Fractal Design Celsius S36 review - Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

We've seen and tested dozens of AIO kits based upon Asetek designs. They work okay and the principal dynamic and features are mostly the same. The Fractal Design Celsius S36 did not disappoint in terms of performance, in fact even at 1.45 Volts for the CPU tweaked I'd be fine using this cooler for short bursts of time. At that point however the cooler does become noisy. Fractal Design tried to diversify the product by giving it a more luxurious feel, the sleeved cable and tubing help. The product doesn't scream out loud with LEDs or logos, it just looks simple and nice. We like that. Handy is the extra option to use automated mode, but with the FAN cable already in place, we recommend and prefer the PWM controlled fans and pump through the motherboard BIOS, as then you can tweak to your preferred level of silence and performance. 

Noise

Noise levels, at defaults (not overclocked) this is a silent product, on our ASUS Sabertooth we simply leave the default fan profile for what it is, and yeah, we reached 36 dBA under full processor load. Up-to 1.35 Volts (tweaked) the noise levels remain very acceptable, after that nature of airflow kicks in. Overall it remains silent (under normal conditions), if you are sitting close to the pump you can hear a bit of a buzz coming from it though. However, in a closed chassis this should not be an annoyance. We'd classify the cooler as a performance product and thus it matches mainstream to high-end cooling, cooling capacity is definitely good enough for even a nice overclock. 

Aesthetics 

The overall looks are very good as far as I am concerned, all black design makes the rad / fans / pump look nice. The product does not have screaming logos and flashing LEDs, all is subtle enough and we like the sleeved tubing and cables. Handy is the fan HUB on the radiator, cabling from the fans to the hub could have been a notch longer though. 

Design

Overall it is easy to install with the mounting system, prefilled. It's one of the most easy and comfortable kits on the market to use and install. The black design will make this kit match up nicely in any PC. It simply is a good alternative to heatpipe coolers with the added benefits of being fairly quiet whilst offering very nice looks. We like the simplicity, only one wire goes from the water-block to the motherboard, and then the fan just needs a FAN header on the mobo as well. Installation is simply a breeze, easy and fast. No skills are required other than the need for ten minutes to install the kit.

Pricing

The 360 kit as tested today will cost roughly $119 USD / € 134.99 Euro, obviously you will not reach the 'enthusiast' segment of cooling. The performance is definitely good for a 360mm thin rad based product in this price segment, but remains to be just that if you compare it to proper LCS gear like, say, an EK custom loop. Let me also remind you that you can easily spend 200/300 EUR on tubing, radiators, cooling blocks, reservoirs and so on whereas this all in one kit can be found for just over 100 bucks. 

Final words

The Celsius S36 is an easy to install and well performing product series. We like the new automated / PWM mode, but in the end think that 99% of end-users will use that PWM mode anyway. It looks nice with the sleeved design and might be a proper product for the ones that need a little style and decent silence on their non-overclocked product. If you do not tweak your processor, this will be a fairly quiet product. Once you need more than 1.35 Volts on a modern age Core i7 processor (I am basing my findings on quad-core here) the product will slowly become a bit more noisy under hefty processor load. But at, say, 1.30 Volts you can reach 4.6~4.8 GHz on your processor cores and still find yourself in an inaudible environment, which is good. This means you'll have decent extra capacity to overclock and tweak your processor as well. If you are wondering about the temperatures you have seen at 1.3 Volts, well... this is the nature of the processor tested. You will likely not even need 1.3V if you stick in the 4400~4600 MHz range for most Core i7 Processors. Overall the Celsius S36 manages well with the tested Core i7 4790K processor we fired off at it and as such is worthy of a recommendation and thus our recommended award.

Handy related downloads:

• Prime95
• SiSoft Sandra
• AIDA
• CPU-Z
• HWMonitor