Lian Li has been doing a great job in the fan market with their Infinity lineup both aesthetically with their multiple lighting options as well as with their recent addition of their P28 fans as well as a performance option. Their AIO cooler lineup had some hiccups. They are back at it again though with their new Galahad II AIO cooler lineup which is launching today and they don’t just have one cooler they have a whole variety with ten different variations with three different Cooler designs, 340 and 360 sizes on two of the three as well as both black and white color options. The new Galahad II Trinity design has a few different ways the pump can be configured as well. Lots of ways to customize. Today I am going to check out the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 as well as the Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 which should give us a good look at the new design as well as check out their performance as well. So let’s dive in!

Product Name: Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Coolers

Review Samples Provided by: Lian Li

Written by: Wes Compton

Amazon Affiliate Links:

Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360

Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360

Packaging and Accessories

Both the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF and the Galahad II Trinity Performance which are both 360-length models have the same size box and the styling for both is similar. Like with all of the Lian Li Infinity fans that I have taken a look at recently, both boxes have the lite blue trim on the top and bottom edges as well as the sides. They went with a black background but then have a multicolor ribbon floating through the background, similar to the old-school screensavers. The Lian Li logo is there but small and up in the top left corner. Then they saved the largest font for the model name which is in the bottom right corner. They do have badges that show off the 5-year warranty and indicate that these have three 120mm fans. Most of the front is filled with a picture of the cooler itself which I am always happy to see. Around on the back, both boxes have the same layout which has pictures of key features and short descriptions below each explaining them. Most of the features are the same between the SL-INF model and the Performance model but there are a few noticeable differences like the pump contact surface and housings are different, the fans of course, and the radiator fin picture is different as well.

When you open up either of the boxes the documentation is right on top even before you get past the foam on the top layer. Each of the coolers does have its own installation guide which makes sense, the performance model doesn’t have the same wiring for fans without having RGB on them. Both come with a small piece of paper with instructions on the L-Connect controller but only the SL-INF comes with that so it was interesting to see that in with the Performance 360. Inside though both have a formed cardboard tray that holds everything and each component in the box has a place. Everything, even the smallest of objects also are bagged including the pump and lines and the radiator. The radiator and fans are also protected with a slide on a cardboard cover to protect the fins. The most interesting thing here and something that just can't be understated. The radiator came with the fans already mounted to it for both coolers. This might seem like a small thing but it is one of the biggest parts of an AIO cooler installation and they have done the work for you.

Both of the Galahad II Trinity coolers come with a lot of mounting hardware and accessories but the SL-INF comes with more overall. This is because it comes with the L-Connect controller as well as a whole mess of wires to go with it. This includes an internal USB to micro-USB cable that hooked the controller up, three male addressable RGB adapter cables that run from the controller or the pump to hook up other RGB devices, and a split fan header and addressable RGB cable to hook the controller up to your motherboard. The controller itself is exactly what we have seen with other Uni-Fans with PWM fan headers and the RGB plugs on both sides for four channels the SATA power plug on the end as well as the Micro-USB connection. The bottom also has a spot for the included double-sided sticky tape that is also magnetic if you need it. The mounting hardware for the pump is the same on both coolers. You have two Intel backplates and AMD brackets, the AMD brackets are a different design for the performance model but still mount with the standard AMD hooks. For wire management the coolers come with a Lian Li leather strap which is interesting, not something I’ve ever seen before. They both come with a small stick of thermal paste and a sticker to help get the perfect application as well as screws to mount the radiator.

You also get three pump top replacements as well as the one that comes on the pump. This is where the Trinity in the model name comes from. You have the metal ringed pump top with an infinity mirror design that comes preinstalled. Then there is a diffused translucent white ring and two different center pieces. One is translucent white as well and the other is a smaller infinity mirror design giving you three different styling options for the pump on each of the coolers. I will get into the design more in the next section but they do come in their own bags and each is also labeled as well.

Photos and Features

Going into this review, before I had the different Lian Li Galahad II Trinity coolers here in the office. Just going off of the base information I had on them I thought that all three designs would be using the exact same pump and radiator designs with just the fans being the change from model to model. That is the case between the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF and the Galahad II Trinity. I expected the Performance model to just utilize the P28 fans but was very surprised to see when I started to dive into things that the Galahad II Trinity Performance has other changes as well even though it does share a lot with the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF. With that, even though both coolers that Lian Li sent over are 360 models I have a TON of pictures so be prepared, there is a lot to go through here.

