Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 Liquid Cooler Review

Learn everything about Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 Liquid Cooler as we walk you through its unboxing, design, installation, and testing.

Review Summary

The Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 is a hidden gem when it comes to the liquid coolers’ paradise. This underdog has a high-performance capability, particularly on the latest platforms, and it does so without breaking the bank. A 5-year warranty and subtle A-RGB lighting make this quite a comprehensive package.

Pros

Cons

In this article, we will look at a liquid cooler from Thermalright. If you have not heard of Thermalright before, we can’t blame you as, in our opinion, this brand needs more marketing because their products are quite good when it comes to price-to-performance ratio. This brand was established in 2001, and they have come a long way ahead in their journey of 22 years.

Their core business and products pertain to cooling solutions. They were the ones who brought a major change using convex cooler base. Though this is our first product from this brand, our leading hardware editor has used many of their coolers in the past. Their carry products like heatsinks, liquid coolers, thermal pastes, and accessories like fan hubs, RGB hubs, controllers, and whatnot. The Assassin series of air coolers are popular among users. This is not all, they established another brand named Leetgion and entered the peripheral and other related products, but that is another story.

The product we have on the test bench is Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2. This is a white color liquid cooler in a 360mm size category. V2 indicates that this cooler is compatible with Intel LGA1700 and AMD AM5 sockets, so we are good to go with this one on the latest platforms. Overall socket compatibility includes LGA115x / 1200 / 1700 / 2011 / 2066 from Intel and AM4 / AM5 / FM1/ FM2 / FM2+ / AM2 / AM2+/ AM3 / AM3+ sockets from AMD. Thermalright has provided three TL-B12W fans which are non-RGB white color fans with the salient feature of using a metal-reinforced shell for bearing. Another key feature is the integrated pump into the tubes. The only area that has subtle digital RGB lighting is the pump housing. To my liking, Thermalright has used standard connectors.

Key Takeaways

We can see that these fans are using Fluid Dynamic Bearings with high-performance numbers.

Thermalright has provided dimensions along with tolerances. This is nothing new, as we have seen ALPHACOOL doing that as well.

Low Temperature, High Performance got my attention. This is a bold claim or, in my dictionary, a marketing hype. We will see how this cooler performs. LGA1700 label is on the forefront, clearly indicating that V2 is indeed compatible with this Intel socket out of the box. There is a scanning label as well that the users can scan to verify the authenticity of this product.

Looking at the backside of the main packing box, we can see Thermalright has listed key features of this unit, including:

When we opened the box, we found an egged carton which is a standard way of shipping these coolers. The cooler and other items are tucked in this carton for safe and sound shipping.

It is time to take a look at what is provided in this box.

Thermalright has provided all accessories inside a white color box.

There is a user guide and a warranty paper provided in the box. There are three more features listed in the user guide which rather seem more appropriate:

Thermalright has provided:

Looking closely, we can see that the AMD ring bracket has two pre-installed spring-loaded screws. This makes installation convenient. The Intel backplate has 4x standoff screws pre-installed. This reduces the number of installation steps and provides a convenient installation. There are clips on each mounting arm that can be slid in or out depending on the required socket type. Socket types are clearly labeled. There is an arrow symbol on the bracket. It should align with an arrow symbol on the block during the installation.

Thermalright has provided:

Thermalright has provided:

In case you are wondering about the long screws for the fans thinking we have skipped them, it is not the case since fans come pre-installed on the radiator. This is the third cooler in my experience to come in this configuration, followed by the Liquid Freezer II series of coolers and darkFlash Radiant DC series coolers.

Thermalright has provided a tube of TF7 thermal paste with this cooler. The thermal conductivity rating of TF7 is 12.8 W/m-k. This thermal paste has a gray color tone and it is non-electrically conductive. This thermal paste sounds like a high-performance edition which we can guess from the thermal conductivity rating. Seems like, Thermalright means business with this cooler.

There is a 3-way PWM splitter cable that the user can use to connect all three fans and be controlled by a single source like a fan header on the motherboard or a controller. There is also a SATA cable with a 2-pin socket on the other end. The pump’s 3-pin cable can be connected to this cable and have it powered directly by the PSU. Going this route, we will not know the speed of the pump and can’t exercise DC-based speed control.

Let’s start taking a look at the cooler, starting with the radiator.

Three 120mm fans come pre-installed on this unit. These are white color fans. They have a large diameter hub. We removed these fans from the radiator.

Now we can see this radiator after removing these fans. We can see some bend fins. The complete assembly is white color coated. This unit has a dimension of 397x120x27mm (with tolerances). The fin density is 20 (FPI). There are 12 channels for the flow of coolant. The overall height of this unit would be 53mm, including the heads of the fan screws. There is a gap of 105mm between any two fan mounting holes on the radiator on the opposite sides and 15mm between adjacent mounting holes on each side.

The far end of this radiator has a rectangular design. There is no label or sticker over here.

Looking at the tube side of this radiator, we can spot two white color covers that hide the connection of tubes with fittings. Probably this unit has barbed fittings. There is a serial number sticker pasted here.

