It took Fractal a while to get the Kelvin series ready for mass production. Already announced at CeBIT 2014, again shown to the big public at Computex in Taipei and now we are early December before this new generation of All in One cooling devices will finally hit the retail shelves.

By joining forces with Germany's Alphacool water cooling brand it allowed Fractal to differentiate their lineup from the abundant Asetek/Cool IT clones. Typical for Fractal Design there are no fancy LEDs or other frills to be found here, just expect a solid performing processor cooler, this even in the small form of the Kelvin T12. Mainly due to the utilization of a big copper radiator one could partly explain the superior heat dissipation at low fan speed. Hopefully we will be able to carry out thermal testing with the bigger S24 and S36 versions. Their performance could be quite close to a far more expensive DIY custom water loop. Looking at the cooling performance, the Kelvin T12 really can stand its ground, besting the thermal performance of the wide variety of Hydro 80 & 90's and the Enermax Liqtech. Best of all this is achieved with far slower spinning fans, thus resulting in a far more enjoyable cooling device that can easily be used in your living room. A critical point where most AIO's failed hard unless you opted straight for the 240 or 280 models.

Best of all is that these Kelvin series are labelled as upgradable: the end-user is no longer limited as this is not one of them ordinary closed loop setups. The tubing is easily interchangeable and filling or refilling the loop is possible thanks to the two foreseen filling ports. Adding a graphics card into the loop is now perfectly possible. This is one of the objectives for an upcoming article.

Only downside while testing was the light humming noise of the pump. Hard to describe but it is audible and is something that has to be crosschecked with other Kelvin users. It is far from the annoying grinding noise the CM Eisberg series were suffering from, though Fractal should look into this.

Pricing wise there also have been evolutions from what was initially released to the masses early this year. The Kelvin T12 will set you back at launch for about 95 Euros; the S24 will be retailing around 115 euro and the flagship S36 variant will be yours for 135 Euros. No matter how  you look at them, these prices are a tad higher than the competitor's offerings. However one must take into the consideration the great thermal performance, the inclusion of a copper radiator, the upgradability and the low noise output level.

Time will tell how the reliability is of these Kelvin series. Our sample has been spinning day in day out now in one of the game PCs with an overclocked Haswell CPU. Anyway Fractal backs these Kelvin AIOs up with a 2 year warranty.

It has to be mentioned that the Kelvin T12 builds a bridge from the previous generation AIO's towards the Do It Yourself water loops. Combining a pre-filled loop, thus the ease of installation and zero maintenance, with upgradeability and all this at a low noise output. Especially the latter remark was something vital that was missing from any 120 radiator AIO. Till now as Fractal Design has set a new landmark with these Kelvin series. Great to see new brands come in and raise the bar! Kindda awakes the sleeping dogs :)

PROS:

• Solid AIO performer
• Copper radiator
• Upgradable (to be checked) and easy maintenance
• Ultra flexible tubing with anti-kink coils
• Dual silent PWM Fans
• Ease of installation
• Included Thermal paste syringe

CONS:

• Audible pump noise
• Initial release price

We wish to thank Federica for sending us the Kelvin T12

Harry from Corsair for the 780T and the Vengeance Memory kit

Sven from ASUS for the ASUS X79 Rampage IV motherboard

Tones for the year of support to the Shrimps crew, kuddos guys!