Introduction

The MasterLiquid Pro 240

With the enthusiast community growing more and more, it seems that everyone wants to squeeze a little more performance out of their PC these days. This is one of the many reasons that water cooling is becoming so popular. That being said, custom cooling can be rather expensive. There are alternatives to a custom loop such as cooling kits in a box. However, the most cost effective way to water cool are no doubt, the All in One, or AIO liquid cooler. With the recent release of their MasterLiquid Pro 240, Cooler Master gets it.  Responsible for one of the best air coolers ever created, the Hyper 212 Evo, Cooler Master knows cooling, it’s even in their name.  However, will their latest edition to their new Pro line of products live up to not only its name, but the Cooler Master reputation? We’d like to that Cooler Master for providing Proclockers with the MasterLiquid Pro 240 for this review. Now let’s take a look and see how it does.

About Cooler Master

“We're all about the things that make building a PC such a rewarding experience. The sense of achievement. The joy of making and creating something uniquely yours in form and function. The freedom that comes from complete control. And of course, the thrill of bringing your creation to life without melting your components”

Cooler Master is a computer hardware manufacturer from Taiwan. Founded in 1992, the company is an aftermarket brand for computer chassis, PSU, coolers, cooling pads, and other accessories. Aside from their own aftermarket cooling solutions, Cooler Master is also an OEM vendor for different brand names such as Nvidia, AMD and EVGA. They produce GPU coolers, CPU coolers and Heatsinks for the various companies.  In recent years the company expanded its brand exposure into gaming communities by sponsoring major events such as KODE5 and a case modding competition. They have also won awards such as the iF product design award.

Specifications and Features

• Model: MLY-D24M-A20MB-R1   MLY-D12X-A20MB-R1
• CPU Socket         Intel® LGA 2011-3 / 2011 / 1366 / 1150 / 1151 / 1156 / 1155 / 775
• AMD FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+
• Radiator Dimension:       275 x 118.5 x 27 mm
• Radiator Material:            Aluminum
• Fan Dimension: 120 x 120 x 25 mm
• Fan Speed:         650 ~ 2000RPM ± 10%
• Fan Air Flow:      66.7 CFM (Max) 113.32 m3/h (Max)
• Fan Air Pressure:  2.34 mmH2O ± 10% (Max)
• Fan MTT0F:         490,000 Hours
• Fan L-10:              70,000 Hours
• Fan Noise Level: 6 ~ dBA
• Fan Connector: 4-Pin
• Fan Rated Voltage:          12 VDC
• Water Block Dimensions:      94.8 x 68 x 56.9 mm (3.7 x 2.68 x 2.2 inch)
• Pump Water Block Material:       Copper
• Pump Speed:     1100 ~3300RPM (PWM)
• Pump Bearing Type:       Ceramic
• Pump Rated Amperage:               0.5 A
• Pump Power Connector:   4Pin (PWM)
• Tube Diameter:                Φ8 mm
• Tube Length:     358 ± 5mm
• Pump MTTF:      175,000 Hours
• Pump L-10:         50,000 Hours
• Pump Noise Level:      (dB-A)       < 12 dBA
• Pump Rated Voltage:     12 VDC
• Pump Power:    6.0W
• Pump LED:          Blue LED
• EAN Code:          4719512051672 
• UPC Code:          884102028205

One of the most glaring new features of the new generation of Cooler Master AIO coolers has to be the new MasterFan. The MasterFan is an air balanced fan with. These fans are ideal for use on denser radiators. The radiator now has a square fin design. The radiator also features a dual chamber design and is said to double the lifespan of the cooler. This allows for greater airflow through the radiator. The FEP Tubing lasts longer and is less absorbent that rubber. Their new precision water block has 657% more surface area for heat dissipation and their new pump design provides a 40% boost in performance while staying quieter than their previous generation pumps.  Like many other Cooler Master coolers, installation was a snap, requiring only a screwdriver.

Packaging

Here we see the front of the MasterLiquid Pro 240 packaging

The rear of the box shows a breakdown of the pump and block combo as well as the actual dimensions of the different parts of the cooler.

The side of the box that actually opens has a picture of the cooler full put together.

The opposite side of the box lists the specifications of the MasterLiqui9d Pro 240.

The Top of the box hast the Cooler Master logo on the top left corner and the product branding on the bottom right.

The MasterLiquid Pro 240 comes is an attractive black box with the Cooler Master Logo in the top left corner of the box and the and the product branding below it, taking up one third of the box. Behind the logo and product branding is a depiction of the MasterLiquid Pro 240. The rear of the box has a picture of the radiator, and breakdown of the pump and block. Near the bottom right corner of the box are pictures of the dimensions of the radiator, block and pump. Next to the diagrams of the dimensions, there’s an actual description of the cooler and a list of the main features in a number of different languages. The very bottom continues listing features in various languages. The left side of the box lists the specifications of the MasterLiquid Pro 240 and the right side simply displays a picture of the cooler with the fans installed. As for the top of the box, it displays the Cooler Master logo in the top left corner and the product branding on the bottom right corner.

Here is what you see when the package is first opened.

The MasterLiquid Pro 240 comes wrapped in plastic and packed in a combination of cardboard and soft foam. The small box id the accessories and mounting hardware.

Here is everything that comes packed with the MasterLiquid Pro 240

Once opened, you see the cooler wrapped in plastic and packed in a combination of cardboard and soft foam. There is also a small brown box that holds all the accessories, the mounting hardware, back plate, fan splitter and thermal paste.  The back plate and both AMD and Intel mounting brackets come packed n small plastic bags. However, the different screws and random hardware come packed in a convenient little plastic case, dividing each screw and bolt. I really like this, great touch. 

Here is everything unpacked and ready to be installed.

A Closer Look

 The FEP tubing on the MasterLiquid Pro is designed to not kink.

The Fins on the radiator have a square design to cover more of the area on the channels.

The MasterLiquid Pro uses FEP, or Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene tubing which prevents kinking.

The Pump on the MasterLiquid is an all new design.

The new block offers 657% more surface area.

Here you see a breakdown of the new pump design. You see that the pump and block are 2 different chambers.

The new block uses the Spray Method to disperse the water over the block,

Some people say if you’ve seen one AIO cooler, you’ve seen them all. Now that may be true on the surface, you need to go deeper into a product to find the differences. As reviewers, that’s exactly what we do. At first glance, one might think the radiator on the MasterLiquid is like any others. However, when you look closer, you see the difference. The MasterLiquid Pro 240 comes as a pre-filled, sealed, 240mm long by 27mm thick radiator. The radiator is attached to its custom pump and block combo via FEP, or Fluorinated Ethylene Propylenetubing. It has a unique square fin design on the radiator. This allows more of the fins to touch the channels. This creates greater surface area for absorption of the heat and allows for much better airflow. The pump and block attach to the radiator using ribbed FEP tubing. Although I’m personally not a fan of this tubing. I can see the benefits of it as opposed to rubber. First of all, the ribbed design prevents kinking, that’s a huge plus. Anyone who has cut flexible tubing to short knows what I mean. Over time, rubber tubing can swell, and with clear tubing, discolor. FEP tubing has neither of these issues. However, it’s much less flexible than rubber tubing. This can cause issues depending on where you intend to install. Luckily for me, this wasn’t an issues at all. The MasterLiquid Pro came with a rubber gasket to install between the fans and the radiator. This is a nice touch and can help prevent the fans from rattling a bit over time. The fans that come with the MasterLiquid Pro 240 are the new Cooler Master MasterFan AB. Or Air Balanced fans. They are neither Air Flow or Static Pressure fans. Rather the new MasterFans are a perfect combination of performance and low noise operation.  With a range between 650-2000 rpms, and an air flow of 66.7 CFM (cubic feet per minute) and a static pressure of 2.34 mmH2O, these fans are far from low grade.  The MasterFan has a 9 blade design with Polyoxymethylene, or POM bearings. The rubber anti-vibration pads are a great another feature of the MasterFan.  The rubber corners not only help to absorb fan rattling, but they also prevent the corners from cracking when over tightened. These are great fans. A definite upgrade from previous generations and worthy of their own review.  The MasterLiquid Pro comes with a PWM splitter for those motherboards that have limited fan headers.

The MasterLiquid Pro also used the newly designed MasterFans.

The MasterLiquid Pro comes with a gasket to place between the fans and the radiator.

The gasket helps to prevent the fans from rattling.

The New MasterFans have a 9 blade design.

The Rubber Mounts on the frame of the fans absorb fan rattle.

Being rubber, there is a fair amount of give on the which prevents cracking from overtightening.

The fan blades were designed after both jet engine and helicopter blades.

The MasterLiquid Pro is sporting the a newly designed pump and block combo. Unlike previous designs, the pump and block are completely independent from each other. They are connected via a small link between the two. Another great feature is the use of the spray method. Cooler Master has taken a page from traditional water blocks used in custom water cooling here. Unlike most AIO coolers who run the water through a series of fins, the MasterLiquid Pro sprays the water down from the top and out through the sides. This gives the MasterLiquid Pro a 40% boost in performance and a whopping 657% more surface area to work with. In theory, this should translate to lower temperatures and better performance. On the top of the block and pump combo is a clear piece of plastic with the Cooler Master logo covering up a blue LED. I can always appreciate components with LED, both static color and RGB. However, I wish there was at least a way to shut it off. I blue LED can throw off a red themed build pretty easily. It’s still a nice touch either way.

The pump has a static blue LED on the top under the Cooler Master logo.

Here is all the mounting hardware and literature that comes with the cooler.

This is the what you’ll need if you’re using and Intel CPU.

This is the hardware you’ll use if you have an AMD CPU.

Installation

Here is how the back plate is set up for an Intel LGA 11xx installation. For AMD, you flip the back plate around and use the other set of holes. For LGA 2011-v3 on the Intel enthusiast platform, no backplane is needed.

The bolts attach to the back plate and slide through the holes on the motherboard.

The 2 retention brackets attach to the pump and block combo with 2 small screws

Then apply thermal paste to the CPU.

You then install the pump over the bolts and tighten them down using the included nuts.

In the case I used I had to install the fans on the top of the radiator. Pushing air through the radiator.

The MasterLiquid Pro comes with an optional PWM Fan splitter

Installation was relatively easy.The first thing you should do is find the proper retention brackets and mount them to the pump and block combo. There are 2 sets of brackets. One for Intel and the other for AMD processors. Next step, mount the fans to the radiator. I mounted the fans on the top side of the radiator, so they are pushing air in from outside the machine. This is usually not the way I mount the fans.  However, this is how the case I used allowed me to install the cooler. For the record, this was no fault of Cooler Master. I then used the 8 included short screws to mount the radiator to the top of the Bitfenix Pandora case I used to test the MasterLiquid Pro.

The MasterLiquid Pro comes with everything you’d need for any AMD socket in recent memory, as far back as AM2+ and FM1. It also has mounting hardware for both main stream and enthusiast Intel platforms as far back as LGA 775 to the current LGA 1151 and 2011-v3. The MasterLiquid Pro has the same universal back plate found in the Hyper 212 Evo. Its set on one side for AMD sockets and the other for all Intel Sockets. There are a number of different screws, bolts, standoffs and nuts.

The included literature had detailed diagrams that depict what hardware is used for what sockets. Once the fans were mounted to the radiator, I used the 8 small screws to attach the radiator to the case. Once the radiator was mounted, the block and pump combo was simple to install. The bolts attach to the back plate using the small plastic clips. The bolts then slide through the holes in the board. However, if using and LGA 2011-v.3 board, you use the included standoffs. Once the back plate with bolts or standoffs are installed, you add the thermal pasteto the CPU. Then you simply slide the block over the bolts/standoffs and attach it using the included nuts. The block had to be installed sideways. This was due to the fact that it was the only way the pump sat naturally without the tubing bending too much. Luckily, the CPU fan header was below the socket on my AsrockZ170 Extreme 6. If it had been on the top of the motherboard, the PWM connection on the pump may not have been long enough. This was due to the placement of the pump. I do wish the PWM cable on the pump was a bit longer. Other than that, the MasterLiquid Pro 240 was very easy to install. Overall, it took a total of 15 minutes. Now, let’s see how well it performs.

The tubing is attached to the pump and the radiator using industrial strength sealant.

The ribbed design prevents kinking and looks really nice installed in a system.

The MasterLiquid Pro ready to go.

Testing and Performance

Test System:

• Asrock Z170 Extreme 6 motherboard
• Intel Core i7 6700k @ 4.5 GHz
• 32gb of G-Skill Ripjaws 4 (4 x 8gb) DDR4 2400 MHz
• MSI GTX 1070 Gaming
• 120gb Samsung 850 Evo M.2 (OS Drive)
• Corsair RM 850 80+ Gold Power Supply
• Bitfenix Pandora Full ATX Case

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast courier transform(FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

The 6700k was overclocked to 4.5 GHz

My testing is generally the same for testing all kinds of coolers. The ambient temperature in the room was 22°c and the PC was in a full tower chassis, the Bitfenix Pandora. I tested the CPU on both stock speeds as well as overclocked. I also record both idle temperatures and load temperatures 3 times each, with 20 minutes in between each test. The load temperature was recorded after Prime95 ran for 20 minutes on blended mode which stresses the CPU to 100% load. The stock speed of my 6700k is 4.0 GHz. I overclocked the CPU to a safe speed that just about any 6700k should be capable of hitting, 4.5 GHZ @ 1.30 volts. The stock temperatures were rather good overall. The CPU, at its stock speed, idled at a max temperature of 24°c on its hottest core. During the stress test, the CPU hit 71°c on the hottest core. Now everyone knows that when overclocked, your CPU draws more power and produces more heat. The 6700k overclocked to 4.5 idled at 26°c, only 2°c above the stock temperature. However, the stress test was a different story. The CPU hit 84°c on the hottest core during this stress test. This isn’t an excellent temperature, but with the amount of stress that Prime95 puts on your CPU, this isn’t surprising. The cooler ran relatively quiet, even with the fans running at 2000 rpms. However, I could hardly hear the pump even under full load. I feel that the MasterLiquid Pro did a pretty good job during the stress testing.

Here are the results while idle and under 100% load in Prime95 at both the stock speed of 4.0 GHz and overclocked to 4.5 GHzs

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The MasterLiquid Pro 240 with the fans in a pull configuration.

Although the MasterLiquid Pro is similar to many other AIO coolers, it has some definite major innovations. The separate pump and block combo offers a serious increase in cooling surface area along with the square fin and dual chamber radiator design. The new MasterFans perform excellent and stay relatively quiet. The Cooler Master logo on the radiator is simple and attractive and the matte finish looks great.  With the performance of the cooler and the innovations in design, I feel the price on $119.99 on Newegg and Amazon is a fair price. The totally redesigned Cooler Master AIO looks great and has performance to match. For this reason, its won the Proclockers “Highly Recommended” Award. This cooler goes great in just about any case. Especially if you plan on getting one of the New Master Cases from the new Cooler Master Pro series, grab a MasterLiquid Pro 240, you will not be disappointed!

