Building My Dream Machine - A Review of the Aurora 360 Water Cooler

I love my Aurora 360 water cooler, it's a great product with a lot of features that make it stand out from other coolers on the market. The combination of a Corsair engine and the Aurora engine makes for a powerful cooling system that can handle even the most demanding tasks.

One thing I like about this product is how well it integrates with my existing setup. The fans themselves are directly connected to the motherboard, which means I can control them using software - or at least, I thought I could. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that the Aurora engine is software-controlled, and there's no other way around it.

I contacted Gigabyte, the manufacturer of the Aurora 360, and they told me that there was no alternative to software control. They explained that this was a necessary feature for the cooler to function properly, but I have to say that I'm still not convinced. As someone who likes to tinker with their hardware, it's frustrating to be limited by software when I'd rather have more control over my system.

Despite my reservations about the Aurora engine, I have to say that the water cooler itself is a great product. The fit and finish are excellent, and the design is sleek and modern. The addressable RGB lighting is also a nice touch, adding an extra layer of customization to the cooler.

Unfortunately, this means that I've had some issues with reliability. The cooling system sometimes freezes up, requiring me to reboot my computer. This can be frustrating, especially when I'm in the middle of a live stream or other important task. I've tried to troubleshoot the issue, but so far, I haven't been able to resolve it.

In contrast, my previous machine has been rock-solid reliable. My 1800EX has been nothing but stable, and I can count on it to get me through even the most demanding tasks without any issues.

One thing that's interesting is how different configurations of this product may perform. For example, if you're running an Nvidia card, you might not experience the same freezing issues as I did with my ATX 5 Series RX 570 85. It's worth noting that other users have reported similar issues with their systems, so it's possible that there's a problem with the design or manufacturing of this product.

Overall, I'm impressed with the Aurora 360 water cooler, but its software-controlled features are a major drawback for me. If you're considering purchasing this product, I'd recommend doing some research to see how it performs in your specific configuration. And if you do end up buying one, be prepared for some potential issues - and don't say I didn't warn you!

I built my dream machine, and maybe I should have gone with a different video card, but hey, that's not the point. The point is that this machine is fast and reliable, even if it does have its quirks.

Gigabyte has been good to me so far, and I appreciate their responsiveness when I've had questions or issues. But overall, I'm still waiting for a solution that will make this product more robust and reliable. Until then, I'll just have to keep tinkering with my system to try and find ways to mitigate the freezing issues.

