Gigabyte Aorus Waterforce X II 360 AiO review: Enthusiast CPU cooling sans the clutter

The Aorus Waterforce X II 360 is Gigabyte’s latest AiO water cooler aimed at the enthusiast crowd. The Waterforce X II 360 is a significant upgrade over the Waterforce X with some nifty features such as FDB fans, magnetic daisy-chaining for the radiator fans, a larger pump with a cool-looking RGB illumination at its base, and a configurable LCD display.

We liked the fact that the Waterforce X II’s cables run within the tubing itself, which lends to a clean looking build. The Waterforce X II did a very good job in keeping the Core i9-13900K performing well even in the Zero RPM fan mode.

The Gigabyte Waterforce X II 360 is a highly capable enthusiast AiO liquid cooler that ensures throttle-free CPU performance, but the added bling and daisy chaining comes at a premium.

Fan noise is within tolerable limits for most tasks unless you really crank things up in the Turbo mode. That being said, the Waterforce X II is not without a few shortcomings.

Gigabyte’s Control Center software can certainly use added polish. The LCD display could have been a higher resolution offering. The Galahad II LCD, for instance, offers a 480 x 480 24-bit display at a similar or lower price.

The ability to define custom fan curves is also missing. Firmware updates take quite some time to complete as well. The lack of a 280 mm radiator option can upset some prospective buyers.

If you are already using a Waterforce X or your current cooler is working just fine, there’s little incentive to splurge close to US$300 on the Waterforce X II. The Asus ROG Ryujin III (US$330 on Amazon) and Lian Li Galahad II LCD (US$274 on Amazon) are other worthy considerations that offer a customizable LCD and magnetic daisy-chaining.