Introduction

These days the market for All in One, or AIO Coolers is growing almost on a weekly basis. However, most of them are just more of the same, and it’s easy to tell. Especially where there are many AIO coolers today that look very much like their competitors. This is one of the many things that set the Deep Cool Captain EX apart from the rest.  With its unique “steampunk appearance”, The Captain 240 EX is far from more of the same. But is it simply the look and style of the block and pump that sets the Captain EX apart from the competition? I’d like to thank Deep Cool for sending us the Captain EX for this review.  Let’s see how the Captain EX does!

About Deep Cool

Founded on Beijing in 1996, with a factory in Shen Zhen.  Deep Cool is manufacturer of cooling and thermal products for desktops, laptops and servers. The product range of Deep Cool covers everything in CPU cooling, video card cooling, HDD cooling, server cooling, computer fans and other peripheral cooling devices. Their current flagship products include Gamer Storm, Ice Warrior, Killer Whale Premium and Ice Blade Pro. Over the last 20 years, Deep Cool has won awards from renowned websites and magazines like Tom’s Hardware, Techpowerup, TweakTown, HEXUS, Guru3d and more.

Features & Specifications

Product Dimensions

The most prominent feature of the Captain EX is by far the custom, “Steampunk” style block and “unique reactor-style pump housing” The high-density water microchannel cold plate, with powerful self-governed circulation system, is about 10% more efficient at heat dissipation than your average AIO cooler. It has a beautiful glass designed, and patented external circulation system. The three-phase induction motor, with built-in the powerful closed impeller offers stronger flow to the radiator. The ceramic bearings in the pump offer a longer than average pump, about 120,000 hours. The pump also has a breathing red LED while in operation. Their near silent TF 120 double blade fans offer high air pressure, 3.31mmH2O(MAX), for radiators. This makes the TF 120 fans more efficient at taking heat away.

Packaging & Unboxing

The front of the package shows off the red LED on the top of the pump and block combo.

The rear of the box shows the product dimensions and socket compatibility for both Intel and AMD sockets.

The left side of the package has the Gamer Storm logo, Captain 240 EX product branding and a QR code.

The right side of the package has the Gamer Storm logo, Captain EX product branding and a depiction of the Cooler itself.

The top of the box also has the Gamer Storm logo and Captain 240 EX product branding. Also on the top of the package is a list of the key features and specifications.

The Deep Cool Captain 240 Ex comes is an average size black box, with a depiction of the top of the LED illuminated block and pump combo in the center of the packaging. On the top right corner of the box is the Gamer Storm loge, on the top left are the words Visual AIO. This is referring to the red glass tubing going from one chamber to the other. Across the bottom of the front of the box is the actual product branding and a few key features of the Captain 240 EX.

Across the top of the rear of the box, we see not only the Gamer Storm logo on the left, but also the Deep Cool logo on the right. Directly below the Deep Cool logo is the Captain 240 EX product branding. Under the product branding, there is a detailed list of both the Intel and AMD sockets supported by the Captain 240 EX. TO the left of this list is a diagram of the product dimensions, both the radiator and the pump and block combo.

The top of the box, like the other sides, has the Gamer Storm logo and the Captain 240 EX product branding. Under that, there are a list of the key features to the left and the main specifications to the right. The left side of the box is silver, unlike the rest which is black. It has the usual logo and product branding, as well as a QR code. The right side of the box has a picture of the cooler with fans installed as well as the Gamer Storm logo and product branding. The bottom of the box has the logo, branding and the UPC code with  serial number.

When first opened, you see the cooler neatly packaged and the cold plate with pre-applied thermal paste.

The Cooler comes packed in a cardboard mold, custom fit to the Captain 240 EX, and wrapped in a plastic bag.

Like the cooler, the rest of the contents are also wrapped in plastic. Such as the fans, fans hub and mounting hardware.

The Captain 240 EX even comes with a metal case badge.

A Closer Look

The tubing on the Captain 240 EX swivels on the pump housing to allow easier installation.

Once removed from the box, we see how unique the Captain 240 EX is. Although the radiator is like many others, the rest of the cooler is where the differences are. The tubing is soft, flexible, and covered by nylon braiding. The ends of the tubing are metal clamps that attach to the barbs on both the radiator and the custom pump housing. The new style rubber tubing is anti-explosion, anti-corrosion, and crush resistance.

The Tubing has an outer diameter of about 12mm.

The radiator measures 274 mm in length and 27 mm in thickness. When the fans are installed on the radiator, the full thickness is about 53mm thick. This should allow the Captain 240 EX to be installed in just about any full or mid tower. The fins on the radiator are rather dense and close together, making this the perfect radiator for low speed fans and the high static pressure of the TF120s that are shipped with the cooler.

The braided tubing is attached to the barbs on the radiator and pump housing with metal clamps.

This is a close-up of the fins on the radiator on the Captain 240 EX.

This is a view of side of the radiator that the tubing is connected to.

The Captain 240 EX comes with 2 Deep Cool TF120 fans and a PWM fan hub with 4 connections.

The fans attach to the radiator with long, threaded screws.

The radiator with the fans installed measures about 53 mm thick.

The most unique part of the Captain 240 EX is by far the pump housing and block combo. It’s unlike any other pump housing on any other AIO cooler on the market. This is due to its “Steam Punk” design and red glass circulation tube. The pump works like so. The coolant enters the pump through the top. It then gets pumped through the glass tube into the bottom chamber. In the bottom chamber, it gets spread over the cold plate, through the fins and back out to the radiator.

The cold plate come with pre-applied thermal paste.

The Cold plate is made from copper.

The cold plate has an extremely high-density water microchannel with a powerful, self-governed circulation system. This upgraded cooling system is about 10% more efficient at water dissipation than previous generations. The pump has a new three-phase motor built into the powerful closed impeller. This allows for stronger flow and larger head delivery.

The top of the pump is a breathing, red LED light.

The “Visual AIO” portion of the pump is a red glass tube.

The front of the pump housing has the Gamer Storm logo on it.

The pump has a 3 pin PWN connection on a braided cable.

Both the intake and out take of the pump swivel to allow for easier installation.

The Fans

The fans have rubber corners to prevent vibration while in use.

The Deep Cool Captain 240 EX Comes with 2 Deep Cool TF120 fans. The TF120s are great as either case fans or for use on radiators. These fans have a dual layer blade design. The unique blade configuration to offer high static air pressure. The channelized frame to reduce the noise made by airflow. They have fluid dynamic bearings and a fan speed of 500-1800 RPM. These fans are rated at about 100,000 hours of use. They run near silent. Depending on the speed they are set at, they run between 17 and 31 decibels. The rubber mounts in the corners do an excellent job reducing vibration, and in turn, operation noise at the same time. The added fan hub is a great touch, especially for more budget related boards with fewer fan headers.

The TF120s have a dual layer blade design.

A Closer Look: The Installation

The Captain 240 EX was simple to install and could be done with absolutely no tools at all. That being said, it was easier to do with a Philips head screwdriver.  The Captain 240 EX comes with a universal back plate for both AMD and Intel. One side for AMD and the other for Intel.  The back plate has several different screw holes for different sockets. The Captain 240 EX Supports all consumer and enthusiast grade Intel sockets going back as far as LGA 1336 and 2011.  As for AMD, it supports both the FX lineup and the APU line up as far back as AM2 and FM1.

The Captain's mounting hardware supports all modern AMD and Intel sockets. Here you see all the mounting hardware as well as the fans and fan hub.

The mounting hardware for the consumer grade Intel sockets LGA 1336 and LGA 115X.

For the consumer grade Intel sockets, there are mounting pins that snap into the back plate.

The back plate was easy to install. The threaded pins snap into the rear of the back plate. They then slide through the holes in the motherboard and are fastened down by the larger threaded nuts to hold the backplate in place. You then slide the metal mounting brackets over the pins. They can be mounted either vertically or horizontally. Which way they are installed depends on the placement of the radiator and block.

The mounting pins snap into the back plate in different locations depending on the socket its being installed on. This is the configuration for Intels LGA 115X sockets.

The larger nuts that hold the back plate in place can be tightened by hand.

The mounting brackets can be installed vertically.

The brackets can also be installed horizontally. This is how I installed the mounting brackets for this installation.

This was the easiest part of the all-around easy installation. I installed the included TF120 fans on the top of the radiator. I usually install fans this way for no other reason than it's easier to clean them that way. At least in the specific case I installed the Captain 240 EX in which has a removable top dust filter to access the fans.

The pump housing has 2 mounting screws attached to it. These screws can be tightened by hand or with a screw driver. A screw driver is recommended.

The TF120 fans were top mounted to allow for easy cleaning of the fans. This also allowed me to add 2 additional fans on the other side of the radiator to allow for a push/pull configuration.

Another great touch of the Captain 240 EX was the included PWM fan hub. This is especially handy for the more budget oriented motherboards with few fan headers. The fan hub plugs into the CPU OPT header next to the CPU FAN header. This hub allows you to add up to 4 additional fans to your system. The 2 on the radiator and another 2 fans. This was perfect for the push pull configuration I set up on the Captain 240 EX.

The fan hub comes with a piece of double sided tape the length of the hub itself. This means it can be installed anywhere that’s convenient for the person installing it.

I installed the fan hub near the top behind the motherboard tray. This made it easy to conceal the fan wires.

The Captain 240 EX looks great installed on my Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5, especially with the red glass tubing to accent the red of the heatsinks and ram.

Overclocking & Testing

Test System

• Cooler Master MasterCase 3 MATX Chassis
• I5 4690k @ 4.4 GHz
• Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 MATX Motherboard
• 16gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866 MHz
• EVGA GTX 980 Classified
• Corsair RM850 Power Supply

Software

• Prime95
• CPUZ
• Core Temp

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast fourier transform(FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

My i5 4690k was overclocked to 4.4 Ghz for all testing.

The testing methods for all coolers is always the same to eliminate as many variables as possible. The ambient temperature in the room was a very cool 17°c. I tested the CPU on both stock speeds as well as overclocked. I also record both idle temperatures and load temperatures 3 times each, with 20 minutes in between each test. The load temperature was recorded after Prime95 ran for 20 minutes on blended mode which stresses the CPU to 100% load. The stock speed of my 4690k is 3.5 GHz. This processor is an excellent overclocker and could hit 4.4 GHz and pass all stress tests. The stock temperatures were excellent overall. The CPU, at its stock speed, idled at a max temperature of only 24°c on its hottest core. During the stress test, the CPU only hit 50°c on the hottest core. We all know that when overclocked, your CPU draws more power and produces more heat. The 4690k overclocked to 4.4 idled at 27°c, only 3°c above the stock temperature. Once we I ran prime95, it was a different story. However, the Captain 240 EX still did much better than I had expected. The CPU hit 80°c on the hottest core during this stress test. With the amount of stress that Prime95 puts on your CPU, this wasn’t a bad result at all. The cooler ran very quiet, even with the fans running at max. I could hardly even hear the pump even under full load. Over all, the Captain 240 EX did an excellent job with overclocking.

The temperatures at both stock and overclocked with great results in my opinion for a 240 mm AIO cooler.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

The Captain 240 EX ready to mount on the case.

With costom loops becoming more popular, its getting more dificult to be surprised by an All In One cooler. However the Deep Cool Captain 240 EX did just that. The performance of this cooler far exceeded my expectations. Even with the CPU overclocked 9 GHz, my 4690k didn’t hit 80 °c.  The Captain 240 EX not only performed great, but with its Stam Punk style design, it looks great as well. I had expected this cooler to be well over the $100 dollar mark. I has blown away to see it listed on Newegg for only $89.99!* The combination of the great look, excellent performance and amamzing price has earned the Deep Cool Captain 240 EX the proclockers “Best Value” award!  If you’re in the market for an AIO cooler, this amazing cooler would be a welcomed addition to any system!

The Deep Cool Captain installed in the MasterCase Pro 3.

Introduction

If the vocal minority of Enthusiasts had their way, liquid cooling would be the only method used in PC’s these days. However, the cost and complexity of liquid cooling, never mind the very act of combining liquids and expensive electronics into one sentence, can be a real turn off to many builders. Air cooling is still quite popular, and has come a long way from a simple fan screwed to a chunk of aluminum bolted right over your chips. Modern incarnations of air coolers employ some fancy feats of engineering to quietly cool your rig, and Cooler Masters new MasterAir Pro series coolers have a few tricks up their sleeve. With Flexible mounting options, a hand full of continuous direct contact copper heat pipes, and some of the most advanced fans ever made, can the MasterAir series coolers be the dry cooling solution you need to cool your PC? Let’s dive in and find out!

ProClockers would like to thank Cooler Master for sending these coolers over for us to check out!

About Cooler Master

“We're all about the things that make building a PC such a rewarding experience. The sense of achievement. The joy of making and creating something uniquely yours in form and function. The freedom that comes from complete control. And of course, the thrill of bringing your creation to life without melting your components”

Working on a hunch out of an apartment in Taipei with no support and no funding, a rogue product manager started inventing, improving, making and marketing new products. Despite the humble beginning, Roger Lin founded Cooler Master in 1992 and his innovative spirit has propelled Cooler Master to the market leader we all know today. Offering consumers a range of products such as power supplies, Coolers, Cases, and other accessories, they also provide the market many cooling solutions as the OEM to other companies like Nvidia, AMD and EVGA. In recent years the company expanded into gaming communities by sponsoring major events such as KODE5 and case modding competitions. They have also won many awards such as the iF product design award.

Features & Specifications

• Continuous Direct Contact 2.0: by compressing heatpipes together there is 45% more surface area of the cooler base which improves heat dissipation (compared to previous CDC 1.0)
• Perfect Combination of Air Flow and Heatsink: Stacked fin array ensures least airflow resistance which allows cooler air into the heatsink. The Patented Air-Guide and X-Vents steer extra ventilation to the hottest spots.
• Intuitive Fan Bracket Design: Makes upgrading and removing MasterFans a breeze.
• Installation Made Even Simpler: Choose between the sturdier X-bracket or simply use your fingers to pin your cooler to the motherboard with the push-pin bracket.

Most of the time, obstructions to air flow mean reduced cooling performance, but not in this case with Cooler Masters X-vent design.

Found on a few other Cooler Master Air coolers, such as the insanely popular Hyper 212 Evo air cooler, the patented X-Vent fin design reduces dead air hot spots in the cooler and increases cooling power, especially when more air is routed to these areas.

Introducing the MasterFan Air Balance Pro series

In tackling your case’s cooling needs, there is no ‘one fan fits all.’ Each of the three 120mm fans in the MasterFan Pro series provides a specific air cooling solution while all being fitted with multiple layers of our exclusive noise reduction technology and adjustable speed profiles. Put together, they work in harmony to cool your entire case and its components. Air Balance fans are ideal for blowing air through denser. We recommend them for use on CPU air coolers or the front panel. 