Starting with looking at the Galahad II Trinity pump designs the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF and Galahad II Trinity Performance have the same top design which is how they can have the same Trinity branding but below that the pump design is different, so much so that they don’t even have the same shape. Let's start with the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF pump. It has a 67mm total height and a round design like a lot of AIO pumps have these days. Its contact area is slightly squared off but has large radiused corners on the copper contact surface. It doesn’t have a mirrored finish as you can see but is machined and the pump comes with the Intel brackets installed which are black steel. The pump itself has two lines that are right-angled and go direction up but pivot to help best fit in your build. The pump housing is black plastic and has two plugs in it where you can hook up additional RGB lighting. It also has a set of wires heading out right in between the two sleeved water lines. There is a white translucent RGB right around the outside then it comes with a metal housing at the top which has the Lian Li logo in the center and a mirrored infinity finish that lights up. This cap is removable and you can replace it with a translucent ring on the outside with the option to still have an infinity mirror in the middle or a matching white translucent center. Under the cap is a white PCB with 19 surface-mounted individually addressable RGB LEDs on it facing up to light up the top cover. The wiring going out the side has a USB plug, SATA plug, and a PWM fan header which together power the lighting, lets your PC know you have RPM, and can use your motherboard fan settings to power the pump if you want and the USB connection to link the pump with the L-Connect software.

The Galahad II Trinity Performance cooler has the exact same top housing with the swappable covers that get you the translucent ring and mirror or translucent center sections which is where the Galahad II Trinity gets the Trinity in the name. But all of that is attached to a squared-off pump design for this model. The water lines still run off of the side with pivotable right-angled connections and those lines are the same size. But the pump for the Galahad II Trinity Performance has been upgraded. You can also see that on the bottom contact surface which has a little more thickness to it and the corners while still rounded are closer to being squared off where the other design had a bigger radius. The pump has the same small RGb connections on it but they are hidden slightly on the corners which looks a little better if you ask me. This design also comes with the Intel bracket pre-installed but this bracket also has the spring-loaded screws already attached as well. It is the same 67mm in overall height and the wires come out in between the two water lines just like on the other pump design with a SATA power, USB, and fan header all with black flat wiring. The squared-off pump design allows for a larger 36mm pump impeller compared to the 31.4 mm impeller on the other Galahad II Trinity coolers. They also have a larger fin spacing on the waterblock as well.

I touched on the water lines when talking about the pump design. Both of the Galahad II Trinity coolers have the same black-sleeved hose design. That goes all the way to include the 45-degree fittings on the radiator side as well which is different than the traditional AIO design. The idea here was to help remove some strain that connection sees when your lines are pulling that direction but this will depend a lot on the layout of your case, not every case is going to benefit from having the lines pre-angled in that direction. It is a good thing that both kits come with the fans preinstalled because with the angle the lines would make installing the fans a little harder.

Just about every AIO design uses the same basic radiator designs with the ends being rounded off or square being the main change you see or maybe having the brand's logo printed or stamped into the side of the radiator. So going in I figured both Galahad II Trinity coolers would use the same triple 120mm fan 360 design but I was wrong there. The Galahad II Trinity SL-INF design has a traditional radiator design with squared off more modern-looking end caps and is 27mm thick. But the Galahad II Trinity Performance on the other hand has changed everything. The Galahad II Trinity Performance radiator is 32mm thick so it is slightly thicker than normal and it is wider as well with the inner edges of the radiator housing being closer to the 120mm fan width to be sure to take advantage of all of the airflow from the three 120mm fans. They also have a double wave fin design to get more surface area while also spacing the fins out more to get good airflow through the radiator. You can see the differences in the pictures near the bottom below here with both radiators next to each other. It is easy to miss the changes when you don’t have them next to each other. Beyond that the radiators do have stickers on the end for the serial number and barcode and they both did get the Lian Li branding stamped into the sides.

Of course, the fans between the two coolers are different and both are upgraded compared to the standard Galahad II Trinity as well. The base Trinity has ARGB fans but they are non-unifans. The Galahad II Trinity SL-INF has as the name implies has Uni Fan SL Infinity fans. These have two RGB lighting bars across the front on each side, translucent fan blades that light up, and also mirrored sides that have lighting in them with an infinity mirror design. This matches really well with the infinity mirror design on the pump. The SL-INF fans also have a mirrored center cap that matches everything. The three 120mm fans come preinstalled and are lined together as well with the slide-on cable connection at the end. This also have a flip-out cover where you can change the wiring direction depending on what works best with your build. The wire has a PWM fan connection and one RGB connection which is the big benefit of the Uni Fan design, in addition to linking together they cut down on the wiring, in this case from three sets of wires down to just one set. The SL-INF fans run at up to 2100 RPM at max speed and have a fluid dynamic bearing design. Lian Li has them rated at 29 decibels and at max speed they can push 61.3 CFM and 2.66 mm H2O for pressure.