Looking at each side frame of this radiator, we can see a Thermalright branding over here. There is no protective plate under the mounting holes. This plate prevents damage to the fins due to accidental use of large-size screws or using excessive torquing. Also, there is a gap between the side of the frame and the fin stack. This means the actual thickness of the fin stack is less than 27mm.

This unit has rubber tubes like any other AIO cooler in the market. These tubes run to approximately 410mm, including fitting connections. These tubes have braided nylon mesh sleeves for aesthetic purposes. The sleeves are also white in color.

Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler has a pump integrated into the tubes. Brands doing this say that this would eliminate the vibration from the CPU. While this makes sense, I think they are more likely to bypass the ASETEK patent in the US region, whereby only ASETEK-based coolers can have a pump integrated into block housing.

Speaking of some performance numbers, this pump is rated for 5300 RPM ±10% speed. This pump draws 0.12 ±20%A current and consumes 1.5W power. Theramlright has mentioned that the flow rate is 1500ml/min. This comes to 1.5 L/m. The pressure head is rated to be 1.6M. This pump houses ceramic bearings and has a life expectancy of 40,000 hours.

This pump is powered by a 3-pin connector cable which is flat in design.

The block on Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 is a relatively simple design. The housing is circular or ring style. It is also white in color. Its dimension is 72x72x52.50mm, where 52.50mm is the height of this housing. Usually, designs where pumps are not in the block housing, can afford to have a low profile, but using digital RGB lighting seems to have contributed to this 52.50mm height of the unit. There is a mirror-like top with the Thermalright logo on it that is A-RGB backlit. Since this top is not rotatable, we are bound by the orientation of this logo during installation.

All sides of this housing are plain in design, and there is no branding or particular design over these.

There is a flat cable coming out from the base of this housing. This is a front-side view of this housing.

Thermalright is using standard RGB connectors on Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler, and I appreciate this design as it makes life simple and provides standard compatibility with RGB sync technologies of various motherboard manufacturers.

The backside of this housing has 90-degree fittings on which the tubes are connected. This connection is also hidden using white color covers. This particular angle gives somewhat flexibility to rotating tubes during the installation as per requirements.

This unit has a copper base measuring 54x54mm. It has a protective sticker over it, cautioning the user to remove it before installing the block. There is an arrow symbol on the black color plastic area. This symbol should align with the arrow marking on the mounting brackets during the installation.

There are three TL-B12W fans with Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler from Thermalright. These are not RGB fans. They are in white color and look spectacular in person. There are 9x blades on each fan. There is a brass-made bearing shell that could provide longevity and minimum tolerance. Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM was the first fan to feature this design if I remember correctly. There is a Thermalright text on one corner of the frame.

There are white color anti-vibration pads on the corners. They seem to be removable, making these fans more serviceable in the long run, provided Thermalright provides these as a standard accessory. Again, this design reminds me of Noctua anti-vibration pads.

There is a line pattern on the main frame that gives some bold looks to these fans. The frame itself is quite sturdy.

The backside has a different outlook. Normally we see a 4-arms assembly on the majority of fans. But this fan has a 3-arm assembly. One arm has a slight inset on which the wires are neatly routed. The frame on the mounting corners has a slope-down design. Obviously, we can see a metal shell here as well. The power rating of the fan is printed on the sticker.

Each fan has a flat cable with a 4-pin PWM connector to power the motor of the fan.

Specifications of these fans are:

Seems like Thermalright is using a customized Fluid Dynamic Bearing hence naming it S-FDB V2.

We have tested the cooler on the Intel platform using the Intel i7 13700k over the GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS ELITE AX motherboard. Installation is quite simple and takes only a few steps:

This unit has a dimension of 397x120x54mm with fans. Keep these dimensions in mind for the PC Case clearance. This cooler has no obstruction for the PCIe slot and DIMM slots.

Since Thermalright is using a standard addressable RGB connector on the block, this unit would work the RGB solution on the supported motherboards from manufacturers. We have tested the cooler’s RGB lighting using GIGABYTE RGB FUSION 2.0 app and found it working fine.

We have used the following configuration for testing:

The test table for Intel core i7 13700k is:

5.5GHz on P-Cores and 4.2 to 4.4GHz on E-Cores

We have seen AMD AM5 and Intel Alder Lake S CPUs taking more power, and this time, both sides have aimed at reaching the maximum clocks regardless of the thermal limit. In fact, the AM5 SKUs will run into thermal limits right away depending on the cooling solution and the clocks being used. This has made testing of CPU coolers challenging because viewers/readers are not used to a new nomenclature which is what clocks are sustained under a given load using a particular cooler.

That is if the cooler is capable of providing enough cooling heads to sustain the high frequencies at high package power. Among other reasons is the high thermal density of these new CPUs. Traditionally we are used to going the other way around, that is, which cooler is better in terms of thermal capacity. Despite this, we are using temperatures as a base for measuring this unit.

The ambient temperature was in the range of 24°C to 26°C. We are reporting absolute temperatures in the graph. The testing is done on an open-air bench system. Once inside the chassis, the temperatures are expected to rise and would largely depend upon the optimal airflow inside the chassis.