The MasterAir Pro Series Coolers are equipped With Cooler Master’s MasterFan Pro Series Air Balance Fans. The MasterAir Pro 3 comes with one MasterAir 92 AB and the MasterAir 4 comes with a MasterAir 120 AB fan. These are the same series of fans included with our recently reviewed MasterLiquid Pro 240 liquid cooler and are well suited to heatsinks and radiators alike.

Packaging & Unboxing

The Cooler Master MasterAir 3 and 4 both sport similar, full color boxes. The front of each is entirely covered with a picture of the cooler inside. The MasterAir 4 box is just a bit larger in all dimensions than the MasterAir 3.

The Rear of each box lists the features of the cooler in 8 languages while giving a quick measurement of the cooler so you can verify if it will fit in your case, an important thing to check BEFORE you get home.

The side of the box is where you can find the full list of specifications for each cooler. Both coolers support the same Sockets for Intel and AMD, including older legacy platforms such as AMD’s AM1 and Intel’s LGA-775 as well as a 5year warranty for both.

Inside we find a plain white box stuffed full of mounting hardware for nearly every platform available ad recently retired, and the cooler is securely protected in a form fitting plastic tray. The cooler comes in a plastic bag to prevent dust, which we have removed for the picture here.

Behind the tray we find the Backplate needed for a few mounting options, as well as a baggie with the manual and warranty information.

Both MasterAir coolers sport the same mounting hardware kit. You can choose to use the heavy duty X-Brace mount or the Intel Style Push Pins on Intel’s main-stream platforms, Or the X brace and some additional hardware for AMD sockets as well as Intel’s Enthusiast chips. Also included is a spare fan mount bracket in case you decide to double your airflow with the addition of another MasterFan down the road. The mounting instructions and warranty information are in another baggie hiding behind the plastic tray, along with the backplate bracket snapped into its own spot in the tray. The blister pack has the rest of the small parts for mounting, as well as a tube of Thermal Interface Material, enough for several applications.

A Closer Look

The Cooler Master MasterAir 4 dwarves the MasterAir 3 when side by side. The difference in size between the 3’s 92mm fan and the 4’s 120mm fan are glaringly obvious, but the MasterAir 4 also has another Heatpipe over its smaller sibling.

Tipping the coolers up on end reveals the Continuous Direct Contact 2.0 (CDC 2.0) area of the heatsink. This allows the heatpipes to sit directly on the CPU for maximum cooling potential. Since the heat is transferred in the middle of the Copper heatpipe, you almost get the heat moving power of 6 and 8 heatpipes respectively as opposed to 3 and 4 physical heatpipes you actually have. This bare copper thermal interface is protected with a protective cover that must be removed before installation. Plastic doesn’t conduct heat well.

This is the MasterAir 4 cooler with the Intel style Push-Pin mounting kit installed. With the plastic protector removed, you can get a good look at the CDC 2.0 interface that will mate with the CPU. 4 heatpipes wide is enough to fully cover the CPU cores on nearly any chip. The 8 screw holes on the outer edges of the aluminum base plate are for these mounts.

No need to worry about damaging your CPU or socket, the mounts and screws are a long way from contacting anything. The pin sticking up (or down in this picture) from the other side of the aluminum plate is used to align the X-bracket when it is used. 

The brackets holding the MasterFans just clip on to the heatsink and can be moved up and down and to either side. Or, both sides if you install a second fan.  You also get a good look here at the turbulence causing X-Vents around each heatpipe here sticking through the anodized top fin of the heat sink. The Cooler Master logo is also stamped into this top fin.

On the back of the MasterFans is a feature you won’t find listed on the box. a small switch that controls what profile the fan operates in. the MasterAir 3 92mm fan has 2 profiles, Quiet and Silent, while the larger 120mm fan found on the MasterAir 4 has 3 profiles, Silent, Quiet, and Performance. PWM control of the fans is possible in ay mode, but 100% PWM control range will be limited by the profile the fan is on. One last important thing to note here is the anti-vibration pads on the mounts. This prevents that horrible sound you would get from hard plastic vibrating on metal and ensures this cooler stays quiet.

System Configuration & Installation

Testing Hardware

• Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact
• Intel Core i7-6700k
• G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz DDR4
• EVGA GTX 980 SC
• Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD
• Corsair RM1000 Power supply
• Windows 7 Professional

General Performance Testing

• Prime95

Installation

Something every system builder worries about when choosing a larger cooler is clearances. To that end, we decided to try the Cooler Master MasterAir coolers on the most cramped system we had on hand, and ITX build powered by the Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact and the Intel i7-6700K. The first way we tried was with the heatsink oriented to blow towards the rear IO area. As you can see, it’s a tight fit, and one heatsink fin just ever so slightly touches the VRM daughterboard, but not enough to hurt anything.

We started with the largest cooler of the two, and in its natural state, the slightly taller than normal G.Skill TridentZ ram just barely touches the fan on the inner most stick. Since the fan can slide up the cooler a bit, this doesn’t cause any issues.

No issues with fan clearance with the VRM daughterboard on this end. This makes for a compact system that can still cool effectively. Let’s try turning the cooler 90 degrees.

The Cooler Master MasterAir 4 is nearly as big as the mini-ITX board under it! It looks great, except…

… on this tiny and very cramped board, it overlaps the inner most DIMM slot.

Thanks to the very tall heat spreaders on the G.Skill TridentZ ram, which is great for cooling the ram stick, it does interfere with the Cooler  just a bit too much to get both sticks installed comfortably. With normal sized ram sticks or a full sized board, you would likely never see this issue, and this is not the fault of the cooler or the ram, just a byproduct of stuffing a crazy amount of computing power into a very small space.

The good news is, the smaller MasterAir 3 clears just fine with this exact hardware combination.

Turning the cooler to blow towards the rear I/O area also yields plenty of clearance for this hardware combination. 

Testing & Performance

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast courier transform (FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

Both Coolers were tested on the same system with an ambient temperature of 70°F which is about 21°C. Each Prime95 Blended test was ran 3 times for 15 minutes each with the results averaged and allowed to cool 15-20 minutes between each test and run. Tests were performed at Stock speeds and voltages with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 40x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.5Ghz (45x Multiplier @1.3V) to push the coolers a little harder. As with any cooler, fan speeds can heavily affect cooling performance, so each test was run with the Asus Q-fan controlling the fan on its default standard profile, and again with the fan manually set to 100% speed for the duration of the test.

Both MasterFan’s were left on the default “Q” quiet speed range.  All Tests are reported in degrees Celcius.

The MasterAir 3 faired quite well in our testing. Running within 1 or 2 degrees of ambient while the CPU is idle. Overlocking a CPU is not linear on heat output, so a small increase in clock speed and the often required voltage increase can radically increase heat output under load. In the case of the MasterAir 3, Overclocking the Intel Core i7-6700k only increased the Idle temperature 1 to 2 degrees, and the fully loaded temperature a minor 14 degrees Celsius. Increasing the fan to maximum speed dropped the temperature back to only 8 degrees warmer while overclocked, but the 3000 RPM fan can be heard quite clearly at full tilt. Not annoying, but certainly audible on an open bench. It’s obvious from the testing there is still some headroom in this cooler for higher overclocks without the temperatures getting out of hand.

With the MasterAir 3 doing so well, it’s not much of a surprise that its bigger brother, the MasterAir 4 pulls even cooler numbers at only a few degrees above ambient on idle. The larger 120mm fan’s nearly doubled air flow and extra heatpipe give us wonderfully chilly loaded temperatures, even while overclocked to 4.5Ghz! Turning the larger 120mm MasterFan 120 AB fan up to 100% was a bit quieter, with only a 2000 RPM top speed, but with the cooler already running so well, it only dropped the temperatures of the CPU about 3 degrees, even while overclocked. 42 Degrees for an overclocked high end CPU while fully loaded on a torture test is great, and gaming on the same setup would yield temperatures the rarely break out of the 30’s.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Question: When you put the Cooler Master MasterAir 3 and MasterAir 4 back to back, who wins?

Don’t worry, its rhetorical, YOU, the Consumer is who wins. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo has long since been a De Facto standard in computer circles for an affordable yet still great performing air cooler, and Cooler Master has refined the design and married it to their awesome MasterFans for a killer combination in the MasterAir series coolers. Quiet Operation and great temperatures, even while overclocked make this one potent little cooler. The MasterAir 3 cooler carriers an MSRP of $39.99 at launch while the MasterAir 4 cooler is $44.99.

Introduction

When most enthusiasts think of how to cool their next build, an air cooler probably doesn’t even make the list. They are big, ugly, loud, can’t keep up with the heat over an overclocked CPU, and collect more dust than your furnace filter right? Actually, Enermax disagrees completely: Enter the new ETS-T50 Axe air cooler. With five large 6mm heat pipes, a 12CM 3 color LED fan with Dust Free Rotation, a patented adjustable air guide to direct exhaust air where you want it, and a staggering 250 watt+ TDP support, this cooler has capabilities that send many All in One liquid coolers home in shame. Can the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler really handle the heat, all while looking good, staying dust free and avoiding the complexity and cringe factor of having ‘liquid’ and ‘expensive computer’ in the same sentence? We are about to find out!

ProClockers would like to thank Enermax for sending the ETS-T50 Axe cooler over to us to try out!

Enermax Product Video

Enermax’s Take on the ETS-T50 Axe cooler

ETS-T50 AXE, a high-performance side-flow CPU cooler with 5 x Ø6mm heat pipes, features a 12cm DFRTM(Dust Free Rotation) technology fan and patented Pressure Differential Flow (PDF) design, offering users an outstanding cooling solution with powerful 250W TDP support. The patented Rotatable Air Guide is an ideal design for preferred airflow direction adjustment. With a patented circular-type 3-color LED fan, ETS-T50 AXE can deliver dazzling LED lighting effects and help gaming enthusiasts create a personalized look that matches their styles.

About Enermax

Established in 1990, Enermax has quickly grown into a world-renowned manufacturer of power supplies, cases, coolers and peripherals. Their farsighted R & D department is always striving to come up with the best and most satisfactory products with cutting edge designs. The spirit of “Technology Innovation” and “Quality First” to constantly create award winning products, recognized by numerous awards from iF, Red Dot, Good Design and Taiwan Excellence Awards Those are proven evidence of their top-notch quality and design competency recognized by the professionals and reviewers worldwide.

Features & Specifications

Features

Packaging & Unboxing

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe has a very colorful box. The top is taken up by 4 pictures, one each of the 4 lighting combinations, Red, Blue, Green or all 3 at once.

The Front of the Box gives a quick rundown of what makes this cooler stand out from the competition.

The rear shows the difference Enermax’s DFR (Dust Free Rotation) makes over time, as well as the lighting modes and some other features.

The Right side of the packaging gives the full specification as well as some dimensional drawings to help you determine if this will fit in your case.

And lastly, the Left side of the box gives the intro in several languages as well as a quick rundown of what all is in the box, most of which probably won’t mean anything to you until you are reading the installation instructions. 

Opening the box, we are immediately greeted with the ETS-T50 Axe Cooler nestled into a cardboard tray with the manual laying on top.

Pulling everything out of the box gives us the Axe cooler, the manual, and a box of installation hardware.

This is the complete pile of installation hardware that allows the ETS-T50 Axe to be installed on all modern and many recent sockets, from Intel’s LGA-775 up and from AMD’s AM2 and up.

Since the pile of mounting hardware is small, and the list of supported sockets is pretty high, Enermax had to create a special real mounting bracket with lots of carefully planned cutouts and bends. Here you can see the AMD and Intel sides of the bracket are offset to provide clearance for the given socket. Above is a close up of the Dow Corning TC-5121 Thermal interface material and spreader in its sealed blister pack.

A Closer Look

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler is a rather imposing monster of heat sink! It is 100 Painted black sans the CPU contact area on the bottom to ensure it blends in to your build.

The Rotatable Air Guide on the back can be swiveled 360 degrees so that the slightly angled louvers can direct airflow to the best location, a rear exhaust fan for example.

Looking from the side, you’ll notice the entire heatsink is off center from the socket so that the fan will not interfere with Ram slots.

The CPU contact area is all 5 heatpipes flattened out so they contact the CPU heat spreader directly, providing the best thermal transfer as opposed to some other designs on the market that have to transfer heat through an aluminum block before getting to the heatpipes.

As the Copper heatpipes are already very thin, Enermax was unable to get a mirror finish on the CPU contact area , but the machined area is perfectly flat anyway.

The Fan and air guide can both be removed easily with clips on each, and can be swapped around to the other side if needed.

The Enermax ED122512H-PAL-C 120mm fan with 3 color Vegas Effects. Here you get a good look at the short pig tail with the lighting mode button. It is only a few inches long, so it really doesn’t provide a system builder with a good way to access it from outside a case.

And last but certainly not least, the patented Pressure Differential Flow design of the heatsink fin stack.

System Configuration & Installation

Testing Hardware

• Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact
• Intel Core i7-6700k
• 32GB G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz DDR4
• Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD
• Corsair RM1000 Power supply
• Windows 7 Professional

 General Performance Testing

• Prime95

Installation

Something every system builder worries about when choosing a larger cooler is clearances. To that end, we decided to try the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler on the most cramped system we had on hand, and ITX build powered by the Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact and the Intel i7-6700K.

For Intel LGA 115x platforms, installation begins with installing the 4 bolts into the proper holes per the manual, then sliding the 4 plastic retaining clips over the ends to secure them.

After aligning the notches on the bracket to fit around the 3 socket retaining screws on the back, 4 plastic spacers are placed over the protruding bolts on the front.

After placing the 2 cross-members over the bolts and installing the nuts, the cooler is ready to be installed.

This is where I ran into the first and only problem with this cooler’s design. Due to the asymmetrical heatpipe design, the stack of fins overlaps the rear mounting screw. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but my standard screw driver was not long enough on the shank to be able to access this screw straight on.

You can see the screw is back from the edge a fair bit, and can only be access through a slot cut in the heatsink fins.

Whichever Phillips style screw driver you end up using, you need at least 5 inches of smooth shank to reach this screw. I ended up getting around it with another driver and an extension, but it did slow the show down for a few minutes while I went after other tools.

With the fan and air guide assembly snapped back on, we can finally check out clearances. Keep in mind this is a very cramped little board with almost no spare room anywhere, so if the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe fits on here, it should fit on any other board with no worries. In this case, the edge of the heat sink just barely rests on the VRM daughterboard and bends the lowest fin just a fraction of a millimeter.

Again, in this cramped build, the clearances are very close. As you can see, the fan just barely contacts the top edge of the fin on the G.Skill TridentZ ram, which is quite tall for DDR4 ram. There is no danger of damage here and the fan assembly can be slid up the heat sink just a few millimeters to clear with no issue at all. There are no other places with contact or anything else to mention here, so let’s fire it up and see how it performs!

