Raijintek Triton AIO Liquid CPU Cooler Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. The Raijintek Triton4. Installing the Raijintek Triton5. Testing Methodology and Overclocking6. Thermal Performance7. Acoustic Performance8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Today we are going to take a look at an interesting water cooling product – the Raijintek Triton, an ‘all in one' CPU cooler. The Triton has been designed to be user upgradable … in fact Raijintek take things a step further and actively encourage users (who have the necessary skills) to customise their loop.

We have reviewed a number of products from Raijintek in the past and have been quite impressed with what they have to offer.  It is clear that they are looking to take on the longer established brands in the market with a slightly different take on what is already out there.

Features:

• 240mm Aluminium Radiator
• Low-noise pump with graphite pipe
• Nickel-plated copper cold plate
• Resevoir with 2 Integrated LED's
• Red, Green, Blue or Transparent Coolant
• 2 x 120mm fans, Manually adjustable
• Easy & Secure installation
• Compatible to almost all sockets

Specifications:

• Fan Dimension 120 x 120 x 25 (mm)
• Fan Speed 1000 – 2600 RPM
• Fan Airflow 38.889 – 100.455 CFM
• Fan Air Pressure 0.744 -4.819mm H2O
• Fan Noise Level 21.6 – 41.6 dBA
• Fan Rated output 0.08 – 0.48 A
• Power Consumption 0.96 – 5.76 W
• Connector 3 pin
• Radiator Dimensions 275 x 120 x 32 (mm)
• Radiator Material 100% Aluminium
• Pump Dimensions 38 x 56 x39 (mm)
• Pump Bearingh Type Graphite Pipe and Ceramix Axis
• Pump Q-Max 120L/Hr
• Pump noise 18 dBA
• Pump Life Expectancy 50,000 hours
• Pump Speed 3000 RPM @ 12v DC
• Pump Power 4 W
• Copper Cold Plate

The Raijintek Triton AIO is supplied in a substantial box which reflects the large size of the cooler within.  It is decorated in a black, red and white livery with an image of the cooler on the front.

Turing over the box reveals some further details about the cooler within, alongside another picture.

Inside the box we find all of the accessories required to install the cooler onto most current platforms.  Raijintek also include two 120mm fans with the cooler and a series of three coloured dyes for the watercooling loop.

It is quite clear from a glance that the Triton is put together in a slightly different manner to most all-in-one liquid coolers.  While the assembly may appear more crude and clunky, the inclusion of clear plastic hoses and bulky compression fittings is quite deliberate.  These components meet industry size standards so that you can fully customise the loop with other components if required.

The radiator itself is a 240mm model which measures 32mm thick.  This is fairly low profile and should therefore fit in the vast majority of cases which boast support for 240mm radiators.  It is worth considering that one of the end tanks of the radiator is slightly larger than most AIO units to accommodate the comparatively large compression fittings used.

Raijintek have chosen to use clear plastic 8/11mm hoses for the Triton which have clear coolant running through them.  That said, they also include red, green and blue dye for this coolant should you want to customise the cooler a little. Adding coolant into the Triton does require the removal of a tamperproof sticker, however the warranty should remain intact unless you cause damage to the cooler.

The CPU block and pump unit is also constructed out of clear plastic, meaning that you can see the coolant running through it.  Raitjintek has integrated LED lights into this to illuminate the coolant when running.  This will look especially good if you choose to use the provided dyes for the coolant.  The unit itself is quite large in size – remarkably more so than most all-in-one liquid coolers.  This should not cause many issues though as it is not likely to cause any RAM compatibility issues.

While Raijintek claim that the Triton features a copper cold plate, it would appear that it is actually made from nickel-plated copper.  This should not affect the thermal performance, though.  The cold-plate itself is octagonal in shape and is secured to the unit with a series of screws spanning the periphery.

Raijintek include two 120mm fans with the Triton which are quite unusual in design.  Both fans are powered through the same cable which keeps them closely tied together.  There is another cable protruding from this which features a small variable resistor, allowing you to manually set the speed of the fans.

While we haven't seen this approach before, it will be perfect for those who want to tune their cooler to consistently achieve the best compromise between acoustics and cooling performance.

After experiencing the excellent installation guide which was supplied with the Fractal Design Kelvin S36 (review coming soon), we were somewhat underwhelmed with Raijintek's offering.  The user guide is very basic and only features small diagrams and brief instructions.  Thankfully the installation procedure is quite simple so this is not a massive issue. We will be documenting the installation process on an Intel Socket 2011 motherboard.