For now, that's my review of the Aurora 360 water cooler from Gigabyte. It's a solid product with some great features, but its software-controlled design is a major drawback for me.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enokay guys welcome back to the episode we've been waiting for people have been long asking and waiting and they want to know my thoughts I've been running this for a while now the gigabyte aurorus 360 with the wonderful TV screen in it well here's my thoughts guys there's been a while I've been running this as I said for quite a while now as you know from the last video it's been quite a while and the reason for that was I've had lots of problems and issues from that time till now not necessarily all pertaining to that AI oh I had a motherboard die I've had nothing but video card problems and so on and it's just been an absolute nightmare and that is a whole other video but as for this AI Oh overall it's doing a great job as far as aesthetics build quality and overall fit and finish this AI o is probably the best AI o I've ever used is it a whole lot cooler than the other guys and I gotta say the video screen is absolutely phenomenal and that just you know absolutely blew my mind I'm so proud of that and how my last game hunter logo is in there and it just looks phenomenal the way I have my addressable set for my fans going from a white to red like they're doing here in the video is just amazing I love red but I wanted to do something a little different because I actually had an addressable option and I wanted to make sure I was utilizing that addressability so that with my other fans doing something else kind of gave it a sharp appearance now that is the aesthetics it's absolutely mind-blowing the fans are Carbonite plastic housed so I've learned that they're a very strong plastic there is no flex to them whatsoever and there is no vibrations or or anything that you would deter or dislike from these fans they're very quiet until of course they rev up which is what you would expect now that being said my only concern is the whole entire AIO is software-driven now me saying that that has been a huge problem now so when I did two tests originally this was all tested using the AIO with my test bench and in the test bench the AIO software driven via a USB plug that plugs into your board and then you have to run aurorus engine now our roars engine is a piece of software where you can adjust alter or overclock or do all kind of stuff with your video card and your AIO so that is pretty cool all in all except without that software running the AIO just stays at one speed and does not rev up or Rev down or very on temperature or anything and it's very confusing now I might be able to bypass that by maybe using a Y splitter and going to the a i/o off the on board because the fans themselves will connect to the board I just don't know how well that's going to perform knowing that the pump is not revving up or revving down and that's what's bothering me and if you guys know or have done this with this AIO please let me know in the comments below because I am absolutely wishing to not use aurorus engine and here's why okay so let's talk about aurorus engine aurorus engine is a piece of software that allows you to alter your fans overclock change your voltage and so on timings whatever to your video card and also controls the a i/o so you can change your RPM of your pump your fans or auto or manual or whatever you want to do it's a customizing software for the operations of video card and a i/o to the best of my knowledge I don't know if it does anything else but definitely does that now I run all gigabyte Hardware so my video cards even my older that I haven't a test bench are rx by babies so they're gigabyte arcs by babies their g1 gamers good cards in fact those carts are pretty hard-hitting still in today's gaming one of the best 1080p carts without having to pay through the nose in fact I would probably buy that card over 5500 XD in most cases now I have to get my hands on one of those to try that but the bottom line is with the 5 80s aurorus engine freezes so whether you're running a 585 70 or 590 we have to rev one the system freezes so what will happen now the system doesn't crash this is the interesting part it'll fire up I'll wait and wait wait there's the freeze wait screen goes black and comes and the machines fully functional again okay so it works but it shouldn't have to do that so there was problem number one so if you're running a 590 a 580 or five 70 you're probably going to experience this issue freezing up then your machine starts to run again on boot up every single boot up this is without flaw does it every time now if you can bypass that or or forget that happens good for you but I couldn't not for the money spent al we jump forward and moving forward the 580 was not the card that I was going to use anyway it's the 5600 XT that I did an open box on oh boy the problems just continue so with the out of the box bias my screen flickered only when a rurus engine ran if I turn a roars engine off everything was perfect perfect then I did the UH key to update the bias because aurorus engine has to run to run my water pump well now the systems running it's running great when it runs and I just said that when it runs so a worse engine now randomly will just reboot my computer it doesn't give me any grief it doesn't give me a error code it doesn't crash it just says turn off startup so recently after the newest bias I've done on the video card I have gotten it to run for a day and a half without a reboot and today no reboot whatsoever but it did reboot twice yesterday and all do in my opinion to aurorus engine because without aurorus engine the problem doesn't persist so it's hard for me to say go out and buy this water cooler even though it probably is one of the best water coolers out there but aurorus engine needing to be its backbone may cause you grief and I'm just going to put that out there right now because it's hard for me to review this solidly when I love it so much and know that if I say this is the best thing to go out and grab it's not gonna do you any justice and give you more grief than it's worth and I'm being one of the gig biggest gigabyte people period gigabyte is everywhere for me they do not and I want to make that clear they do not sponsor me in any which way I've sent messages two of them I told them I'm trying to do a review on this they have no errors that they know of to give me and it just boggles my mind now I know there's a lot of other a iOS out there with video screens in them and X key I think ur and Zed XT or whatever it is now have it I think aces have it ASIS I'm not a fan of but I am a fan of gigabyte and that's what I wanted that was my dream AI oh I have it other than a Royce engine I love it does the aurorus engine and the a IO reboot the computer know it's something to do with the combination of a rurus engine and my video card but that said I have to run aurorus engine