Thermaltake Minecube 360 Ultra ARGB Sync review

Why have a screen on your liquid cooler? I often find myself asking that question when reviewing the latest all-in-one liquid coolers. Unlike some components, there's no shortage of LCD screens today, and you have the pick of the lot when it comes to sizes and styles. Though for the Thermaltake Minecube 360 Ultra ARGB Sync, that wouldn't be an appropriate question. Instead, I should ask myself: Why have one screen when I can have four?The Minecube comes with four 3.95-inch LCD panels mounted into a cube that sits atop of the pump unit. A cube has six sides, of course; one side is left intentionally blank with some venting, and another is where you mount the screens to the top of the pump.Before we get onto the screens, let's cover the rest of this cooler. A copper cold plate sits beneath the cube with a fairly standard design and mounting solution. So familiar, I'd take a guess as to this cooler being from Asetek. It supports both AMD and Intel sockets; up to AM5 on the former, LGA1954 on the latter, which is actually for as-of-yet unannounced Nova Lake processors. It doesn't say that on the website, only on the box. Though, of course, it'll also work with any reasonably modern Intel processor.The pump unit has a 50 mm fan built-in. An odd configuration, wherein the fan is drawing air through vents at the bottom of the cube via a handful of vents, in a way that's sure to restrict the airflow to some degree. Though any amount of airflow will be better than none. This tiny fan and pump have a noticeable whirr when you place your ear up close. However, even with both running at max speed (3,300–3500 rpm), they're not massively audible from further away.

There are three fans mounted to the 360 x 120 x 27 mm radiator. These are covered in RGB lighting, including the blades and the circumference of the fan, and controllable via a proprietary magnetic connector on one end, but a standard 4-pin fan header and 5 V lighting header on the other. So how you choose to set them up or adjust speeds is down to your choice of motherboard and compatible software. Moreover, these fans are reversible, but they're not reversed right away. Out of the box, these are regular fans better suited to pushing air through the radiator and out of your case (ideally mounted above your motherboard). However, there are three alternative, reversed fan blades in the box. You just slide the old ones off, replace, and voila, reverse fans. Now they're better suited to using on the side of a motherboard, especially in a fish tank-style case. There's even a bit of grease included to apply after replacing the blades a few times to keep them spinning for a good while longer.Though the static pressure and airflow are ever-so-slightly reduced with the reverse blades installed. We're talking 57.11 CFM to 56.26 CFM and 2.39 mm-H2O to 2.02 mm-H2O, which is not going to lead to any considerable change. The fans run up to 2,000 rpm at maximum speed, which is what I've run them at for testing purposes, and it must be said they are a bit on the loud side. I've only tested a handful of coolers with my newly-updated sound meter but this was a couple decibels above the MSI MPG CoreLiquid P13 360 at similar speeds. Though I am running these at max and they're much less noticeable all-round on even default fan curves.

With 460 mm long tubes, the Minecube offers great compatibility with a range of case designs. Those long tubes are pretty key to allow for a range of orientations for the cube itself, too. In my case (literally), an open test bench that requires longer than average tubes to even install a cooler, the Minecube sits comfortably with the tubes at the bottom of the unit, allowing me to stick the blank screen facing the GPU and all the more interesting stuff facing outwards.

Interesting stuff like a range of animations, which appear to move between each panel of the cube; system information; and custom images or gifs. For the most part, those are provided by Thermaltake in the TT LCD Screen Software, though you can add your own or customise a screen to add your own data points, visualisations and text. To be fair to Thermaltake, the customisation is deeper than I had first expected, with a range of options for each screen meaning you can show a lot of useful info right there, including pump speed, power draw, clock speed, temperature, storage space, memory usage, and more. You just have to eke all of that out of a slightly awkward UI.You have to choose data points and move symbols, text, and icons around to get something similar to the presets, which you're better off tweaking to your liking than starting totally fresh if you're short on time. Though with time on your side, you are able to create a wonderfully customised screen. Now to do that another three times…

I did manage to get together a pretty useful set of screens, showing RAM usage, temperatures, and even live charts showing CPU and GPU speeds. There's definitely some utility here, and plenty of real estate across the four screens—provided you're the type to peer into your case to check on stats. I have to admit, I'm not, and I can only see two of the four screens at any given time—three when I'm standing—so all that real estate feels a little wasted.I had to do a few hard resets of both cooler and software during my time with it, too, which hasn't been a major hassle but felt a little underwhelming knowing the cost of this cooler. The Minecube 360 Ultra costs $350/£280—it's not cheap.So, it really comes down to how much you feel you can get out of the cuboid visuals here. If you're looking for something punchy to round off your themed build, you could do well with the Minecube and its customisation options. Slap some custom imagery on there and it could look pretty decent. TN panels aren't the ideal choice but these are viewable at an angle and without much discolouration. Though, you might get more wow factor from Tryx's Stage 360 with two IPS panels for less—half the panels but a decent saving at $210/£200.You are getting a lot more screen than, say, the NZXT Kraken Elite 360 RGB (2024), and for similar money. Though the NZXT has the benefit of a smarter cable solution, hiding the cables away in the tubing. Whereas the Minecube has four cables erupting from the pump unit (two fan headers, SATA power, USB 2.0) and more from the fans. It's nowhere near as clean cut, which matters here when you're paying for aesthetics more than performance.Though speaking of performance, the Minecube is pretty great. I've said for a while that liquid cooler performance has more or less levelled out for the most part, with only a big parity between the extremely expensive models and the extremely cheap ones, but the Minecube is able to keep the demanding Core i7 14700K cool. It's up there with the best liquid coolers.

Above: Testing will be impacted by ambient temperature fluctuations to some degree, as I'm afraid I do not have access to a temperature-controlled environment. The Minecube, being tested in winter, will be a benefactor in this instance.So, it's a tough one to judge for me. I'm personally not a fan of the whole cuboid schtick, but what it does, it does well. Performance is there and there's a good level of customisation underneath the janky application. It's just the price that gives me pause. I couldn't justify that sorta spend on cooler aesthetics… could you?