Testing & Performance

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast courier transform (FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler was tested on the above system with an ambient temperature of 70°F which is about 21°C. Each Prime95 Blended test was ran 3 times for 15 minutes each with the results averaged and allowed to cool 15-20 minutes between each test and run. Tests were performed at Stock speeds and voltages with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 40x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.5Ghz (45x Multiplier @1.3V) to push the cooler a little harder. . As with any cooler, fan speeds can heavily affect cooling performance, so each test was run with the Asus Q-fan controlling the fan on its default standard profile, and again with the fan manually set to 100% speed for the duration of the test. All Tests are reported in degrees Celsius.

You can see above that The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler turns in great temperatures under load, in fact, bumping the CPU up to a moderate overclock of 4.5 Ghz from stock only raised the temperatures about 2 degrees under load. The Idle temperature stayed about 4 degrees above ambient, which is not the best we have ever seen, but considering the loaded temperatures barely even register as warm, with automatic fan speeds never exceeding a gentle whisper of 1350RPM, we have to say it does a great job over all.

With such icy temperatures coming in from our Skylake based test system, it’s obvious this configuration isn’t even putting a dent in this coolers capability, so let’s crank up the heat!

Testing Hardware #2

• Asus X99-M WS
• Intel Core i7-5960X
• 64GB G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz DDR4
• Samsung 840 Evo 1 TB SSD
• Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G RGB 1250W Titanium
• Windows 7 Professional

The same tests were performed at again at stock speed with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 30x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.0Ghz (40x Multiplier @1.2V). For this test, we left the CPU fan speed in Control of the motherboard’s ‘Q-Fan’ fan profile on standard.

This round of testing put a much heavier load on the cooler, as indicated by the increased idle temperatures, about 10-12C warmer than ambient with loaded temperatures climbing to a still respectable 50C under load and 61C under load while overclocked. The Haswell-E based Core i7-5960X has a TDP of 140 Watts at stock, and scales up quite rapidly when overclocked due to eight hyper-threaded cores inside, but it’s clear the 250W+ TDP of the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler is more than up to the task of even enthusiast chips.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler is a formidable contender in the high end air cooler market, and one of the few that can handle heavy overclocking and Enthusiast chips without melting. The Fan offers Enermax’s unique Vegas lighting effects and moves plenty of air for this cooler, while staying relatively quiet through most of its range, but we did find the Effect control button far too short for our liking. The lights are very bright and the ability to turn them off without having to remove the side door of your case would be nice. Installation is straight forward and can be done pretty quickly, provided you have a long enough screw driver before you start. Overall, we must award this our Highly Recommended Award! Great Job Enermax!

Buy from Enermax.com

Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler Black

Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler White

Buy at other online retailers

Introduction

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid 280 has the same custom pump that made the MasterLiquid 240 so unique.

One of the biggest decisions when starting a new build is how to cool your CPU. Many people choose to go with air cooling because they think liquid is too expensive, or too risky. Many go with a simple AIO, or All in One cooler. I’ve heard people say that all in ones are god, but a 240 mm AIO doesn’t give them enough of a performance increase. To them I’d say Cooler Master had got you covered. With the launch of the Master Liquid 240, Cooler Master had completely designed their pump and reservoir combo, with welcomed results. Now, with the Master Liquid 280, the have again implemented that same concept on to a 280mm All in One cooler. I’d like to thank Cooler Master for providing ProClockers with their product for our earlier Master Liquid 240 review. Now let’s see if the 280-mm cooler performs that much better than its 240 mm counterpart.

About Cooler Master

“We're all about the things that make building a PC such a rewarding experience. The sense of achievement. The joy of making and creating something uniquely yours in form and function. The freedom that comes from complete control. And of course, the thrill of bringing your creation to life without melting your components”

Cooler Master is a computer hardware manufacturer from Taiwan. Founded in 1992, the company is an aftermarket brand for computer chassis, PSU, coolers, cooling pads, and other accessories. Aside from their own aftermarket cooling solutions, Cooler Master is also an OEM vendor for different brand names such as Nvidia, AMD and EVGA. They produce GPU coolers, CPU coolers and Heatsinks for the various companies. In recent years, the company expanded its brand exposure into gaming communities by sponsoring major events such as KODE5 and a case modding competition. They have also won awards such as the iF product design award.

Features & Specifications

Like the MasterLiquid 240, the 280 is sporting the newly designed, dual chamber pump and reservoir combo and the all new MasterFans from Cooler Master. The MasterFan is an air balanced fan. These fans are ideal for use on dense radiators. The radiator now has a square fin design. The radiator also features a dual chamber design and is said to double the lifespan of the cooler. This allows for greater airflow through the radiator. The MasterLiquid 280 has the same The FEP Tubing as the 240mm variant. FEP tubing lasts longer and is less absorbent that rubber. However, there is one major difference on the tubing on the MasterLiquid 280. That difference is the nylon sleeve over the tubing. This is simply for aesthetic purposes, but it’s a great touch if you ask me. The MasterLiquid 280 also has their new precision water block with 657% more surface area for heat dissipation and their new pump design provides a 40% boost in performance while staying quieter than their previous generation pumps. Like many other Cooler Master coolers, installation was very easy, requiring only a screwdriver.

Packaging & Unboxing

The Front of the package depicts the MasterLiquid Pro 280 with the blue LED illuminated.

The rear of the package has a blown-out depiction of the custom pump and block combo as well as the dimensions of the product. There is also the Cooler Master Logo, product branding and a list of the main features in several languages.

The list of features in multiple languages continues on the bottom of the package.

The left side of the box lists the specifications of each aspect of the cooler, including the new MasterFan.

The right side of the package shows a depiction of the cooler and the block.

The top of the package has the Cooler Master logo and the MasterLiquid Pro 280 product branding.

The packaging of The MasterLiquid 280 is very like that of the MasterLiquid 240, just a bit larger. The MasterLiquid Pro 280 comes is an attractive black box with the Cooler Master Logo in the top left corner of the box and the and the product branding below it, taking up one third of the box. Behind the logo and product branding is a depiction of the MasterLiquid Pro 280. The rear of the box has a picture of the radiator, and breakdown of the pump and block. Near the bottom right corner of the box are pictures of the dimensions of the radiator, block and pump. Below this is a diagram of the dimensions of each component of the MasterLiquid Pro 280. To the left of the diagram, there’s a description of the cooler with the product branding directly above the description. Below the brief description is a list of the main features in several different languages. The very bottom continues listing features in various languages. The left side of the box lists the specifications of the MasterLiquid Pro 280 and the right side simply displays a picture of the cooler with the fans installed. As for the top of the box, it displays the Cooler Master logo in the top left corner and the product branding on the bottom right corner.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 comes neatly packed in cardboard, plastic and soft foam.

All the accessories come packed in a small box.

The packaging for the cooler is excellent and insures the MasterLiquid Pro 280 arrives undamaged.

The pump and block combo comes in its own box that’s packed with soft foam to protect the block in transit.

The fans come wrapped in plastic and packed in the cardboard with the radiator.

Once opened, you see the cooler wrapped in plastic and packed in a combination of cardboard and soft foam. The actual block is surrounded by soft foam that’s secured in cardboard. Along with the cooler is a small brown box that holds all the accessories, the mounting hardware, back plate, fan splitter and thermal paste. The back plate is universal, the same one that Cooler Master uses on many of its coolers including the Hyper 212 Evo. One side for Intel, and the other for AMD. Also in the small box of hardware are both AMD and Intel mounting brackets that come packed in small plastic bags. All the different screws and random hardware come packed in a convenient little plastic case, dividing each screw and bolt, much like the MasterLiquid Pro 240. I hope this continues to be the case and that other companies adopt similar ways to pack the mounting hardware.

Here you see The MasterLiquid Pro 280 with all its accessories.

A Closer Look

The radiator has the Cooler Master logo and MasterLiquid Pro 280 product branding on the side of the radiator.

Although the MasterLiquid Pro 280 has nylon sleeved tubing, it’s the same corrugated FEP tubing on the MasterLiquid Pro 240 that is designed to prevent kinking.

The radiator on the MasterLiquid Pro 280 has a unique square fin that allows for better airflow.

When you look at an All-in-One cooler, most anyone can point out the similarities with most AIO coolers. After testing several these coolers, there are a fair amount of similarities in most AIO coolers. As a reviewer, it’s my job to find, and point out the differences that set each apart. As it pertains to the MasterLiquid Pro 280, there are several things that set it apart from not only the competition, but it’s 240 mm little brother. Like the MasterLiquid Pro 240, the 280 variant has a radiator that’s 27mm thick. The radiator on the MasterLiquid 280 has a square fin design. This design allows for better airflow through the radiator. 

The FEP, or Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene tubing on the MasterLiquid Pro 280 is covered by a nylon sleeve and greatly improves the aesthetic of the cooler.

The FEP tubing has an outer diameter of about 2mm.

The FEP tubing is connected on a barb fitting via black heat shrink.

The radiator is connected via the same FEP, or Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene tubing, that was on the MasterLiquid 240. However, there is one major difference with the 280 version. If you read my MasterLiquid Pro 240 review, you’ll know I wasn’t a fan of the tubing. Although it is the same tubing, the MasterLiquid 280 comes with nylon sleeving over the FEP tubing. The tubing on the MasterLiquid Pro 280 is not only more flexible, but it looks much better than the corrugated FEP tubing on the MasterLiquid Pro 240. It’s a great touch and it may seem like a small detail, but it made a huge difference. You still get all the benefits of the FEP tubing, such as it resistance to kinking and it will never swell.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 comes with a large black gasket that is installed between the MasterFans and the radiator. There is also a PWM splitter. This comes in handy for motherboards with fewer fan headers.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 comes packed with 2 of the new Cooler Master 140mm MasterFans.

The new MasterFans also have nylon sleeving on their wires.

The MasterFans are connected by a 4-pin PWM connection.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280, like the 240, comes packed with a large rubber gasket. This gasket installs between the fans and the radiator. Over time, the mounting screws for the fans can loosen and begin to rattle. This gasket helps to prevent that from happening. Like everything else in their “Master” line up of products, Cooler Master has also upgraded their fans to the new MasterFan AB, or Air Balanced Fan. The MasterFan Pro 140 has a 5-blade design with Polyoxymethylene, or POM bearings. This is different from the 120mm variant that have a 9-blade design.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 is a 5-blade design fan.

The MasterFans have hard rubber mounting brackets. They not only prevent the corners from cracking, but also help to prevent rattling over time.

They are neither Air Flow or Static Pressure fans. Rather the new MasterFans are a perfect combination of performance and low noise operation. With a range between 650-2200 rpm, an air flow of 64.21 CFM (cubic feet per minute) and a static pressure of 3.15 mmH2O, these fans are far from low grade. Each corner comes equipped with rubber anti-vibration pads, which are another great another feature of the MasterFan. The rubber corners not only help to absorb fan rattling, but they also prevent the corners from cracking when over tightened. The MasterFan is a significant upgrade from previous generations. The MasterLiquid Pro comes with a PWM splitter for those motherboards that have limited fan headers, perfect for the smaller form factor, or older motherboards with limited fan headers.

Here is a blown-out view of the pump and block combo.

The block and pump combo is unique to Cooler Master. Its dual chamber design gives the MasterLiquid Pro 280 a 40% boost in performance and 657% more surface for cooling.

This diagram explains how their all new, dual chamber pump and block works. It uses the “Spray” method to disburse the water over the fins, like that of a block on a custom loop.

The cold plate is one large piece of copper.

Like the Master Liquid Pro 240, the 280 variant has the same, newly designed pump and block combo. With the MasterLiquid series, the pump and block are in 2 separate chambers, and connected via hard plastic tubing. Unlike traditional AIO coolers that pass the coolant over the fins on the block from one side to the other, the MasterLiquid coolers take a similar approach to blocks on custom loops. The coolant in sprayed down on the block from above, and then out through the side. This gives the MasterLiquid Pro a 40% boost in performance and a massive 657% more surface area to work with. This method was proven with the MasterLiquid 240 to give lower temperatures and better performance.

The top of the block has the Cooler Master logo on a clear plastic top. Underneath, there is a blue LED that illuminates when the PC is on.

This is what the block looks like with the blue LED illuminated.

The top of the block and pump combo is a clear piece of plastic with the Cooler Master logo covering up a blue LED. I can always appreciate hardware with LEDs, both static color and RGB. However, I wish there was at least a way to shut it off. I blue LED can throw off a red themed build easily. It’s still a nice touch either way and I always use blue in my builds anyway.

The front of the radiator has the Cooler Master logo and product branding printed on it.

The fittings on the pump swivel. This makes it easier to install the MasterLiquid Pro 280 in almost any configuration.

The radiator on the MasterLiquid Pro 280 has mounting holes for both 140 and 120mm fans. This could come in handy if you wanted to install 4 fans, but lack the room for 4 x 140mm fans. My MasterCase Pro 3 is a good example of this. I could fit 2 x 120 mm fans on the underside with 2 x 140mm fans on the top. But not 4 x 140 mm fans.

In a few cases, this small nipple can cause an issue with installation. The Bitfenix Pandora for example.

This side view of the radiator shows the 140 and 120mm mounting holes for fans.

Installation

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 with the fans installed in a pull configuration.

System

• Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 3
• Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280
• Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 MATX Motherboard
• Intel i5 4690k @ 4.5 GHz
• Nvidia GTX 980 Classified
• 16gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866 MHz
• Corsair RM850 PSU
• SanDisk SSD Plus 240 gb SSD

The mounting hardware comes packed in a small plastic package with each screw, nut and bolt separated. Here are the mounting brackets for Intel.

There are separate mounting brackets for AMD motherboards as well.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 also comes with Cooler Masters New Master Paste thermal paste.

The back plate is universal. It’s the same back plate used on many of Cooler Masters coolers. Either side is labeled for both AMD and Intel.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 comes with everything you’d need for any AMD socket in recent memory, as far back as AM2+ and FM1. It also has mounting hardware for both main stream and enthusiast Intel platforms as far back as LGA 775 to the current LGA 1151 and 2011-v3. The MasterLiquid Pro has the same universal back plate found in the Hyper 212 Evo. It’s set on one side for AMD sockets and the other for all Intel Sockets. There are several different screws, bolts, standoffs and nuts.

Here you see the back plate installed on my Z97MX Gaming 5 motherboard from Gigabyte.

The fans were mounted in a push configuration due to the radiator bracket on the MasterCase Pro 3.

Installation was relatively easy. The first thing you should do is find the proper retention brackets and mount them to the pump and block combo. There are 2 sets of brackets. One for Intel and the other for AMD processors. Next step, mount the fans to the radiator. I mounted the fans on the top side of the radiator, so they are pushing air in from outside the machine. I usually install the fans in a pull configuration, just my personal preference. However, I could not do so in my MasterCase Pro 3. If you read my MasterCase Pro 3 review, or have used the case, you’ll know it has removable radiator brackets on the top and the front. These brackets do fit up to a 280mm radiator. However, since the MasterLiquid Pro 280 is so massive, the radiator wouldn’t fit in the bracket. However, the fans did. Therefore, the fans were mounted on the top of the radiator, in the bracket, pushing air through the radiator.

