NZXT Kraken G10 GPU Heatsink Review

NZXT Kraken G10 Review

Introduction

The concept of the NZXT Kraken G10 is so simple it’s brilliant.  A rigid metal bracket enabling an AIO water cooling cold plate to be mounted onto a GPU chip.  Couple that with a choice of colours and a bundled 92mm fan to keep the VRMs cool and you should have a recipe for success.  With an ever increasing amount of PC cases these days having native water cooling support in more than one location, enabling AIOs to be fitted to both the CPU and the GPU, it’s so hard to see where this could go wrong that we’re left wondering why so simple an idea hasn’t been brought to fruition before now.  Although we’re sure NZXT would rather you use their quite excellent Kraken range of coolers they’ve not been so naïve as to make AIO compatibility exclusive, as we’ll see when we look at the Technical Specification, the G10 is not only compatible with a wide range of GPUs, but also a wide range of AIO coolers. 

Technical Specification 

Dimensions 177 (W) x 32.5 (H) x 110.6 (D) mm
Nvidia : GTX 780 Ti, 780, 770, 760, Titan, 680, 670, 660Ti,   660, 580, 570, 560Ti, 560, 560SE
AMD

R9 290X*, 290*, 280X**, 280**, 270X, 270 HD7970**, 7950**, 7870, 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, 6790, 6770, 5870, 5850, 5830

AIO Compatability

NZXT : Kraken X60, Kraken X40

Corsair : H105, H110, H90, H75, H55 , H50

Antec : KUHLER H2O 920V4, KUHLER H2O 620V4, KUHLER H2O 920, KUHLER H2O 620

Thermaltake : Water 3.0 Extreme, Water 3.0 Pro, Water 3.0 Performer, Water 2.0 Extreme, Water 2.0 Pro, Water 2.0 Performer

Zalman : LQ-320, LQ-315, LQ-310

Fan Dimensions 92 (W) x 92 (H) x 25 (D) mm
Fan Speed

1500 ± 10% R.P.M.

 

The compatibility list is based on AMD Radeon and NVIDIA’s reference board layout, screw spacing and die height only. Please check the height restriction before purchase.
* Some variation in die thickness and height may cause issues with screws being too short to install on some AMD 290-based cards.
* Do NOT force the G10 to fit if your card is too thick, contact support for a revised screw set.
** Some variations in AMD die height may require the use of a shim