Disclaimer: Every silicon is different; hence no two same SKUs are likely to take the same voltage to yield the same performance at the same thermals per se, but the margin would be close. Not every stress test run may yield the same result, which could be due to various reasons like thermal paste application, ambient temperature variation, the mounting pressure of the cooler, etc. This is very why we have listed our variables and their settings. Let’s take a look at the results.

Let’s see how this cooler has performed on stock and auto settings with power limits removed.

This is a superb performance from Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler. This was not possible before. CINEBENCH R23.2 typically uses 216W to 224W power on the package. If you would use Blender or AIDA64 with AVX load, this would easily peak at 250 to 252W on the package.

Next, we overclocked this CPU using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility and set P-Cores to 5.5GHz. The Vcore was 1.356V. Power limits were still removed, and we ran the CINEBENCH R23.2 run of 30 minutes again. This cooler has some magic to it as it handled this load on otherwise warm-running Intel i7 13700k quite well. We love this performance.

The Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 is roughly making 50 to 51 dB(A) sound output at an ambient of 32 dB(A).

We have tested Thermalright Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 liquid cooler in this article. This is a 360mm size liquid cooler, and V2 here means this is a second version of the original cooler. The only difference between versions is that the V2 has Intel LGA1700 socket mounting hardware and is already compatible with the AMD AM5 socket. Frozen and Scenic words indicate the white version, and it is indeed a white version. The overall sockets compatibility of this cooler is as follows:

Intel: LGA115x/1200/1700/2011/2066

AMD: AM4/AM5/FM1/FM2/FM2+/AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+

So far, we know that ASETEK and APALTEK are not the OEMs of this unit. The final wording is not known. Anyhow, this cooler comes with non-RGB fans. These fans are still in white color, and the only element in this loop that has digital RGB lighting is the block itself. The fans come pre-installed on the radiator which makes one less step in the installation.

The radiator of this unit has a white color spray coating, including the dense fins. The dimension of this radiator is 397x120x27mm. With installed fans, the overall thickness would be roughly 54mm, including the heads of the screws. This unit has a high fin density standing at 20 (FPI). There are a total of 12 channels through which the coolant flows. While the overall fin stacking is good, we observed a few bend fins but nothing scary. Thermalright is using rubber tubing on this cooler. These have a length of 410mm, including fittings. There is a nylon braided white color mesh sleeve on this tubing for aesthetics.

The pump is integrated into the tubes near the radiator. This pump is rated for 5300 RPM ±10% speed. This pump draws 0.12 ±20%A current and consumes 1.5W power. Thermalright has mentioned that the flow rate is 1500ml/min. This comes to 1.5 L/m. The pressure head is rated to be 1.6M. This pump houses ceramic bearings and has a life expectancy of 40,000 hours. This integration of the pump in tubes indicates that the manufacturer is bypassing ASETEK’s patent in the US region, in which only ASETEK-based coolers can house the pump in the block’s housing. This pump is powered by a 3-pin connector. Thermalright has provided a SATA cable using which the user can directly power this pump from the PSU.

The block’s housing has a dimension of 72x72x52.50mm. It is still a relatively large size housing, probably due to the integration of digital RGB LEDs on top. There is a mirror top that is A-RGB backlit. It has a Thermalright brand logo which illuminates when powered. Thermalright is using standard connectors on Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler. This is a wise move as it will provide maximum compatibility with the RGB sync technologies from various motherboard manufacturers. This unit has a copper base measuring 54x54mm.

Thermalright has provided three TL-B12W fans with Frozen Magic 360 Scenic V2 cooler. These are high-performance fans featuring brass-made shells for the bearing. The maximum speed of these fans is 2150 RPM ±10%. The airflow rating is 69 CFM. The static pressure rating is 2.87 mmH2O generating 28.1 dB(A) noise. These fans don’t have RGB lighting. They have a bold yet pleasing outlook. The anti-vibrations pads are removable. These pads are white in color. These fans use S-FDB V2 bearing. These seem to be customized Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Each fan has a flat cable with a 4-pin PWM connector. Thermalright has provided a 3-way PWM splitter cable to connect all three fans for single-source control.

Coming to the installation of this cooler, it is easy doing on the Intel LGA1700 socket and involves 10 items to install the block on the CPU. On top of that, there is a TF7 thermal paste tube included in the box. This thermal paste has a thermal conductivity rating of 12.8 W/m-k. It is a gray color paste with non-electrically conductive properties.

It is not easy finding the right price for this cooler, and the manufacturer is silent. However, our search has shown that this cooler can be had from USD 95 to USD 100 price bracket, which is quite a good price point. The thermal performance of this cooler is exceptionally well. It seems like this cooler is the underdog among other AIOs. This cooler has maintained the overclocked i7 13700k below 90°C under the CINEBENCH R23.2 stress test. The noise output is decent as well. Thermalright is providing a 5-year warranty on this cooler. This all seems to be a win-win scenario for this cooler.

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