On either side of the pump, there are holes for mounting the brackets.

The brackets mount to the block like you see in the picture above.

The paperwork that was included gives a detailed description as to how to go about installing the cooler. First step was installing the back plate to the motherboard. To prep the back plate, I first found the holes on the back plate labeled for LGA 115x. You then take the 4 included bolts and slide them through the proper holes, and attach them with the included plastic clips. The clips secure the bolts on place on the back plate. To hold the back plate in place while the block was being installed, I used a couple of small pieces of electrical tape. An easy solution would be to simply add 2 small strips of double sided tape installed on to the back plate. This would make this already easy installation that much easier.

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 was easy to install. However, I wish the front tube in this picture was a bit longer than the back tube. It would have greatly increased the aesthetic of the final product.

The radiator was installed with the 8 included long screws. There are also 8 short screws included. However, since I have the fans installed on the top, pushing air through the radiator, I had to use the long screws. This was a bit tricky and could have used a second pair of hands. However, since I was alone, I simply taped the fans in place, on the radiator bracket. This made installing the radiator much easier. Once that is done, remove the sticker on the block. I’m amazed at how many people forget to do this. The apply the thermal paste to the CPU. The block has 2 mounting brackets that are attached to either side of it. One set of brackets for AMD and another for Intel. Once the brackets are installed, simply slide them over the bolts that are installed on the back plate. Use the 4 included nuts to attach the block to the bolts. Tighten the nuts by hand as much as possible in a cross pattern. Then finishing tightening them with a flat head screwdriver. I do wish they had made the nuts to be used with a Philips head screwdriver, but that’s just me being picky. Overall installation was very easy and took all of 10 minutes.

Testing & Performance

Test System

• Cooler Master MasterCase 3 MATX Chassis
• I5 4690k @ 4.5 GHz
• Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 MATX Motherboard
• 16gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866 MHz
• EVGA GTX 980 Classified
• Corsair RM850 Power Supply

Testing Software

• Prime95
• CPUZ
• Core Temp
• Cinebench R15

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers. Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast fourier transform(FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

Cinebench R15

Based on MAXON's award-winning animation software Cinema 4D, CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. It has both the single thread and full performance test for your CPU, as well as an Open-GL test for your GPU. Cinebench R15 is one of the most widely used benchmarks used to test the performance. It puts the CPU under 100% load, but only for a very short time. Its gives a good baseline for your CPU. However, I wouldn’t use it for testing the stability of an overclock.

I scored a 647 cb in Cinebench R15 on my 4690k with the MasterLiquid 280. This is the highest score I’ve ever achieved with this CPU.

All benchmarks were run with my i5 4690k overclocked to 4.5 GHz.

The results for the MasterLiquid Pro 280 were impressive for an All in One Cooler. Never going over 75°c under heavy load.

Just for comparison, here are the results for the MasterLiquid Pro 240.

I try to keep the testing for all coolers the same, at least to the best of my ability. Ambient temperature was 22°c during all testing. I tested the CPU on both stock speeds as well as overclocked. I also record both idle temperatures and load temperatures 3 times each, with 20 minutes in between each test. The load temperature was recorded after Prime95 ran for 20 minutes on blended mode which stresses the CPU to 100% load. This was the first cooler that got my 4690k to 4.5 GHz at 1.37 volts. Considering the stock speed is 3.5 GHz, I was happy with this result. I was also pleased with the results of the Prime95 tests. Running at stock speeds, the hottest core hit 62°c. After almost 30 minutes, the 4690k was idling at 21°c. This was much better than the results from the MasterLiquid 240 I recently reviewed. My 4690k idled at 24°c and hit 71°c on it stock speeds.

Overclocked to 4.4 GHz, the MasterLiquid Pro 240 idles at 26°c and hit a toasty 84°c on its hottest core. The MasterLiquid Pro 280 did a much better job both at stock and overclocked. It’s not a huge surprise that a 280mm cooler would do better than a 240mm cooler. However, I was surprised at how much better it did. I was I able to get my 4690k to 4.5 GHz with the MasterLiquid 280. The CPU idled at 25°c and only hit 75°c on its hottest core. That was 9°c cooler than the MasterLiquid 240. With the amount of stress that Prime95 puts on your CPU, that is impressive for an All in One cooler in my book. Like our Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 review, the pump on the 280 was relatively quiet, even under a heavy load.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

The MasterLiquid Pro 280 performed very well under heavy load. However, it performed excellent under a moderate load, such as gaming or light benchmarking, For example, overclocked to 4.5 GHz while gaming for well over an hour, my 4690k never went over 62°c.

With the MasterLiquid Pro 280, Cooler Master took everything great about the MasterLiquid 240 and improved upon it. The separate pump and block combo offers innovation, an increase in cooling surface area, as does the square fin and dual chamber radiator design. It offers a substantial increase in performance over its 240mm counterpart. The addition of nylon sleeving increases the aesthetics of this cooler 10-fold over that of the MasterLiquid Pro 240.

I feel the MSRP of $129.99 is a fair price for outstanding performance out of an AIO cooler. You can buy the MasterLiquid 280 on the Cooler Master web store as of the publication date of this review. With the performance of the excellent cooler, I’m happy to award the Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280 the Proclockers “Editor’s Choice” award. It’s by far the best 280mm All in One cooler I’ve personally ever tested. It looks great and performs just as well. To top it all off, it goes great with Cooler Masters Master line up of cases. If you are in the market for an All in One cooler, look no further than the MasterLiquid Pro 280 from Cooler Master.

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Pro 280 installed in running in the Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 3.

Introduction

MSI is one of the most well-known names in the Enthusiast PC world thanks to their popular Laptops, Motherboards, GPU’s and peripherals. Their Frozr GPU cooling solutions have proven to provide some of the coolest running cards on the market, and now MSI is stepping into the CPU cooling arena with their new Core Frozr L CPU Cooler. Does the technology behind a cool running GPU apply to a CPU as well when the clock speeds start going up? Can an air cooler even compete in world that is being overrun with All-in-One liquid cooling solutions? We are about to find out!

ProClockers would like to thank MSI for sending the Core Frozr L CPU Cooler to use to check out!

About MSI

“As a world leading gaming brand, MSI keeps raising the bar in design and innovation of its GAMING Series products and has been a long-term sponsor of global eSports teams. Outstanding teamwork of MSI's senior R&D staff and professional gamers culminates in the creation of every MSI GAMING product. At the core of MSI's innovation remains an unwavering commitment to provide Top Player with Top Choice products. Apart from its partnership with more than 15 pro-gaming teams around the world, MSI is also an active participant in international gaming tournaments and the host of MSI MGA (Masters Gaming Arena, a world-renowned gaming event. Thrilling in quality and performance, the MSI GAMING Series has proven to meet the most demanding tournament needs, bringing out pro-gamers’ best performance and leading them to one victory after another in the global eSports scene. All the above accounts for dominant eSports teams' and professional gamers’ trust and decision to choose the MSI GAMING Series that helps them achieve more in their quest for world championship.”

Features & Specifications

Features

• Nickel-plated copper base connected with four highly efficient 8mm heat pipes and aluminum fins to dissipate up to 200W of heat from the CPU
• Premium Thermal Compound X ensures lasting heat conductivity
• Airflow control technology uses special deflectors in the fins to direct more air onto the heat pipes for better cooling.
• 120mm Fan featuring the award-winning MSI TORX design uses Hydro-dynamic bearing to increase airflow
• 2 sets of Fan clips compatible with 120mm, allowing for dual-fan setup in push/pull configuration
• Smart base design leaves space for graphics card on 1st PCI-e slot
• Easy to install and compatible with all Intel and AMD platforms
• Metal CPU cooler back plate for extra toughness to prevent motherboard bending through long term usage
• Customizable cover panels in black & silver included in the box featuring the MSI GAMING shield LED

TORX FANS FOR MAX AIRFLOW

Using MSI’s patented TORX Fan technology which can also be found on our famous GAMING series graphics cards, a massive amount of airflow is generated for highly effective cooling. The unique combination of two different type of fan blades also ensures that the cooler stays relatively silent under extreme load situations.

Dispersion Fan Blade - has a steeper curved blade which accelerates the airflow, increasing its effectiveness.
Traditional Fan Blade - pushes down a steady airflow to the massive heatsink below.
Thrust Bearing - Spinning smoothly on self-lubricating hydro dynamic bearings, the fan has a very long lifespan under constant operation.

A SOLID BASE FOR GAMING

Core Frozr L uses a solid nickel-plated copper baseplate which creates a large highly conductive area that catches the heat from the CPU and efficiently passes it on to the connected heatpipes.

HEATPIPES & FINS

Four 8mm SuperPipes reach up from the baseplate into an impressive array of aluminum fins. The fins are equipped with Airflow Control technology to direct the flow of air precisely onto the heat pipes for more efficient heat dispersion.

PREMIUM THERMAL COMPOUND X

Every tiny detail counts when it comes to creating the ultimate thermal design, which is why Core Frozr L uses a premium thermal compound to ensure lasting and reliable thermal performance.

SWAPPABLE COVERS

How you want your build to look is up to you, which is why both a black and a silver top cover are included with the Core Frozr L so you can easily customize how your CPU cooler looks.

DUAL FANS SUPPORTED

An additional set of 120mm fan brackets is included to support the use of dual fans in a push-pull configuration for additional cooling performance.

* Second fan not included

EASY INSTALLATION ON INTEL AND AMD

Supports all popular Intel and AMD sockets and can be fitted with an easy to use mounting system. The Core Frozr L also includes a CPU back plate which gives more support for both the motherboard and the cooler to prevent any damage through years of usage or the occasional bump during transport.

Packaging & Unboxing

The MSI Core Frozr L’s box is quite colorful. The front is dominated by a picture of the cooler, but it also lists a few features and a partial list of socket compatibility. Interestingly enough, this even includes the upcoming, but unreleased as of this AM4 socket.

The rear of the box gives a rundown of features, including the 2 different colors of cover panels that it comes with. Some quick dimensions are also listed.

Full product specifications are stashed on the side of the box. The opposing side panel shows the cooler is 155mm tall, so those with a small case may want to measure first to see if this large air cooler will fit.

Inside the box we find the cooler encased in a clear plastic clam shell type container. This customized protection ensures the cooler comes out of the box in one flawless piece no matter what the outer box endures. Also inside is a little black cardboard box containing the mounting hardware.

Opening the black box up, we find a nice foam block with cutouts for every single different nut, bolt, and screw. Even for each plastic spacer! We also find the black cover panel, thermal grease, two wire type fan mounting brackets if you want to use 2 fans in push/pull, and some stick on vibration absorbing pads for your second fan if needed.

Lifting out the foam block, you find the baggie containing the rest of the mounting hardware. The back brace with plastic spacer and Intel LGA775 specific spacer, the front retention plate and the actual mount.

A Closer Look

Once you open the Clam shell packaging and pull the cooler out, you can’t help but notice the medallion on the hub of the fan. The signature MSI dragon adorns a brushed metallic surface with a subtle red border. MSI, if you are reading this, can we get these as a case badge?

From the front with the fan in the way it’s a bit less obvious, but here you can see the substantial offset from center the cooler uses to provide plenty of clearance of a GPU in the first PCIe slot.

From the side we get a better picture of the wire type fan mounting brackets. The wires reach through the fins and hook on the edge. This allows the fan to be easily moved up and down if needed, moved to the other side, or even a second fan to be installed with the included 2nd set of brackets.

The top of MSI Core Frozr L cooler is adorned with a LED lit MSI Gaming G series logo. The silver trim can be swapped to the black one by removing the 4 screws and pulling the cover off. The other cover can be snapped right back on and the same screws put back in to attach it.

The business end of the cooler is protected by a clear plastic film to avoid performance robbing scratches and corrosion. Though none of us will ever admit it, plenty of builders have forgotten to remove this before installation and wondered for a few minutes why temperatures were terrible.

Pulling the sticker off, we can see the base is not quite a mirror finish like some coolers, but is a very flat machined surface. Many enthusiasts will argue that a mirror finish is the only way to get the best thermal transfer, and that may be true, but my personal experience is that as long as it is perfectly flat, you have good clamping pressure, and you apply thermal interface material per the directions, you won’t notice a significant difference in temperatures. Having spent a few years lapping CPU’s, water blocks and heatsinks, I can tell you it’s an incredible amount of work for a 1-2C difference in full load temps, so you won’t find that extra cost passed on to you here.

Unclipping the wire brackets for the fan, we can get a look at the rear of the MSI Torx Fan. 2.09 mm-H20 static pressure with ~71CFM out of a fan that pulls only around 4 watts is pretty impressive!

Last but not least is the wiring. MSI chose to use a special splitter to steal enough 12v power from the 4-pin fan header to illuminate the top logo. You can tuck bulk of the normal fan and LED cable behind the wire mounting clips and leave just s standard 4-pin Fan cable going out to your motherboard CPU fan header with plenty of wire length for most installations.

System Configuration & Installation

System Specifications

System #1

• CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X
• Motherboard: MSI X99A Tomahawk
• RAM: 64GB G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz
• Cooler: MSI Core Frozr L
• OS: Windows 10 Professional
• PSU: Corsair RM1000
• GPU: Galax 1070 HOF
• Case/Bench: Open BenchTable

Installation of the MSI Core Frozr L Cooler is very straight forward. For this X99 socket on the MSI X99A Tomahawk, the first step is to install your CPU as the mounting bracket for the cooler will block the socket retention levers. Next step is to install the X99 specific Spacer standoffs into the socket mounts. I put some of the included thermal paste on the CPU and used the heatsink to spread it around after checking for clearance. Here you can see the heatsink base covers 100% of the CPU heat spreader which helps cooling performance thanks to the large 38mm x 39mm base.

Next up is mounting the universal mounting bracket to the previously installed stand-offs with the provided screws per the manual. Coupled with the X99 mount or the included rear bracket for other boards, this gives a very solid mounting location for the cooler that won’t warp your motherboard.

Place the Hold down bracket across the top of the heatsink base, and screw down until the screws bottom out. The hard part is done! All that’s left is to clip the fan back on and plug it in. I chose to install the fan after the ram to make sure I had plenty of clearance.

With all 4 sticks of ram installed on the side with the fan, there is plenty of room. We tucked the splitter cable and the LED and fan wires under the fan clips on the side closest to the GPU to keep the wires tidy.

With all 4 sticks of ram installed on the side with the fan, there is plenty of room. We tucked the splitter cable and the LED and fan wires under the fan clips on the side closest to the GPU to keep the wires tidy.As you can see, there is plenty of room around the motherboard VRM heatsink.

