Listen, this is big news because Noctua — THE NOCTUA — just released their first AIO liquid cooler and honestly it's both awesome and kind of insane. We need to talk about the $299 MSRP immediately, which is about 10 percent more than a competitor ASUS Ryuo III at $269 and nearly triple what an Arctic Liquid Freezer costs. I get that Noctua prices things appropriately for their brand but pushing $300 on liquid cooling in this market is aggressive even for them. Still, the engineering behind it deserves some serious respect because they didn't just slap a pump on a radiator; they actually built something unique here.
The design philosophy is what makes me excited about it: instead of mounting fans off-side as every other AIO does, they clamped all three directly to the block with an E10A pump pushing at 2758 RPM maximum — which is whisper quiet under 18dBA at lower speeds. The coolant chamber features dual stacked copper plates on a custom bracket and two additional tubes are welded onto it for better flow distribution through dense radiators. They've branded the whole line Galahad NL (Galahad Noctua Liquid) and you can order in either the compact 240 or full-size 280 variants. The overall length sits at a tight 165mm, which means it should fit into smaller builds that would struggle with traditional AIO layouts.
I'm not blind — there are tradeoffs to consider before anyone opens their wallet for this one. To keep weight down they used aluminum side tubes on the radiator rather than full copper, and Noctua admits that cuts surface area by roughly 4 percent compared to a fully copper build. Some of you will find $299 totally insane when an Arctic will cool perfectly well for under $130, but there's something about Noctua's attention to detail that makes me want to give them the win here anyway. The pump is quieter than most AIOs on paper and the build quality is visibly superior even if you can't quantify exactly how much cooler it runs over a standard unit. If you already have a high-end setup and just need an upgrade, go for it — otherwise keep your cash and wait for the second gen to drop cheaper eventually.
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/cooling/noctuas-aio-liquid-cooler-is-here-but-hooo-boy-is-it-expensive/
The design philosophy is what makes me excited about it: instead of mounting fans off-side as every other AIO does, they clamped all three directly to the block with an E10A pump pushing at 2758 RPM maximum — which is whisper quiet under 18dBA at lower speeds. The coolant chamber features dual stacked copper plates on a custom bracket and two additional tubes are welded onto it for better flow distribution through dense radiators. They've branded the whole line Galahad NL (Galahad Noctua Liquid) and you can order in either the compact 240 or full-size 280 variants. The overall length sits at a tight 165mm, which means it should fit into smaller builds that would struggle with traditional AIO layouts.
I'm not blind — there are tradeoffs to consider before anyone opens their wallet for this one. To keep weight down they used aluminum side tubes on the radiator rather than full copper, and Noctua admits that cuts surface area by roughly 4 percent compared to a fully copper build. Some of you will find $299 totally insane when an Arctic will cool perfectly well for under $130, but there's something about Noctua's attention to detail that makes me want to give them the win here anyway. The pump is quieter than most AIOs on paper and the build quality is visibly superior even if you can't quantify exactly how much cooler it runs over a standard unit. If you already have a high-end setup and just need an upgrade, go for it — otherwise keep your cash and wait for the second gen to drop cheaper eventually.
Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/cooling/noctuas-aio-liquid-cooler-is-here-but-hooo-boy-is-it-expensive/