Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Cinebench Test Results
I first attempted to run Cinebench without power limits enforced. If the cooler can handle it, this load will use a little more than 230W. The Poseidon GT 360 wasn’t able to pass this test, but most coolers can’t.
When testing Cinebench limited to a more reasonable 200W CPU power limit, Cougar’s Poseidon GT 360 averaged 60 degrees Celcius over ambient, making it the best-performing cooler I’ve tested in this particular test. Limiting fan speeds to 50% raised the average CPU package temperature to 68 degrees C, which is in line with other top-performing AIOs we’ve tested recently.
OCCT Test Results
I usually like to run OCCT's small set stress testing for stability when overclocking. But on Alder Lake, I haven't found a cooler that's capable of handling OCCT without throttling unless power limits are enforced. I prefer to test OCCT at 200W to demonstrate a thermally demanding load, but also with a 140W power limit enforced to show how these coolers might perform with a CPU that's easier to cool, like Intel's Core i5-12600K or AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X.
While running the OCCT stress testing at both 200W and 140W, Cougar’s Poseidon GT 360’s results were among the best we’ve tested thus far, even when fans were limited to 50% speed.
Noise Levels and Acoustics
To test noise levels, I used the SLM25TK Sound Level Meter positioned 18 inches behind the rear of the Be Quiet Silent Base 802 PC case, and recorded early in the morning to achieve the lowest noise floor possible. The chart below shows averaged results, measured over the course of five minutes, to account for sudden variations in measurements.
While the cooling performance of Cougar’s GT 360 is unbeaten while restricted to 200W or less, in the hottest of workloads (above 200W of CPU package power) the fans will get relatively loud if you don’t put any speed restrictions on them – louder than any of the competing coolers we’ve tested it against.
If you restrict the speed of the MHP 120 fans to 50%, they run fairly quietly, but they still make a bit more noise than the fans of most other coolers we’ve tested.
Conclusion
Cougar’s Poseidon GT 360 is a good performing “Tier 2” Cooler, capable of cooling 200W+ when paired with Alder Lake CPUs. This cooler performs great with Intel’s Core i9-12900K.
- MORE: Best CPU Coolers
- MORE: Raptor Lake All We Know
- MORE: How to check CPU Temperature