Everything looks good so far! Let’s fire it up and see how it performs, or if we need to add a second fan since MSI provided the extra mounting brackets for one.

Testing & Performance

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast courier transform (FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

The MSI Core Frozr L Cooler was tested on the above system with an ambient temperature of 70°F which is about 21°C. Each Prime95 Blended test was ran 3 times for 15 minutes each with the results averaged and allowed to cool 15-20 minutes between each test and run. Tests were performed at Stock speeds and voltages with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 30x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.0Ghz (40x Multiplier @1.2V) to push the cooler a little harder. As with any cooler, fan speeds can heavily affect cooling performance, so each test was run with the MSI Motherboard controlling the fan on its default profile, and again with the fan manually set to 100% speed for the duration of the test.  All Tests are reported in degrees Celsius.

As you can see, the temperatures of a rather warm Intel Core i7-5960X are quite good at stock frequencies. Reaching a maximum load of 60C without touching anything at 100% load is great, but the default fan profile of the MSI X99A Tomahawk leans more towards quiet operation rather than best cooling with the fan hovering around 950RPM. Manually pushing the 1800RPM fan to full speed quickly dropped the temps back to a stable and cool 44C. The Idle temperature is not the best we have seen with some other coolers and hardware, but again the fan controller plays a huge roll here and keeps the fan at a silent 575RPM resulting in CPU temperatures about 10-12C over ambient, which is quite acceptable.

Pushing the CPU Clocks up 33% to an even 4Ghz puts out a considerable amount of heat, and the MSI Core Frozr L is again up to the task. We see about the same idle temps and fan speeds, but the loaded temperature climbs up to a much warmer 71C with a fan speed of about 1150RPM. Turning the fan up to 100% again drops the temperature a bit less this time to a still acceptable 64C. If you run a similar system at 100% load for long periods with a good overclock, you may want to consider the second fan in push pull mode just to give yourself a bit more breathing room, but the majority of users will see great temperatures from this setup.

As not everyone is running an 8 core Enthusiast platform, we decided to give the Core Frozr L a spin on a more common system powered by an Intel Core i7-6700k. 

System #2

• CPU: Inter Core i7-6700k

• Motherboard: Asus Maximus VIII Impact
• Ram: 32GB Corsair Dominator 3200Mhz
• Cooler: MSI Core Frozr L
• OS: Windows 10 Professional
• PSU: Corsair RM1000
• GPU: Galax 1070 HOF
• Case/Bench: Open BenchTable

There is much less room to work on this little Mini-ITX board, but we ran into no issues with clearance with this cooler, although it was a tight fit around the tall VRM daughterboard and tall ram heat spreaders.
We repeated the same tests with the same methodology as on the MSI X99A Tomahawk based system, with the same 21C ambient temps.

With the 91W chip under the hood, we recorded a paltry 40C as a maximum loaded temperature, and that’s with the CPU overclocked to a modest 4.5GHz. Intel Skylake CPU’s are well known to hit upwards of 5Ghz with good cooling, and the MSI Core Frozr L should be more than up to the task of even heavy overclocks with any mainstream Intel CPU on the market, and it even handles overclocked Enthusiast chips quite well!

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

MSI’s Core Frozr L is one heck of an opening salvo on the CPU air cooling market from a company known for great GPU cooling solutions. The quartet of 8mm heatpipes and the strong performing 120mm Torx fan lead to great temperatures across the board, even on an overclocked Intel Enthusiast CPU thanks to its 200W TDP rating. Mounting of the cooler is simple and takes only minutes to complete and the ability to add a second fan is great, even if it won’t be needed for most installations. The two choices of top covers on the cooler make sure it can go with nearly any build, and if you are a fan of MSI’s Titanium series boards and want to keep a monochromatic color scheme, it can easily be done. The LED logo lights up enough to look good in the dark, but won’t glare out of place and the offset design keeps the cooler clear of your GPU. With an MSRP of $50 at the time of review, you would be hard pressed to find better performance for your hard eared money, for that reason, we must give this our “Best Value” award! Look for The MSI Core Frozr L from your favorite retailers soon. Great Job MSI!

Check out the Core Frozr L on the MSI Website for more info!

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/CORE-FROZR-L.html

Introduction

To an enthusiast, an air cooler is nothing more than that big hunk of copper and aluminum they keep including in the box. These days, it’s getting more and more rare for a CPU to even come with a cooler anyway. Liquid cooling is a great way to go, more cooling capacity while in near silence is a winning combination, and coolers have grown to 240mm, 280mm and even 360mm in size. Is a 120mm liquid cooler even relevant anymore? Riotoro seems to think so and has released the BiFrost 120 liquid CPU cooler. We’ll find out if a 120mm cooler can compete in the gaming oriented world, or if this size is better for your Home Theater PC.

ProClockers would like to thank Riotoro for sending us the BiFrost 120 Cooler to check out, as well as the Riotoro CR280 case, and the Onyx 650W power supply used in this review.

Riotoro’s take on the BiFrost 120

The BiFrost 120ti a new generation water cooling solution for both AMD and Intel platforms. Using a 45mm wide rad, the BiFrost 120ti uses more liquid, improving its cooling performance. The BiFrost 240 also uses longer tubes for more flexibility and ease of installation. It also features reinforced L-connector steel bracket solution that avoids any possible leaks. With Full copper, micro-channeled cold plate adds another layer of performance, improving contact to the heat source (CPU) and effectively increasing the cooling transfer speed. The BiFrost represent a new generation of coolers, improving only on areas that are most wanted such as, the L type connectors adding extra strength to prevent from leaks and industrial impeller designed fans for improved airflow.

About Riotoro

“Founded in 2014, Formed by Enthusiasts, for Enthusiasts, RIOTORO manufactures the best Performance PC Hardware, Peripherals, and Accessories in the industry with a goal of providing complete satisfaction for high performance seekers who build their own personal computers.” –Riotoro.com.

Features & Specifications

Features

• 120mm 45mm thick radiator for high efficiency cooling in nearly any PC case size
• Special steel L-connector bracket design for industrial durability and improve tube rotation.
• Industrial standard fan with special impeller design to meet radiator operation point (OP) to improve airflow into radiator
• 120x25mm RIOTORO static pressure PWM fans for efficient cooling and low noise
• New generation copper cold plate for improved heat transfer from CPU to water block
• Long, flexible braided tubing for easy installation
• Environmental Friendly, lower power consumption 2.4w (vs. 3.6w competitors) and reducing noise level
• 5-year warranty

Packaging & Unboxing

A large full color picture of the BiFrost 120 Cooler adorns the front of the box. The Riotoro Logo can be found on the top left corner and the ‘Bull’ logo is ghostly on the top right corner. The lower quarter of the box has some minor information about the cooler, namely the 120mm size and CPU socket compatibility.

The rear of the box has full specifications in several languages, as well as a QR code to take you to Riotoro’s website.

The right end of the box lists CPU compatibility in a few languages.

The other end of the box has just a large Riotoro Logo.

The security seal is kind of neat, even just being the Riotoro logo.

Breaking the seal and opening the box up, we are greeted with everything securely cradled in a rigid tray with a compartment for the radiator that is protected in its own cardboard sleeve, the fans, the pump/water-block, and the accessory are in baggies in the middle.

Pulling the pile of hardware and the manual out of the middle compartment, you get a better look at what is included.

The tray itself is nice and rigid, and provides top notch protection for the cooler.

Finally, here is everything included in the box. You even get a nice Riotoro case badge!

A Closer Look

The Riotoro BiFrost AIO cooler itself is fairly compact with the low-profile pump/water-block assembly. The hoses are flexible, but are very resistant to kinking. The hoses also have a nice cloth sleeve over them. While looking quite nice, this also provides a high degree of protection from cuts or scrapes to the hoses that could render this cooler inoperable.

The hoses are crimped onto the radiator providing a maintenance and worry free lifespan.

The ends at the water-block are also crimped, but to swiveling “L” Connectors allowing the hoses to be turned any which way you need for your particular installation.

In this case, we turned the hoses out to each side to get a good picture of the large Riotoro Logo on the top of the block.
The grilled area just under the logo here also lights up with a pale white glow. Not enough to disrupt the color scheme of your system, but enough to let you know its running. The other 3 grill looking areas do not light up.

The water-block comes with a pre-applied thermal paste, large enough to cover even the biggest chips on the market such as Intel’s LGA-2011 Chips.

The cooper base itself is polished to a near mirror finish for maximum thermal transfer.

The specifications claim the radiator is 45mm thick, but that includes the flanges that connect the ends to the core. The core casing itself is a bit over 42mm thick with the actual thermal core a bit less.

The BiFrost AIO Cooler comes with a pair of Riotoro 120mm high static pressure PWM fans. The long sweeping blades are similar to other high pressure fans on the market, so with a little RPM, these should perform decently.

System Configuration & Installation

Specs:

• CPU – Intel Core i7-6700k
• Mobo – Asus Rog Maximus Viii Impact
• GPU – Nvidia GTX Titan X (Pascal)
• Case – Riotoro CR280
• PSU – Riotoro Onyx 650W
• CPU Cooler – Riotoro Bifrost 120
• SSD – Corsair Force GT 240GB x2

After selecting the right pieces from the diagrams in the manual, we install the backplate to the motherboard.

The front is only some Male/male stand offs that screw into the back plate.

After using the included screws to secure one fan to the radiator, we used the screws to install the cooler to the case, right over the second included fan. Notice the long sweeping blade design of the high pressure radiator fans compared to the shorter blades on a general use type fan.

After mounting the motherboard, we place the waterblock over the CPU posts installed a moment ago, and secure with a fastener on each corner. Be sure to tighten all 4 evenly at the same time using small turns on opposite corners.

That’s pretty much it for installation of the cooler itself. Plug in the pump and fans, and install the rest of the system.

Once everything else is installed, we can power it on, let’s see how it performs!

Testing & Performance

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers. Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast fourier transform (FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

To better gauge how the fans perform that are included with the cooler, the load tests were run twice, once with the fans connected to the CPU fan header (via a 4-pin PWM splitter in this case) and run with the Asus Q-fan enabled on its standard profile. The tests were then run again with the fans manually set to 100% speed.

As we can see here, the Intel i7-7700K’s heat load really didn’t bother the Riotoro BiFrost at all. Hitting a maximum of 33C at stock speeds, and a paltry 37C max under load when overclocked to 4.5Ghz @ 1.2V. The fans were barely audible on the open test bench during the auto tests. Turning the fans to 100% drop the temps by 2C in both cases. The fans were reading at 2800-2850RPM at full speed and were quite noisy, but those are frigid temps. If you need the Cooling power and can stand a bit more noise, the BiFrost can deliver.

I think we need to test a little warmer chip, don’t you?

Test System #2

Specs:

• CPU – Intel Core i7-5820K
• Mobo – Asus X99M WS
• GPU – Nvidia GTX Titan X (Pascal)
• Case – Open BenchTable
• PSU – Corsair Rm1000
• CPU Cooler – Riotoro Bifrost 120
• SSD – Sandisk Extreme 240GB
• Thermal paste: Gelid GC-Extreme

The BiFrost 120 Does respectably with a much warmer CPU. The i7-5820K turns in a maximum temperature of 68C under load at stock settings, dropping to 59C with the fans ramped up to 100%. Overclocked to 4Ghz, the CPU peaks out at 72C, which is warm, but not dangerous at all and again drops to 59C with the fans at maximum.

It is worth noting that the CPU paste was replaced for this test with Gelid GC-Extreme as the first installation did not leave enough of the factory pre-applied paste on the water-block to be used again.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Riotoro’s BiFrost 120 Cooler quickly cooled off any doubts as to its performance as soon as we put it under load. We saw great temperatures that rival 240mm and even 360mm coolers thanks to the thick radiator and very high performance fans. That cooling power comes at the cost of noise with dual 2800RPM fans at max speed, but if you aren’t cooling a small nuclear reactor at full load, you won’t be getting into those RPM ranges often.

The silver and black design goes well with about any build, and the Riotoro Logo is quite nice, even if you don’t use red as your primary color. The low power pump is dead quiet and is nearly impossible to hear short of placing your ear directly on it, and we never heard a single gurgle of air in the loop during our testing on two different systems. For those looking for performance cooling for a compact build, you can quite looking, Riotoro has exactly what you need.

For a product Bringing about $85 on the street, and one that you would be hard pressed to beat with any other 120mm cooler on the market, the Riotoro BiFrost 120 Cooler easily walks away with our ‘Highly Recommended’ award. Great Job Riotoro!

Check out the BiFrost 120 on the Riotoro website

Introduction

When you think about your computer the first thing that comes to mind is your processor or your video card. But not the most important device(s) in your computer, the fans. Because without them your PC would survive very long. Now that your thinking about your fans. How can you get the most out of them? Well one way is a fan controller and Kingwin has sent us here at Proclocker their FPX-007 5 Channel Touchscreen Fan Controller for review. Thank you Kingwin for sending us your product. 

About KWI Technology Inc. (Kingwin) 

A computer is no longer only found in an office or large corporation. The personal computer (PC) has evolved into something much larger, and taken on a more distinct personality. It has also taken on the image of a personal accessory that we can see, use; and touch as part of our everyday lives, both in and out of the home. The PC in fact has become and taken on its own personality, as individual, and as the person using it. As the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) market grows, the evolution of the PC is only limited by the imagination of the user. The DIY market now offers a multitude of accessories and customizable options, combining both the personality of the PC and the User into one. 

Kingwin was founded in 1992 with a mission to produce quality accessories, solutions, and options for its customers. Its main categories include: external/internal storage solutions, power supplies and thermal solutions. As one of the top producers of high quality, DIY computer accessories, Kingwin is poised to lead today’s market. Kingwin works in conjunction with both impressive PC functionality and user individuality. Kingwin enclosures and mobile rack solutions also continue to be the first choice among consumers worldwide. Just as impressive are the high performance Kingwin power supplies which are now certified by Nvidia SLI, 80 Plus and have received recognition & awards worldwide. The most recent “Mach 1 Modular Series” continues to sweep the gaming market by storm. In addition to the retailer channel, Kingwin has also gained great success among distributors, OEM customers, system integrators, and VARs. 

With over 15 years of experience in the computer components market, Kingwin is dedicated to producing innovative products and provide unparalleled customer service. As we look to the future, we will continue to innovate, advance and stand behind our products 100% 

Specification & Features 

Specifications 

Features 

5 Channel Fan Controller 

Touchscreen LCD 

Liquid Crystal Display Module 

Temperature Monitor 

Fan RPM Display 

Fan Fail Alarm 

Fits 5.25″ Bay 

Easily Setup and Use 

Packaging, Unboxing, & Closer Look 

The front of the box has a picture of the FPX-007 Fan Controller and the Kingwin Logo 

The back of the box has the Specifications, Features, Kingwin Logo, and front face of the FPX-007 Fan Controller 

Contents of the box are the FPX-007 Fan Controller in a antistatic bag, Small bag of screws, Instruction/Information sheet, and a customer satisfaction contact card. 