for the AL so guys that is my conclusion on this I wish it wasn't software driven I wish aurorus engine was not needed I wish they came out with a solution to solve this like I said the fans themselves I could possibly control direct to the board and if anybody has done this let me know but I want to know that you're not running a roars engine to control the pump and what your temps are like so that part scares me overall the fit finish design everything is what you would expect of an aurorus product is very solid I have nothing to say bad about the water cooler in any which way or form other than software-controlled I contacted gigabyte they told me there was no other way it had to be software controlled and I'm still running it I'm trying to work this out I'm trying to get the bugs out and if I figure this out I will definitely put up a new video telling you guys how to fix it if you're coming across the same problems so this is not gonna smooth endeavor I built my dream machine - maybe wanting a much different video card but hey let's face it money is money you put in what you can afford now again the video card is gigabyte I want all gigabyte thinking you're not gonna have any problems well that's not true so guys I'm not here to slam gigabyte in any which way or form they've been good to me as far as chatting with me talking to me but it cannot give this a solid review - the aurorus engine software so hope this helps I am a frustrated last game hunter big time because I cannot live stream and I cannot do anything on my new machine that it was built to do all the games I put on it to start doing all this new stuff for you guys because it's not reliable I can't be in the middle of a live streaming oops it rebooted it just can't take the chance my 1800 ex has been nothing but solid it's been nothing but stable it doesn't give me any grief in any which way of the forum and looks like right now that's still my main desktop so guys I hope I hope the steers you in the right direction everybody's video card everybody's motherboard everybody set up is going to be different as far as the AI hope goes by itself I'm impressed with it if you're looking at a different configuration maybe you run an Nvidia card maybe this won't have any grief of the Nvidia card who knows maybe it wouldn't have a grief with a sapphire Andy card I don't know I can only tell you how I tested it in the test bench getting to freezing issues with five ATS so any of the arcs 5 Series rx 570 by 65 85 90 I'm gonna say you're going to have the freeze up issue other than that though it ran it did not give me grief after the initial freeze up moving on to more modern hardware so I'm running the rise in 3600 X I have 64 gigs of ram in here this machine is dect stupid fast em two's I've done everything to make this a dream machine build other than I wanted to 5700 XT but then when I seen the bias options for this video card I said you know what I'm gonna save $200 I'm gonna buy this card and I'm gonna be fast enough well that is true when I'm gaming and the machine is reliable I'm happy but when you're gaming with your buddies and all of a sudden gone I don't even bother rebooting the computer up I just go to bed or I walk away with my head down anyway guys I could ramble on about this for a long time because this has been over roughly a month of hay despair getting desperate motherboard swap after the motherboard died and so on and I'm still not stable so that is my review at this point of the aurorus 360 addressable RGB water pump or a IO sorry from gigabyte till next time guys it has not been funding games but it is game overokay guys welcome back to the episode we've been waiting for people have been long asking and waiting and they want to know my thoughts I've been running this for a while now the gigabyte aurorus 360 with the wonderful TV screen in it well here's my thoughts guys there's been a while I've been running this as I said for quite a while now as you know from the last video it's been quite a while and the reason for that was I've had lots of problems and issues from that time till now not necessarily all pertaining to that AI oh I had a motherboard die I've had nothing but video card problems and so on and it's just been an absolute nightmare and that is a whole other video but as for this AI Oh overall it's doing a great job as far as aesthetics build quality and overall fit and finish this AI o is probably the best AI o I've ever used is it a whole lot cooler than the other guys and I gotta say the video screen is absolutely phenomenal and that just you know absolutely blew my mind I'm so proud of that and how my last game hunter logo is in there and it just looks phenomenal the way I have my addressable set for my fans going from a white to red like they're doing here in the video is just amazing I love red but I wanted to do something a little different because I actually had an addressable option and I wanted to make sure I was utilizing that addressability so that with my other fans doing something else kind of gave it a sharp appearance now that is the aesthetics it's absolutely mind-blowing the fans are Carbonite plastic housed so I've learned that they're a very strong plastic there is no flex to them whatsoever and there is no vibrations or or anything that you would deter or dislike from these fans they're very quiet until of course they rev up which is what you would expect now that being said my only concern is the whole entire AIO is software-driven now me saying that that has been a huge problem now so when I did two tests originally this was all tested using the AIO with my test bench and in the test bench the AIO software driven via a USB plug that plugs into your board and then you have to run aurorus engine now our roars engine is a piece of software where you can adjust alter or overclock or do all kind of stuff with your video card and your AIO so that is pretty cool all in all except without that software running the AIO just stays at one speed and does not rev up or Rev down or very on temperature or anything and it's very confusing now I might be able to bypass that by maybe using a Y splitter and going to the a i/o off the on board because the fans themselves will connect to the board I just don't know how well that's going to perform knowing that the pump is not revving up or revving down and that's what's bothering me and if you guys know or have done this with this AIO please let me know in the comments below because I am absolutely wishing to not use aurorus engine and here's why okay so let's talk about aurorus engine aurorus engine is a piece of software that allows you to alter your fans overclock change your voltage and so on timings whatever to your video card and also controls the a i/o so you can change your RPM of your pump your fans or auto or manual or whatever you want to do it's a customizing software for the operations of video card and a i/o to the best of my knowledge I don't know if it does anything else but definitely