First of all we must install the retention bracket to our motherboard.  This requires us to place four standoffs over the screw threads in each corner of the socket, place the bracket on top and secure into place using the four provided screws.

Then we can simply apply the thermal paste to the CPU and screw the CPU block down into place.

Finally we can attach the fans to the inside of the radiator and screw it into the case.  It is worth noting that this cooler does not feature anti-kink coils like the Kelvin S36 and the hoses can kink quite easily.  We would recommend double checking that the hoses are kink-free after installing the cooler.

To test the performance of the Raijintek Triton, we built a powerful X79 based system on an open test bench to push the cooler to the limits.  As we were testing on an open test bench, we directed a Be Quiet! Shadow Wings 120 mm fan at the VRM circuitry to better simulate the airflow generated in a case.

For our extreme tests, we manually overclocked the i7-3930K to 4.7 GHz by increasing the multiplier to 47x, leaving the baseclock set at 100 MHz.

We set Load Line Calibration to ‘High', and increased the CPU Current Capability to 120% with a minor voltage increase.  Speed stepping was disabled for both stock and overclocked tests.

We tested the Kelvin with the fans connected to a 12V header on our motherboard.

Coolers Tested

• Raijintek Triton (fans at 1000rpm)
• Raijintek Triton (fans at 2600rpm)
• Fractal Design Kelvin S36 (fans at 12V)
• Cooler Master Nepton 240M (fans at 12V)
• Corsair H105
• Corsair H110 (fans at 12V)
• Corsair H90 (fan at 12V)
• Phanteks PH-TC14PE (fans at 12V)
• Noctua NH-D14 (fans at 12V)

For temperature tests we loaded the system for 10 minutes using Prime 95 and recorded the CPU temperature using CPUID HWMonitor.  We then restarted the system and left it idling at the desktop for 10 minutes before recording temperatures. The temperatures recorded are based on an ambient temperature of 20 degrees C.

These temperatures are very impressive, showcasing the capability of this cooler.  It is quite clear that it struggles a little with low airflow when overclocked as the temperatures were significantly affected in the low fan speed test.

In our noise level tests we switched off all the case fans and replaced the AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card with a HD 5550 passive model so were  just taking into account the noise generated by the cooler fans themselves.

We measured the noise level with a Digital Noise Level meter at a distance of 1 m from the front of the system.

As we can see from the results, the difference in noise level between high and low fan speed is massive.  Thankfully the variable fan controller will allow you to tune the cooler to your specific requirements without much trouble.

Overall we are fairly impressed with what the Raijintek Triton all-in-one liquid CPU cooler has to offer.  While we imagine the bulk of users will purchase the cooler and install it as is, it offers users the flexibility to customise the water cooling loop and add in other components if required – or simply to add colour to the coolant.

In terms of raw performance, the Triton is impressive on paper.  The included fans feature a variable speed controller which allows the user to set up the thermal acoustic balance of the cooler to suit specific needs. Even at the lowest fan setting, the Triton coped with a hot running, overclocked i7-3930K – albeit at high temperatures. While temperatures were significantly lower with the fans at maximum speed, this generated more noise hat we could put up with on a permanent basis.

While the mounting mechanism is not quite as simple as Corsair's, the installation process is fairly simple.  A word of warning to less experienced users – the installation guide is pretty poor and does not offer much help.

Perhaps the only disappointing aspect of this cooler is the lack of attention to detail when it comes to design and build quality.  The radiator hoses and fan cables feel very cheap indeed and the standard fans are pretty ugly. We would have preferred to see Raijintek using black compression fittings which would better compliment the black CPU block top and the black radiator and fan chassis.

The Raijintek Triton is available for £70 from Overclockers UK.  At this price we feel that it offers excellent value for money, coming in cheaper than every 240mm all-in-one water cooling unit we have tested previously.  Even though the build quality of the Triton is not particularly impressive, we imagine that most users will be willing to forgive this considering the fantastic performance.

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Pros:

• Impressive cooling performance.
• Excellent value for money.
• Dye included for loop.
• Customisable loop.
• Speed controlled fans included.

Cons:

• Suspect build quality.
• Included fans are not ideal.

KitGuru says: An affordable 240mm water cooler which offers great value for money.

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