The front of the FPX Fan Controller has the LCD Touchscreen with Kingwin printed on the left side 

From the top of the fan controller you see that each fan connector, power cord, and the temperature probe can be disconnected. 

From the rear of the fan controller you are able to see the position of the connectors and the alarm on the upper right of the picture. Also just to the left of the alarm is a jumper to enable or disable the beep. 

Here are the ends of each of the cables. 1 Power cord, 1 Temperature probe, 5 Fan connectors

Fan Controls & Testing 

Once you have power to the FPX-007 Fan Controller this is the display you will see. 

1. Temperature display - Press to change between Fahrenheit & Celsius. Hold to change alarm temp with + & -  

2. Fan temp range display 

3. Silent mode switch - Places all fans to lowest speed to reduce sound 

4. Performance mode switch - Places all fans to highest speed for highest airflow 

5. Fan number display - Touch to select each fan 1 thru 5 

6. + key - Increase Fan Speed in Manual Mode 

7. - key - Decrease Fan Speed in Manual Mode 

8. Fan RPM display 

9. Fan RPM range display 

10. Manual switch 

11. Auto switch 

Testing 

To test the Kingwin FPX-007 Fan Controller I hooked up three Corsair Air Series AF140 140mm case fans that run at 1200 RPM. With the FPX-007 I was easily able to change the fan speed from 700 RPM to 1200 RPM in manual mode in 100 RPM increments. So I could set each fan to the speed I so desire it to have. Also to make a quick change I could use the Silent mode switch & Performance mode switch to go from 700 RPM to 1200 RPM. All displays showed proper Fan speed and range, Temperature, and Fan I had selected. You can change the alarm by holding the Temperature display button for 4 to 5 seconds till you see the numbers flashing then adjust the temp with the + or - buttons to adjust from 104 to 194 degrees. When temperature was made to go above the set temp the alarm sounds and the LCD display flashed. After it cooling the temperature the alarm stopped and LCD stopped flashing.  

Final Thoughts 

Kingwin FPX-007 Fan Controller is an excellent device for those that want to have control of their fan system. With the ability to change each fans speed you would be able to adjust the flow for your PC. Also with the Performance mode with a touch of a button you have your computer at max cooling for gaming, benchmarking, or if you just like to keep it cool as possible. From those that do not have a motherboard or case that controls the fans you can find the Kingwin FPX-007 at Amazon or Newegg.

Introduction

When it comes to cooling the CPU, liquid coolers offer superior cooling performance than air coolers in most cases. Liquid coolers help builders and enthusiasts achieve higher and stable overclocks compared to using air coolers. With the plethora of liquid cooling units offered today, there’s certainly a lot to choose from particularly when it comes to closed-loop all-in-one CPU coolers. Today we will be checking out a closed-loop all-in-one liquid CPU cooler with a 240mm radiator from Xigmatek. It features a unique pump integration wherein it is located at the radiator. Let’s find out how well it performs in our tests and setup.

Xigmatek Scylla 240 AIO CPU Cooler

The Xigmatek Scylla brings you the perfect storm to cool your CPU. The Xigmatek Scylla feature a unique pump integration where it is integrated in the AIO’s radiator. The protective radiator cover protects the pump while keeping it low-profile that allows you to install fans without any obstacle. A premium silent pump maximizes water circulation allowing the base plate to stay extremely cool. The Xigmatek Scylla closed-loop liquid coolers uses a high-performance coolant that doesn’t require maintenance.

Features and Specifications

• Factory-filled and sealed coolant (No maintenance necessary).
• High quality and reliable silent pump.
• Extended 300mm water tube allows flexibility.
• High performance water block maximizes heat conductivity.
• Low-profile 30mm thick radiator minimizes space needed for installation while maximizing case airflow.
• Optimized radiator fin design for minimal air restriction.
• 500~2000 RPM Xigmatek fan with circulative bearing (FCB) guarantees silence and durability.
• Easy to install, mounts on any 120mm fan mounting holes on your case.

Packaging and Unboxing

The Xigmatek Scylla 240 comes in a typical box packaging.

You can find the all-in-one cooler, 2 x 120mm fans and accessories in separate plastic packages.

Here are the two 120mm high-performance PWM fans included with the cooler. These are non-LED fans which are rated for 500 to 2000 RPM.

Here are the set of accessories, screws and AMD mounting bracket which simply slides into place with the water block. Will discuss later regarding swapping out of mounting brackets. The rear retention bracket is a universal one which supports AMD and Intel platforms.

Closer Look

Here’s the Xigmatek Scylla 240 without the fans installed. Pretty much like a typical 240 AIO cooler except for the exceptionally thin water block module since the pump isn’t integrated on it. The tubing on the Scylla 240 is also longer than usual at 300mm which may help or may not help on your build but certainly a plus for larger build giving you the option to mount the cooler at the front of the chassis with ease.

The pump is integrated on the AIO’s radiator and it isn’t at the end of it but in the middle. This is the first time I’ve seen such pump integration which is very interesting. This keep the radiator size at a minimum compared to other radiator-pump modules which tends to be longer if its integrated in the end of the radiator.

I did notice there’s a refilling hole in the radiator so even if it is maintenance-free, users can add coolant if desired particularly after a few years of service.

Testing Setup, Methodology and Results

Testing Setup

• Processor: AMD FX 8370 (overclocked 4.5 Ghz)
• Motherboard: MSI 970 Gaming
• Cooler: Xigmatek Scylla 240
• Memory: Kingston HyperX Beast 2133Mhz 16GB
• Boot Drive: ADATA SU800 Ultimate
• Graphics Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G
• Power Supply: Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 850W

Methodology

Testing will be done at stock clocks of the AMD FX-8370 processor. Prime95 will run for 20 minutes, MSI Afterburner will be used to monitor and record temperature readings. Ambient room temperature during the test is around 28C.

Results

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

First of all, we would like to thank Xigmatek for sending us their Scylla 240 CPU cooler. I would say the Xigmatek Scylla 240 closed-loop all-in-one liquid CPU cooler isn’t far from other 240 liquid coolers available today. Let’s breakdown our findings below.

Let’s first talk about performance. Clearly the superior cooling performance of AIOs is also present with the Xigmatek Scylla 240 given the 240mm radiator and the high-performance cooling fans that can reach 2000+ RPM. At full speed, the fans are quite noisy and would be noticeable even when installed inside a typical PC case. Using the PWM connection, noise levels are quite average for the fans. As for the pump, the pump is barely audible that I thought it wasn’t working.

The Scylla 240 would come in as the bare minimum in liquid cooling, it doesn’t have the flashy RGB lighting and customization which some may be opting for in building a PC. But if you are simply just looking for the liquid AIO performance on an entry-level budget, the Scylla 240 would be the ideal cooling solution with it priced at $77.49 at Amazon at the time of this writing. It is around $25 cheaper from other 240mm-radiator AIO offerings from the likes of Corsair, NZXT and even DEEPCOOL. Such savings is significant for you to grab a higher-end graphics card or motherboard or memory kit. With this, we will happily award the Xigmatek Scylla 240 with our Best Value award coming in as one of the cheapest 240 AIO CPU cooler in the market today.

Likes

• Price/performance ratio
• Silent integrated pump
• Hot-swappable mounting brackets

Dislikes

• The longer 300mm tubing can be a hassle to smaller builds

Introduction

As the PC Enthusiast community grows, the water cooling community grows with it. You see it on the online forums and Facebook groups, as more and more people are trying their hands at custom water cooling. Not only can you customize your PC to fit your personal taste, but the performance increase is well worth the effort. Custom water cooling offers much lower temperatures, and increased performance.

There are few names in custom PC water cooling industry as well known and well respected as Swiftech. Since 1994, Swiftech has cemented themselves as one of the best names in the business. Swiftech recently offered us their KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti full cover blocks for review. This block is designed for the Founders Edition GTX 1080 Ti. Their KOMODO series was one of the first water blocks to offer full PCB coverage. This will help, since the Founders Edition tends to run hot. So, how well did the KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti block do? Let’s find out.

Swiftech’s Take on the KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti Full Cover Block

“The Komodo™ NV-LE GTX 1080 Ti full cover waterblock is a high-performance cooling solution with advanced thermal design and low flow restriction, compatible with Nvidia's GeForce GTX NV-LE GTX 1080 Ti reference PCB design graphics cards (see list of Models in the compatibility section). This model is part of the "Luxury Edition" series of VGA water blocks, focused on smooth and streamlined elegance, and it includes our RGB ALED lighting system compatible with all versions of Swiftech's X2 series CPU coolers. This allows users to unify the color scheme of their entire cooling system at the push of a button. The product ships with all necessary accessories to implement the lighting system. A new PWM signal extension cable is also included with this waterblock; when connected, it allows the graphics card own PWM signal to control the speed of other PWM compatible devices in the liquid cooling loop, such as fans and/or pump. This feature is especially useful to regulate noise & cooling in systems featuring discrete VGA cooling loops.”

Features & Specifications

Packaging & Unboxing

Here is the block with the back plate.

The KOMDO water block comes with everything shown here. Accessories include the back plate, 2 caps, screws for mounting the waterblock and back plate, the fan hub, with a cable extension and mounting screws for the hub. The fan hub. The RGB lighting on the water block also plus into the fan hub.

SWIFTECH also includes a tube of their TIM-MATE thermal paste.

A Closer Look

The coolant flow path includes all major components. This includes GPU, memory, power mosfets as well as all other power components specified in NVidia's "Thermal Solutions Design Guide".

The KOMODO full cover water block is beautiful. The top of the water block is covered by a black anodized aluminum plate, with a cutout in the center. This allows you to see the flow of the coolant through the card. The SWIFTECH logo is printed on the bottom right hand corner of the top plate. The block also came with a matching back plate. The back plate is also all black. However, it has a cutout behind the GPU die for ventilation. The back plate also has the SWIFTECH logo on the top right corner.

Here is a close up of the cutout on the center of the top plate.

The opposite side of the of the block comes with the thermal pads preinstalled for the memory and power delivery. The cold plate is a full cover plate, covering the GPU, memory and power delivery. Unlike the nickel plating used by many other companies, the KOMDO uses a chrome plating on the copper cold plate. The chrome looks great and has a reflection to it that nickel doesn’t. Along the side of the clear, plastic block, there is a small RGB strip. This RGB strip is compatible with all Swiftech’s X2 series CPU coolers. This feature allows you to sync the lighting on your KOMDO water block to the lighting of you Swiftech X2 series cooler.

There is a new PWM signal extension cable included with this waterblock. When connected, it allows the cards PWM signal to control the speed of other PWM compatible devices in the liquid cooling loop, such as fans and pumps. In a card only loop, this can help to regulate noise and cooling.

The terminal comes with 4 holes with G 1/4 threads. The block also comes with 2 caps for the G ¼ holes that won’t be used.

The cold plate is made up of chrome plated copper and covers all major components on the PCB.

The terminal removed from the block.

The terminal is held on by 3 hex screws and kept water tight by these 2 O-rings.

The terminal on the block has G ¼ threads.

The KOMODO full cover block comes with thermal pads for the memory and power delivery pre-installed.

These standoffs are used to mount the card to the block.

The block acrylic block with the top plate removed.

Here you can see where the RGB LED strip sits inside the block.

The wires on the RGB LED strip are fed through here.

The LED strip that comes installed comes with an extension to connect to the fan hub.

Here is the LED strip that comes installed in the block.

Here is the Founder’s Edition 1080 Ti with the cooler removed.

Here is the KOMODO full cover water block installed on the reference 1080 Ti. I used the included Swiftech TIM-MATE thermal paste.

Here is how the caps and fitting are configured on my water block.

System Configuration & Testing

For this review, I did not use my standard test bench. Instead, I used my main editing system. This was due to the fact it has a custom loop, and this the Founders Edition 1080 Ti is permanently installed with the KOMODO full cover block. I used FurMark to stress test the GPU on both air and on water. I also compared the results to the EVGA 1080 Ti FTW 3, to see how well the reference card does on water, compared to an AIB partner card. Next, I ran Firestrike and Time Spy, as well as Unigine Heaven. The much lower temperatures the card achieves on the water block, we should see an increase in performance going from air to water.

Test System

• Intel I7 5930k @ 4.3 GHz
• GTX 1080 Ti Founds Edition on a Swiftech KOMODO Full Cover Block
• GIGABYTE X99 Phoenix SLI motherboard
• 32 GB of Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4 2666 MHz
• 512 GB ADATA SU800 2.5” SATA 6 SSD
• EVGA 1600-Watt Super Nova P2 80+ Platinum PSU
• Custom EK Loop
• Case Labs SM8 Merlin Chassis

Software

• FurMark
• 3DMARK
• UNIGINE HEAVEN
• PASSMARK PERFORMANCE TEST

FurMark

“FurMark is a very intensive OpenGL benchmark that uses fur rendering algorithms to measure the performance of the graphics card. Fur rendering is especially adapted to overheat the GPU and that's why FurMark is also a perfect stability and stress test tool (also called GPU burner) for the graphics card.”

3DMARK

3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by Futuremark used to determine the performance of a computer's 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. It does this through a series of graphics, physics, and/or CPU tests. I used 3DMark’s most popular benchmark, Fire Strike as well as their newest DX12 benchmark, Time Spy to test the 1080 Ti. The card was tested at both stock and overclocked to +125 on the core and +150 on the memory, Using the GPU TWEAK II from Asus. I ran both Fire Strike and the new DX12 benchmark, Time Spy. Here are the results. During 3DMARK testing, the KOMODO water block kept the 1080 ti at a cool 57°c. 

UNIGINE HEAVEN

This is a screen shot of the setting I ran on the Unigine Heaven Benchmark.

The Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 benchmark designed to stress your GPU under heavy loads. The Heaven Benchmark can be used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions. I ran the Heaven Benchmark on a custom Preset, Ultra Quality, Extreme Tessellation, AA X8, in 1080p using the DX11 API. With these settings, the Founders Edition 1080 Ti with the KOMODO water block received an overall score of 3714 with an average FPS of 147.4, a minimum of 36.1 FPS, and a maximum of 315.2 FPS. The max temperature during this run was 56°C.

The Founders Edition 1080 Ti with reference cooler received an overall score of 3530 with an average FPS of 140.1, a minimum of 35.5, and a maximum of 304.1 FPS. The max temp during this run was 77°C. This clearly shows the water block not only lowers the temperature, but increases the performance.

Passmark Performance Test – 2D and 3D GRAPHICS MARK TEST

“Fast, easy to use, PC speed testing and benchmarking. PassMark PerformanceTest ™ allows you to objectively benchmark a PC using a variety of different speed tests and compare the results to other computers.”