The Galahad II Trinity Performance has a different fan design to go with its performance focus. They look a lot like the Lian Li Uni Fan P28s but they aren’t Uni Fans. They do have the same liquid crystal polymer construction and the sides have the same grove in the side but interestingly those are covers. The covers hide the daisy chain wiring that comes preinstalled and wired because these aren’t Uni-Fans that link together handling the wiring. Speaking of wiring out of the end of the end fan they have oen 4-pin PWM fan connection as well as a small box with a switch in it, this has full-speed and medium-speed fan settings. These fans run at 3000 RPM at high speed and 2300 RPM at medium speed. Where things get interesting are the other stats with them pushing 108.29 CFM at the full speed and 81.54 CFM on the medium setting with 6.99 mm H2O at max speed and 4.08 mm H2O at the medium speed. Lian Li has them rated at 39.9 decibels at full speed and 32.1 for the medium setting. They do have a fluid dynamic bearing design and because there isn’t a center cap at all you can see the metal cap on the fan. They do have the same rubber vibration pads as a uni-fan and like with the radiator these are a little bigger at 28mm for thickness. 

Test Bench

Noise Testing, Fitment, Lighting, and Software

While fitment is less of an issue when it comes to all-in-one coolers like the two Galahad II Trinity coolers we have here. In small form factor systems, however, it can still be important and with the pump height on this design being taller than anything else tested it is something to keep in mind. The same goes for the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 which has a thicker radiator, thicker fans, and a wider radiator as well. Any case that fits a wider 140mm fan isn’t going to be an issue there but cases that don’t might get tight so it is important to keep in mind. As far as the installation goes, this went a lot smoother than you might imagine. It is helped a lot by the fans being preinstalled which cuts out a lot of time. But both coolers also have some form of daisy-chained fan wiring which helps keep things simple as well. The Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 does have both the pump wiring and the fan controller as well which both need SATA and USB connections which does complicate things slightly but not too much. Then as far as installing the pump to the CPU at least for our testing with the Intel brackets this wasn’t too bad. The plastic spacers hold the backplate in place as well as peel-off stickers on the bracket. This bracket design was on both coolers. The Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 does come with the pump screws attached to the bracket but the SL-INF model doesn’t for some reason but funny enough I found the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 to be harder to get the screws started where with the individual screws I was able to hand start each of them.

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For noise testing, I set up our decibel meter 18 inches away from the coolers on our open-air test bench. I tested 100% and 50% fan speeds and then the under-load test is when I run the AIDA64 CPU workload using the stock fan profile. The Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 was surprisingly quiet in all three tests with none of the other AIO coolers being as quiet in any of the three tests and it was even quieter than the 120mm tower cooler as well. The Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 on the other hand was the loudest, at least in the 100% fan speed test. It was right with the Enermax coolers at 50% fan speed and for its under-load test, its improved cooling performance helped it do even better there running right with the Corsair and quieter than the Enermax coolers including the retested 360 model.

The Uni Fan SL Infinity fans that come with the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 will look familiar to anyone who reads our coverage often. That is because we have covered these fans in the past. I was a big fan of them then and am here as well. The lighting effect on the blade sides of the fans isn’t too crazy but with the blades themselves also lighting up and then the infinity lighting on the sides these are covered in lighting. All of the effects look good when run on these, being able to also match that up with the pump as well with both of the infinity lighting effects is a nice touch.

I then of course got pictures of the lighting on all three of the pump top configurations. For the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 this is the only lighting that the kit has but it is great that even though it has a performance focus there is still some lighting and also the customization that the multiple caps offer. The base cap with the metal ring has the Lian Li branding sitting in front of a double infinity mirror design with inner and outer rings that look like they tunnel down through the CPU. If that is too much for you the dual translucent covers light up with both the inner and outer rings having their own lighting or you can mix in the center infinity with the outer diffused light.

The pump lighting pictures don’t do it justice but I did get a few slightly shaky videos, one of each of the top configurations. All three look great and it depends on what look you are going for with your system at the time. I dig that none of them stand out more than the others like on the Corsair where one of the covers was the main one I would want to use. So you can even change things up from time to time in no time.