does that now I run all gigabyte Hardware so my video cards even my older that I haven't a test bench are rx by babies so they're gigabyte arcs by babies their g1 gamers good cards in fact those carts are pretty hard-hitting still in today's gaming one of the best 1080p carts without having to pay through the nose in fact I would probably buy that card over 5500 XD in most cases now I have to get my hands on one of those to try that but the bottom line is with the 5 80s aurorus engine freezes so whether you're running a 585 70 or 590 we have to rev one the system freezes so what will happen now the system doesn't crash this is the interesting part it'll fire up I'll wait and wait wait there's the freeze wait screen goes black and comes and the machines fully functional again okay so it works but it shouldn't have to do that so there was problem number one so if you're running a 590 a 580 or five 70 you're probably going to experience this issue freezing up then your machine starts to run again on boot up every single boot up this is without flaw does it every time now if you can bypass that or or forget that happens good for you but I couldn't not for the money spent al we jump forward and moving forward the 580 was not the card that I was going to use anyway it's the 5600 XT that I did an open box on oh boy the problems just continue so with the out of the box bias my screen flickered only when a rurus engine ran if I turn a roars engine off everything was perfect perfect then I did the UH key to update the bias because aurorus engine has to run to run my water pump well now the systems running it's running great when it runs and I just said that when it runs so a worse engine now randomly will just reboot my computer it doesn't give me any grief it doesn't give me a error code it doesn't crash it just says turn off startup so recently after the newest bias I've done on the video card I have gotten it to run for a day and a half without a reboot and today no reboot whatsoever but it did reboot twice yesterday and all do in my opinion to aurorus engine because without aurorus engine the problem doesn't persist so it's hard for me to say go out and buy this water cooler even though it probably is one of the best water coolers out there but aurorus engine needing to be its backbone may cause you grief and I'm just going to put that out there right now because it's hard for me to review this solidly when I love it so much and know that if I say this is the best thing to go out and grab it's not gonna do you any justice and give you more grief than it's worth and I'm being one of the gig biggest gigabyte people period gigabyte is everywhere for me they do not and I want to make that clear they do not sponsor me in any which way I've sent messages two of them I told them I'm trying to do a review on this they have no errors that they know of to give me and it just boggles my mind now I know there's a lot of other a iOS out there with video screens in them and X key I think ur and Zed XT or whatever it is now have it I think aces have it ASIS I'm not a fan of but I am a fan of gigabyte and that's what I wanted that was my dream AI oh I have it other than a Royce engine I love it does the aurorus engine and the a IO reboot the computer know it's something to do with the combination of a rurus engine and my video card but that said I have to run aurorus engine for the AL so guys that is my conclusion on this I wish it wasn't software driven I wish aurorus engine was not needed I wish they came out with a solution to solve this like I said the fans themselves I could possibly control direct to the board and if anybody has done this let me know but I want to know that you're not running a roars engine to control the pump and what your temps are like so that part scares me overall the fit finish design everything is what you would expect of an aurorus product is very solid I have nothing to say bad about the water cooler in any which way or form other than software-controlled I contacted gigabyte they told me there was no other way it had to be software controlled and I'm still running it I'm trying to work this out I'm trying to get the bugs out and if I figure this out I will definitely put up a new video telling you guys how to fix it if you're coming across the same problems so this is not gonna smooth endeavor I built my dream machine - maybe wanting a much different video card but hey let's face it money is money you put in what you can afford now again the video card is gigabyte I want all gigabyte thinking you're not gonna have any problems well that's not true so guys I'm not here to slam gigabyte in any which way or form they've been good to me as far as chatting with me talking to me but it cannot give this a solid review - the aurorus engine software so hope this helps I am a frustrated last game hunter big time because I cannot live stream and I cannot do anything on my new machine that it was built to do all the games I put on it to start doing all this new stuff for you guys because it's not reliable I can't be in the middle of a live streaming oops it rebooted it just can't take the chance my 1800 ex has been nothing but solid it's been nothing but stable it doesn't give me any grief in any which way of the forum and looks like right now that's still my main desktop so guys I hope I hope the steers you in the right direction everybody's video card everybody's motherboard everybody set up is going to be different as far as the AI hope goes by itself I'm impressed with it if you're looking at a different configuration maybe you run an Nvidia card maybe this won't have any grief of the Nvidia card who knows maybe it wouldn't have a grief with a sapphire Andy card I don't know I can only tell you how I tested it in the test bench getting to freezing issues with five ATS so any of the arcs 5 Series rx 570 by 65 85 90 I'm gonna say you're going to have the freeze up issue other than that though it ran it did not give me grief after the initial freeze up moving on to more modern hardware so I'm running the rise in 3600 X I have 64 gigs of ram in here this machine is dect stupid fast em two's I've done everything to make this a dream machine build other than I wanted to 5700 XT but then when I seen the bias options for this video card I said you know what I'm gonna save $200 I'm gonna buy this card and I'm gonna be fast enough well that is true when I'm gaming and the machine is reliable I'm happy but when you're gaming with your buddies and all of a sudden gone I don't even bother rebooting the computer up I just go to bed or I walk away with my head down anyway guys I could ramble on about this for a long time because this has been over roughly a month of hay despair getting desperate motherboard swap after the motherboard died and so on and I'm still not stable so that is my review at this point of the aurorus 360 addressable RGB water pump or a IO sorry from gigabyte till next time guys it has not been funding games but it is game over