatically display the content in the current area, which greatly improves the interaction between devices and provides users with more ways to play.
In addition, the exclamation point in the upper right corner of the software can enter the software's settings interface, which includes self-start settings, software updates, and official contact information.
Overall,Shanhai MU-360 ARGB's screen control software interface is simple and easy to understand,The functions are also relatively complete,It belongs to the type"What you want",And there is no obvious delay in operation,The software preview and the cold head screen are almost synchronous changes,Push and display feedback is timely。 However, there are few preset themes at present, and the degree of beauty is average, if you want a theme that is both beautiful and personalized, I am afraid that you need to spend some effort to design and adjust it.
Performance testing
Heat dissipation test: The performance is decent, and you need to pay attention to the direction of the cold head
The cooling test platform is Intel Core i9-12900K and MSI B760 platform, in which the CPU power is set to 260W, the room temperature is about 27°C, and the temperature rise of the CPU is recorded by the test data obtained by the CPU for 15 minutes∆ (CPU temperature-room temperature)
Since the direction of the cold head can be adjusted, the test is divided into two cases: the cold head water pipe is facing the memory and facing the graphics card, and the results are as follows:
In order to make a better unified comparison, we also convert the heat dissipation performance index of the heat sink into the super energy index (Exp), which is actually a simple conversion of the heat sink thermal resistance, the larger the Exp, the better the heat dissipation performance of the heat sink. Under each power consumption, the thermal resistance value of the heatsink under the same condition is basically the same, so this super energy index is also a fixed value, and it can be approximated that for every 1 point higher in the super energy index, the cooling effect on the 300W CPU is better than 1°C.
It can be seen that Shanhai MU-360 ARGB performs well in heat dissipation performance, even for ROG Ryujin III., which is in the thousand-yuan range, its heat dissipation performance is not far behind, and even the temperature rise score is 0.2°C ahead, but this heat dissipation level is at a medium level in the market, which can meet the heat dissipation needs of users when playing with high intensity.
At the same time, we also remind that when the cold head water pipe is installed towards the graphics card, the heat dissipation performance of this water cooler will be significantly reduced, so it is recommended to put the cold head water pipe facing the memory side when installing the device to get the best heat dissipation effect.
Fan test: Slightly better than the official standard value
In this test, the data comes from the self-made air volume and air pressure test device of the super energy network, which is prepared according to the relevant national standards and ISO standards, and measures the air volume and air pressure of the fan through the multi-nozzle/orifice plate of the pipeline test air chamber, as well as the air volume under different system impedances (ordinary radiator, ordinary tower radiator), and monitors the real-time speed of the fan through the speed tester.
The official nominal value of the Shanhai MU-360 ARGB fan is 2200±10% RPM and the maximum airflow is 68.98CFM. In the actual measurement, the maximum speed of the fan is 2348RPM, the maximum static pressure is 3.28mmH2O, and the maximum air volume is 73.2CFM. If you are still vague about the air volume, air pressure, and system impedance, you can refer to our popular science article "Really Understanding the Air Volume and Air Pressure of Cooling Fans".
Stress test: Meets the standard of use, and can achieve the minimum thermal resistance of the silicone grease
Here is the test of the pressure of the cooler on the CPU surface, too low pressure will affect the degree of contact between the cooler and the CPU surface, long-term excessive pressure may cause the motherboard deformation, generally speaking, the thermal resistance of the silicone grease between the heatsink and the CPU surface will slowly decrease with the increase of pressure, when the pressure reaches a certain level, the thermal resistance of the silicone grease will tend to stabilize. According to our long-term observation and testing, the pressure of the general air cooling radiator is recommended to be more than 15kg, and the pressure of the water cooling radiator is recommended to be more than 20kg.
After the installation of Xingu Shanhai MU-360 ARGB with a LGA1700 socket, the installation pressure can be seen through the pressure sensor as 41.9 kg, which exceeds the installation pressure standard of 20kg, which can completely minimize the thermal resistance of silicone grease.
The important role of the mounting pressure is that when the heatsink is in contact with the processor, the greater the mounting pressure, the smaller the thermal resistance between the two. In the process of increasing the installation pressure, the greater the installation pressure, the faster the thermal resistance decreases, but after reaching a certain level, the decline rate will slow down until it is in a flat state.
Noise test: Excellent level of noise control
The noise test scene is our specially built anechoic room, the lowest ambient noise is about 15dB(A), the fan is located in the center of the room, and the distance between the noise meter and the center of the fan suction surface is 30cm.
It can be seen that the noise level of a single fan of Shanhai MU-360 ARGB is 46.3dbA at full speed after connecting the radiator, and the overall noise value of three fans is 50.6dbA after installing the radiator, which is a low level and better than the thousand-yuan ROG Ryujin III. The noise test can only be used as a reference, and the actual performance and the user's use environment are related to the chassis style.
Summary: Balanced water cooling, good appearance and performance
Balance is the biggest feature of Xingu Shanhai MU-360 ARGB liquid cooling radiator. Externally, this liquid cooler gives a square cold head with a 2.4-inch screen and an ARGB radiator fan with an infinity mirror design, and the fan supports divine light synchronization, which are the most popular design elements in the current water cooling market. In terms of performance, this liquid cooling is not the best in its price range, but it is definitely not bad, enough for the daily use needs of moderate gamers, and the lower noise level is also suitable for users who build PCs for home entertainment.
However, the control software is the focus of this liquid cooler that needs to be improved, although the degree of customization is high, but not all users have the time and energy to make their own screen themes, if there are some more beautiful preset themes built-in, the user experience will be much better.
Xingu Shanhai MU-360 ARGB black version is priced at 599 yuan, and the white version is priced at 659 yuan, the pricing is at a conventional level, if you want to buy a water cooling radiator with good appearance and good performance, perhaps this water cooling radiator can meet your needs.