Closer Examination

The Raijintek CA360 is a 30-mm thickness class radiator at all of 27 mm thick, which helps with added compatibility inside cases meant for small form factor builds just as much as thicker fans, such as the excellent Phanteks T30-120. In addition, it is all of 120 mm wide as it doesn't extend past the fans, either. At ~800 g empty, this radiator is easily something you can handle and install by yourself as long as the case can accommodate a triple 120 mm radiator. The design language is otherwise from yesteryear, with rounded end tank segments split in the middle, and the black finish is all you get—no other colors are available. There is an inset notch along the side enterprising customers may want to attach an RGB LED strip to, but this is otherwise a clean-looking radiator.


As typical for such 30-mm class radiators, there are only two BSP G1/4" ports, so both will be plumbed into the loop. They come with pre-installed dust covers you would remove prior to installation. I was about to mention there is no visible branding at all, but then we see a sticker with the product name on the side. I am sure you can peel it off if visible, but it is placed on the side rarely seen once installed.


The fan holes in the frame are well-threaded, which gets the aforementioned black paint to better match most PC DIY builds than the native steel color. These holes are the standard 15 mm apart, which works with just about any case today. There are no screw shields for a safety barrier with longer-than-appropriate screws that might otherwise pierce coolant tubes instead of just fins; however, the fan holes are offset from the tubes to where damaging the coolant tubes would be impossible in regular use. As long as you use the provided screws in a sensible manner with standard 25-mm thick fans, you will not even hurt the fins.


Removing one of the dust cover plugs reveals brass threaded inserts in the brass end tanks, which means the radiator at its thickest point is more than the rated 27 mm after all. It should not affect case compatibility by itself as cases tend to have unencumbered extra space past simply the 360 mm taken up by three 120 mm fans next to each other. Indeed, the Raijintek CA360 is 393 mm long, which is about average, and the brass extensions won't get in the way of anything, nor will the tubing off the fittings being inserted into these. These are threaded to fit standard BSP G1/4" fittings, and a look through them shows that the brass construction already has a patina. This radiator core adopts the more typical U-flow design for the coolant, with either port as the inlet and the other as the outlet depending on your plumbing layout. There is a single row of fins and tube stacks with 12 tubes that are ~1.5 mm thick and 16 mm tall. The 12-way parallel split of the coolant is no different from most such single-core radiators when it comes to coolant flow restriction, but will fare worse than those with more tubes, such as the recently tested Alphacool NexXxos HPE-30. On the flip side, the wider tubes certainly benefit the Raijintek CA360 over those with thinner ones, such as the Black Ice Nemesis GTS/LS, but generally fare worse against dual or triple-row radiators no matter what. The entire core is copper rather than the typical brass for the tubes, too.


As for the fin stack, we get the usual ~8 mm high and lightly louvered serpentine fins, which should increase the contact surface area for air flowing through the core. While possibly a boon at higher airflow, it may adversely affect thermal dissipation at lower RPM or laminar flow regimes. The fins are rated at 17 FPI in density and measured in at 16–17 FPI on my sample. The core itself is ~18 mm thick with a ~5 mm plenum on either side between it and the frame, which is not the easiest to measure given the fins extend past the tubes. Without exactly knowing how thick the fins are, this combination leads me to believe this radiator is a low or medium-airflow optimized cooling solution. That having been said, we will see how the radiator fares in our testing over the next couple of pages.