Finished Looks

CRYORIG has a damn good-looking cooler in the R1 Universal. Its black and white design will match nearly any color theme, although the R1 Universal still makes the motherboard, much like the Phanteks PH-TC14PE, appear small in comparison.


Clearance around the motherboard's heatsinks is fine and there are no issues to report in that regard. However, plugging the 8-pin EPS connector in may pose a challange with some motherboards, but that is to be expected given the R1 Universal's size.


The only thing that seems a bit off to me are the colors of the rainbow on this fan's sticker, but I am now just grasping at straws to find something to fault.


Unlike every other heavy-weight monstrosity of a cooler I have reviewed, the R1 Universal has the clearance to populate all four DIMM slots, which makes this the top-of-line air cooler to have if you want to go all out on memory. The only downside is that the cooler does encroach on the first motherboard expansion slot, which had it touch the expansion card of that slot in my testing. Most users, however, won't run into this particular problem.


I should mention that I am also testing the R1 Universal with three fans to figure out its maximum cooling performance since CRYORIG provided an additional fan. There is, in fact, depending on your location, a promotion with which you can get this cooler bundled with a third fan at no additional cost. The bundle is, as I write this review, available at Alternate.de in Germany and all retailers in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. CRYORIG may expand this bundle to cover other regions in the future, so keep your eyes and ears open to the possibility!