I should also point out that I did run into an issue with the lighting on the Galahad II Trinity Performance 360. Everything was in place and would have been working, but when I took the cap off the PCB that has all of the lighting ended up falling off. They use three metal standoffs that are attached to the PCB below and then three spring-loaded contacts that touch pads on the bottom of the lighting PCB. That pressure was enough to have it come apart. Lian Li did send us a replacement and everything is up and running already but on the chance that this issue is more common, I did want to note that it happened to us.

Last up I did take a look at the L-Connect software that controls both the Galahad II Trinity pump and lighting on both coolers as well as the lighting and fans on the SL-INF as well. This is the same software that Lian Li uses for all of their fans and coolers so if your build already has other Lian Li products you just need to make sure to have the most up to date version to support these new coolers. More importantly, that means that you will be able to tie all of your lighting and control in together. The L-Connect 3 software also tracks your CPU, Ram, and GPU with load clock speeds and temperatures when applicable. It also keeps track of your storage as well.

The fan/pump profile is where you can pick from a list of different fan profiles including making your own or setting flat specific speeds when needed. You can also tie the temperatures to different readings if needed but CPU temps is normally the main one there. For case fans, however, it can be nice to link some to your GPU temperatures to help bring in air to cool the GPU in situations where the CPU isn’t under load.

For the lighting, there is a quick sync lighting page where you can pick from a dropdown of effects and change things like speed, brightness, direction, and colors. This is just a broad entire PC lighting page. You can get into more settings in the next to pages with the GA II Trinity page being specific to the pump and the SL Infinity Lighting being specific to the three SL-Infinity fans that come with the SL-INF model. While they all come together, the software still sees them as two different products. For the pump that means you can control the lighting on top with a dropdown list of lighting effects and you also have different pump settings for pump speeds. The plug-in ARGB headers on the pump are all controlled here as well under the second tab up top.

The SL Infinity Lighting page then has pictures of the potential four sets of fans that could be hooked up to the controller. In our case, only one set is plugged in but all four will show the effects as you pick from them. Like with the pump page, you have a drop-down of fan settings for the fan speeds and then a second dropdown with the lighting effects. To the right then are all of the lighting effect options depending on the effect those will be different. It can be effect speeds, brightness, and direction as you see here, or picking individual or multiple colors for other effects.

Lastly up the settings page does have an update page. This not only checks for updates on the L-Connect software but the firmware on each of your devices so it is important to check this from time to time as well.

Cooling Performance

For performance testing, I put both of the Lian Li Galahad II Trinity coolers through our standard testing. This includes a few different workloads to heat things up. The most demanding of those is the AIDA 64 FPU workload. I tested this with the stock fan profile and again at 100% fan speed. Both of the triple 120mm coolers handled this surprisingly well. With the stock fan profile, the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 came in at 62c which matched the Aquafusion Adv 360 but the Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 on the other hand blew that out of the water at 59c. Testing again with 100% fan speed the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 matched the Aquafusion Adv at 60c but the Galahad II Trinity Performance knocked two degrees off of that for 58c.

While testing with the AIDA64 FPU workload I went in and turned out PL2 and amperage limits off and ran one more test. This test has every cooler maxing out the temperatures but big us a look at which cooler has more cooling overall, this is of course with the fans at 100% fan speed, not that they wouldn’t already be on the stock fan profile. The test is run until the wattage for the CPU stops dropping and levels off. The Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 outperformed the Aquafusion Adv here with an impressive 307 watts. The Galahad II Trinity Performance however said hold my bear and put down an impressive 323 watts making it the best performing cooler tested so far and by a large margin.

The AIDA64 Stress Test using the CPU workload is what I find to be more realistic than what you will see when gaming and using your PC normally. The FPU workload is closer to when you are rendering something. So it is no surprise that here the temperatures are lower with the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 matching the Aquafusion Adv with the stock fan profile at 55c and the Galahad II Trinity Performance knocking 2 degrees off of that at 53c. With the fans cranked up the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF 360 was one degree behind the Aquafusion Adv here but the Galahad II Trinity Performance did well at 48c.

Something to note btw, the Galahad II Trinity Performance was initially tested not knowing I didn’t have the pump RPMs turned up. They run at 4202 RPM when cranked up. Turning that down, even with the fan speeds at 100% made a 3-degree difference in most of our tests and for the CPU wattage test was the difference between 317 watts and 323. The 317 is still well ahead of anything else tested but it is surprising how much of a difference the pump speed from 3000 RPM to 4200 RPM made.

