Introduction

EK Water Blocks, or simply EKWB or EK, is arguably the most well-known of several companies dedicated to the PC DIY watercooling market. It has been around for over 15 years and saw the rise and fall of many other brands along the way while diversifying into other market segments, including the professional server space, pre-built systems, and even B2B work with co-branded motherboards and GPUs in addition to other partners outside the PC space entirely—think cooling for self-driving cars, for example. I’ve seen the team at EK change a lot over the years too, with many projects not coming to fruition and more that are coming up even a pleasant surprise to yours truly. The company’s design language has also been evolving continuously since I started reviewing DIY watercooling components, yet one thing was missing here. Until today, there have not been any EK radiator reviews on TechPowerUp! Surely, it is time to rectify this?

EK’s previous radiator line was called EK-Coolstream and came in the SE, PE, and XE series for slim, performance, and Xtreme. I had covered all three in their largest sizes elsewhere, and was the only one to test EK’s short-lived venture into the 180 mm fans and radiator segment, too. The 140 mm fan sizes had a separate Coolstream CE line, but that’s beyond the scope of this article. The Coolstream SE was the weakest link in the chain, offering little of interest aside from the boxy frame that has since inspired a few other designs, although I will say that the company had done a couple of silent revisions with supposed performance upgrades along the way. I was going to review one of those a couple of years ago when word came about a whole new radiator lineup being in the works. This was before COVID-19 wrecked all plans and the supply chain decided to force a delay to mid 2022. I have multiple EK radiator reviews coming up, but it seemed fitting that we begin with the all-new EK-Quantum Surface S360, in addition to the the thicker EK-Quantum Surface X360M review being published alongside, and we thank EKWB for providing TechPowerUp a review sample!

Specifications