Overall and Final Verdict

Lian Li has been making big moves with their Uni-Fan lineup and with the new Galahad II Trinity coolers I think we can say the same goes for their coolers as well now. The base Galahad II Trinity that I didn’t get to look at here today has standard ARGB fans but the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF which was one of the two coolers tested today has a full set of three Uni Fan SL Infinity fans which is one of the upgrades that some people would already be considering. Not having to replace the fans means money is saved and less waste and the Galahad II Trinity SL-INF can match other SL Infinity fans in your system. Because it also comes with the controller you can also just buy individual SL-INF fans if you only need a few to complete your build.

The Galahad II Trinity SL-INF did surprisingly well when it came to our performance testing both for cooling and noise testing where it was the quietest of all of the coolers tested. The only downside specific to this configuration of the Galahad II Trinity is that the fans have their own controller so when combined with the pump lighting you will need two USB ports and two SATA power connections and the Lian Li software sees them as independent devices where a lot of similar setups from other companies would have that all tied in together.

The Galahad II Trinity lineup is available in 240mm and 360mm configurations with the base Galahad II Trinity and Galahad II Trinity SL-INF having both of those options as well as black and white models in each. The Galahad II Trinity Performance cooler on the other hand is only available in the 360 model and that isn’t too big of a deal. In my opinion, if you are looking for a performance-focused AIO cooler you will be looking at the larger 360 configuration anyhow. The Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 shares the same pump top design that the other coolers have as well which has great lighting and three different swappable configurations with one having a nice high-quality metal ring around it and two different designs with an infinity mirror incorporated which goes great with the SL-INF models Infinity fans that have the same design on the sides. The Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 on the other hand is unique compared to the base Galahad II Trinity and Galahad II Trinity SL-INF with its design having a thicker and wider radiator, performance-focused fans with no lighting, and an upgraded pump design as well. All of that in our testing put the Galahad II Trinity Performance way out in front in all of the cooling tests, with nothing performing anywhere close. For noise testing it did okay under load but the performance fans can get loud when cranked up to 100%.

All of the Galahad II Trinity designs come with their fans preinstalled which makes installation extremely easy. They also have some variation of daisy chaining of the fans. The SL-INF has the Uni Fan linked fans but the others have covered side panels with hidden cables to link everything together. This means just one set of wires going to the fans, not two or three, and is another reason why the Galahad II Trinity coolers are easy to install. The taller pump design does mean you should make sure it will fit if you have a compact small form factor build that you plan on using a Galahad II Trinity Cooler in. For the Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 this is especially true, the radiator is wider and thicker as are the fans, it shouldn’t be an issue in most systems but if your case was designed only for a 120mm wide radiator or if your motherboard is extremely close to the top with a top-mounted radiator it could cause clearance issues so be sure to check for that as well. Our Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 did also have an issue where the pump lighting PCB came off and Lian Li needed to send a replacement. These are pre-launch samples and things like that happen sometimes but it is an issue to at least keep an eye out for.

As far as pricing, I put together the table above to break down the pricing of all of the different variations of the Galahad II Trinity coolers. The Galahad II Trinity base cooler is available in 240 and 360 options and black and white for both. The 240 is $119.99 and the 360 is $149.99. This is more than some other similar options, for example, the Enermax AquaFusion Adv that I recently took a look at which also has ARGB lighting on the pump and fans is $99.99 and $119.99 for the same two sizes. The Galahad II Trinity SL-INF does cost more than that isn’t a surprise at all, you are getting upgraded fans. The 240 options are $159.99 and the 360 are $189.99. A three-pack of Uni Fan SL Infinity fans is $89.99 so if your plan was to upgrade to those fans this ends up being a nice value compared to the base cooler price. This is also the best looking option by far, the Infinity mirror design on the fans goes perfectly with the Galahad II Trinity pump top design. Then the Galahad II Trinity Performance 360 is $169.99. While the fans are similar to the Uni Fan P28 fans, they are a little different and aren’t a Uni Fan design but they are solid quality fans and the performance of that model is especially impressive. If you don’t mind not having lighting on your fans this is the real gem with it offering even better performance when testing with our 13900K test bench. Overall I like what Lian Li has going here and the swappable top design could be open to other designs which could include customization if someone was willing to design a 3d printable design. Lian Li is also showing that rather than integrating LCD screens you can still design something unique and in the case of the Galahad II Trinity Performance it shows that more performance is possible with AIO cooler designs when making it cheap isn’t the goal.

Live Pricing: HERE

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.