The 2D Graphics Mark test achieved an overall score of 992.

The 3D Mark graphics test achieved an overall score of 11921.

Temperatures

For starters, I usually use Hardware Monitor to monitor temps when doing reviews. However, there was a massive discrepancy between Hardware monitor and everything else. So, this time I used MSI Afterburner to monitor temperature and clock speed. With any GPU testing, I do my best to keep the ambient temperature the same. For this round of tests, the ambient temperature was 22°C, or about 72°F. Idle temp on the KOMODO full cover water block was 31°C. Under load, the temperature maxed out at 57°C. With the 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition cooler, the card idled at 52°C. Under, the reference cooler hit a toasty 81°F.

On air, the Founder’s Edition 1080 Ti hit a max temp of 81°C. However, with the KMODO full cover water block, the card hit a max temp of 57°C.Thats a 24°C difference.

There was a 21°C difference between air and water on the idle temp.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Swiftech did an excellent job with their KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti full cover water block. The clear acrylic block looks great. The top and back plate being black, the KOMODO full cover block can fit into any color scheme easily. The cut out in the center of the top plate only adds to the beautiful aesthetics of this water block. The lighting on the block is a welcomed addition. The fact it can sync with Swiftech’s X2 coolers is just another feature that can add to the customization of your system. You could just install the KOMODO water block right on any X2 series cooler by just replacing the CPU block with the GPU block. The KOMODO on an H320 X2 will make a killer GPU All in One.

The results with the KOMODO installed were even better than expected. In most synthetic benchmarks, the KOMODO offered temperatures, on average, over 20°C cooler. The idle temperature dropped from 52°C to just 31°C, a 21°C difference. FurMark offered the most impressive drop in temperature, going from 81°C to just 43°C. Very impressive. Now, it’s no secret that water cooling is an expensive hobby. However, as the results show, it’s well worth the time and investment. Cooler temps lead to increased performance, and therefore, higher FPS and benchmarks scores. At the time of this review, you can pick up the KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti full cover water block on Swiftech’s website for $169.99. Seeing how the card will run you about $699.99 USD, this is a small price to pay to increase the performance of you Founder’s Edition 1080 Ti. A combination of aesthetics and performance has won the KOMODO GTX 1080 Ti full cover block the Proclockers “Editor’s Choice Award.” If you’re a water cooling enthusiast with a Founder’s Edition 1080 Ti, grab yourself a KOMODO Full cover block from Swiftech, you won’t regret it.

Introduction

Installing cooling fans on your PC chassis can be tricky particularly if go for high-RPM fans or installing on thin aluminum panels. In such scenarios, the fan could produce vibrations that would produce noise and to some extent could lead to damaging your hardware. Fortunately, Noctua got something to address such issues with their NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 anti-vibration mounts. Let’s check these out today!

We would like to thank Noctua Premium Cooling Component for sending us their NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 to review.

Noctua’s Take on NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4

NA-SAV3

The NA-SAV3 is a fan accessory set consisting of 16 NA-AV3 anti-vibration mounts for up to four fans. Replacing standard fan screws, the NA-AV3 mounts enable the convenient, quick and vibration-free installation of fans in standard mounting holes for case fans. Five defined, numbered pawls allow the NA-AV3 to work perfectly with both standard open corner fans (pawl 1) and 10, 14, 15, 20 or 25mm thick fans with closed corners (pawls 2 to 5). This makes the NA-AV3 ideal for slim fans where other anti-vibration mounts may not fit properly.

NA-SAV4

Unboxing and Closer Look – NA-SAV3

The Noctua NA-SAV3 anti-vibration mounts come in a box packaging.

Inside, you’ll find a user manual along with wit 16 pieces of the NA-SAV3 anti-vibration mounts which is good for four standard cooling fans.

Unboxing and Closer Look – NA-SAV4

The Noctua NA-SAV4 anti-vibration mounts also come in a similar box packaging.

It also comes with 16 pieces of the NA-SAV4 anti-vibration mounts and the user manual.

Installation, Benefits and Conclusion

Installation

Installing the NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 is pretty simple and won’t require tools like a screwdriver.

NA-SAV3 Installation

Using the SAV-3, you first need to mount it on the fan then mount it on the fan mounting hole. To secure the fan, simply pull the other end of the SAV-3 to lock it into place.

NA-SAV4 Installation

Using the SAV-4 on the other hand, you first need to mount it on the case through the rear. Then install the fan and pull the front end of the SAV-4 to lock the fan into place.

Removing Excess

To remove the excess rubber, simply cut the anti-vibration mount’s excess which is optional.

Benefits

Anti-vibration

Anti-vibration is obviously the major benefit in using the SAV-3 and SAV-4.

Protects Case Finish and Preserves Fan Mounting Holes

Unlike screw which can damage the surface or finish of your chassis’ panels, the anti-vibration mounts are made of rubber and will avoid damaging your chassis’ finish. Also, it preserves the screw mounting holes on your fans. The screw holes tend to get larger after several installation-uninstallation process but with these rubber anti-vibration mounts, the holes will remain like new.

Reusable

You can reuse the SAV-3 and SAV-4. Uninstallation is as simply as pulling the fan or mounts gently to remove from the fan mounts. Be careful though, you can also break the rubber mounts when applied with too much force.

Easier Installation

The SAV-3 and SAV-4 fan mounts make fan installation easier in certain scenarios where it’s tedious to use a screw that might require you to remove hardware installed inside the chassis like a radiator installed behind the front panel. In such cases, using the SAV-3 could be the easier option.

Conclusion

The Noctua NA-SAV3 and NA-SAV4 anti-vibration mounts is more than just addressing vibration issues in using high-RPM cooling fans or thin aluminum case panels, it also protects the finish or surface of your case when using screws. The anti-vibration mounts also make it possible to install cooling fans with ease. Given the option, I would prefer using anti-vibration mounts from Noctua than the conventional screws used in mounting cooling fans.

You can find the NA-SAV3 for $7.95 at Newegg and Amazon, the NA-SAV4 also goes for $7.95 at Newegg and Amazon. Significantly an investment compared to the free screws included in most aftermarket cooling fans but it could be a good investment if you highly consider the benefits mentioned above.

Noctua NA-SAV3

Noctua NA-SAV4

Introduction

EVGA CLC 120, 240, 280mm Liquid / Water CPU Cooler RGB Roundup Review

With new CPU chips commonly capable of 5GHz and chips with anywhere up to 18 cores capable of 4.5GHz or more CPU cooling is a whole new ballgame!  With the Z170, Z270, Z370 and  X399 chipsets on the market and sporting super fast and mega multi-core designs AIO (All In One) water cooling is all the rage and becoming more the norm for enthusiasts and high-end platforms. EVGA is in the water cooling arena and hit it with a 120mm (Single Radiator one 120mm fan), 240mm (Dual Radiator two 120mm Fans), and a 280mm (Dual Radiator two 140mm Fans) and we have all three on the test bench.

We would like to send big thanks to EVGA for sending the EVGA CLC coolers for a review!

For those new at water cooling, CLC stands for Closed Loop CPU Cooler which is a CPU water cooling setup (often called AIO, All in One) that requires zero maintenance.  CLC or AIO (both the same thing) have the advantage of being easy to set up and much less expensive than a custom built water cooling loop. The disadvantages are few are upgradable, refillable or repairable. With a 5 year limited warranty, the industry’s best warranty, we don’t foresee any problems with these state of the art CLC water cooling kits from EVGA. If you are an EVGA lover and follow their product you should know EVGA engineers aren’t afraid to over-engineer and over-engineering is highly underrated.

A Closer Look EVGA 120mm CLC Cooler RGB (Water Cooler) (EVGA # 400-HY-CL12-V1)

The outer box is a durable black cardboard sleeve over a sturdy cardboard box.

Inside the cardboard sleeve, we find a well designed tough cardboard box setup with resilient foam and the radiator is sleeved in heavy protective cardboard which is a definite plus.

Out of the box, we like the braided covering on the tubing, the large RGB LED logo and the fans have a distinctive “C” shaped side to decrease noise levels that looks interesting. The waterblock hold downs look to be stamped steel and of heavier construction that we see on many kits. The radiator is lightweight aluminum and should have a coating on the inside to prevent galvanic corrosion between the aluminum in the radiator and the copper in the waterblock.

The waterblock feels substantial and solidly built notice the mini-USB port on the side for the monitoring cable that hooks to a USB port for the EVGA Flow Control software.

Here’s a better look at the USB port on the side.

EVGA has a revolutionary approach with the Flow Control software and we like the ability to control the flow and fan speed. The waterblock directly reports the thermal readings to the EVGA Flow Control Software. Let’s stop and look at those wires. The 3 pin connector is the only power connection for the pump and fans as the fans plug into the two 4 pin PWM connectors coming out of the block.

If you count the USB connector for controlling the pump and fans that means 4 wires come into the CPU area and for Obsessive Compulsive wire people that may be a problem. With a little black zip tie action, we don’t see this as an issue ourselves. With some wire management you can achieve a wire-free environment and still get more control and monitoring; with expensive CPU chips and massive OC’s the direct monitoring of CPU and coolant temperatures is well worth a little more wiring.

The 120mm radiator should fit all modern cases where the exhaust fan goes on the chassis. The disadvantage of 120mm setups is usually they perform like air coolers but we like them because they free up space ordinarily taken up by a huge tower cooler.

The radiator is a pretty standard aluminum 120mm radiator, it has the 120mm Teflon Nano bearing fan already attached and you can see the “C” shaped walls of the fan designed to lower noise. EVGA put a 5-year limited warranty on this puppy so you better believe the quality is there.

Looking at the waterblock you can see its pre-greased with thermal material so we will be testing with the provided thermal paste but we usually recommend replacing it with high-quality thermal paste. It’s good that it’s there some end users don’t keep thermal paste around and if you don’t want to spring for thermal paste it’s already there ready to use.

The Teflon Nano bearings on the fan are a new feature for us and the shape of the fan casing is something we haven’t seen on EVGA fans but it makes sense to reduce noise remove the lip of the fan.

This shot lets you get a look at the fan casing and how much was removed. It shouldn’t be a big issue but wires will need to be routed so they don’t run into the fan that extends past the fan casing.

The hose side of the 120mm radiator shows an identification sticker and the wire tucked in there for shipping. More interesting, the hose connectors look to be heavy duty and well connected. We noticed the radiator didn’t have a scratch or mar on any surface and the powder coating looks great.

Look at the perfection of the cooling fins and not a one is out of place, bent or scratched. We have dealt with more radiators than we care to count and perfect fins show amazing manufacturing.

The quality of the surface of the waterblock shows no real mill marks and for all the world looks like it was lapped (polished).

The hardware included covers all modern sockets and all the EVGA CLC coolers have exactly the same hardware included so we won’t be posting the included hardware shot on all 3 sections. You get an AMD backplate and hold down plus the USB data cable. One set of standoffs is marked AMD and the other is marked Intel. Of course, the manual is included with all three kits. We should make note that EVGA says compatible with all future AMD and Intel sockets so they may be adopting an aftermarket bracket policy like Noctua.

Features

• All-in-one cooling solution that is completely self-contained. No filling, no custom tubing, no maintenance. Just plug and play.
• Intelligent wiring system and sleeved tubing makes this one sleek cooler without the messy wires.
• Copper base provides maximum heat transfer.
• Built in 120mm radiator and 120mm fan helps dissipate the heat keeping the GPU as cool as possible. Fan can also be swapped or customized.
• Teflon Nano Bearing in the fan reduces noise and increase lifespan, while the curved housing improves air flow through the radiator to limit vibration and noise.
• Variable controlled fan allow dynamic fan speed based on CPU temperature, and the water cooling efficiency means the fans can operate at a lower speed to reduce noise.
• Compatible with current and future Intel and AMD sockets.

Specifications

Specs Waterblock:

• Premium Retention parts for Intel LGA2066/2011/2011-v3/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366 and upcoming variants
• AMD retention ring for supporting AM2/AM3/AM4/FM1/FM2/TR4 and upcoming variants
• 100% Copper
• Fully controllable RGB LED
• Noise Level = 20dB(A) (MAX)

Specs Radiator:

• 156mm X 122mm X 28mm (LxWxH)
• Aluminum

Specs Fan:

• Size: 120 x 120 x 25mm
• Teflon Nano Bearing
• Speed = 500-2400RPM
• Airflow = 74.82 CFM (MAX)
• Static Pressure = 4.04 mmAq (MAX)
• Noise Level = 16.0 dB(A) (MIN) – 39.9 dB(A) (MAX)

Warranty

5-Year Limited Warranty

A Closer Look EVGA CLC Cooler RGB (Water Cooler) 240mm (EVGA # 400-HY-CL24-V1)

Looking at the box on the EVGA CLC 240mm water cooling solution we get a distinct flashback to the box on the 120mm. Seriously though the packaging is practically identical to the 120mm except larger.

Here again, we find a sturdy cardboard box with a large mass of resilient foam protecting the prize inside. Notice the same cardboard sleeve over the radiator as on the 120mm version.

The same “C” curved fan cases are implemented on all three kits and the waterblock is exactly the same as the 120mm kit. Look at the shine on that waterblock same quality polishing as on the 120mm CLC.

Getting in close on the water block doesn’t reveal any imperfections and the pre-applied thermal paste is on the 240mm CLC. We actually went over all three kits with a fine tooth comb and couldn’t find a single imperfection. We detailed the 4 wire setup on the 120mm CLC and the wiring setup is the same across the 120mm, 240mm, and 280mm.

There will be two fan wires running back to the CPU waterblock so a 4 pin PWM fan cable extender (not included) might be needed for neat cabling. Those fans are capable of 74.82 CFM which is an insane amount of airflow for most CLC/AIO water cooling solutions.

Tilting the EVGA CLC 240mm to the side a bit you can see the curved design on the Teflon Nano Bearings fans included on the kits.  The fans are rated at 16 dBA min up to 39.9 dBA maximum and revolutions run from 500 RPM to 2000RPM. What is fascinating is that the Flow Control software can be used to set a fan ramp using the temperature of the CPU which is pretty unheard of in a CLC/AIO water cooling solution.

Here is the mini-USB connector and the fully RGB logo and the nice braided cable isn’t hurting our feelings.

Looking through the fins you won’t find a bent cooling fin scratch or mar on the surface of the radiator anywhere. We have seen radiators come out of boxes with scratched and bent fins and we can honestly tell you it always gives us a feeling of poor manufacturing or poor packing. The EVGA CLC cooling solution gives just the opposite feeling, one of careful design and high-quality manufacturing.

As we mentioned earlier all the kits get exactly the same bundle of hold down equipment and cabling.

Features

• All-in-one cooling solution that is completely self-contained. No filling, no custom tubing, no maintenance. Just plug and play.
• Intelligent wiring system and sleeved tubing makes this one sleek cooler without the messy wires.
• Copper base provides maximum heat transfer.
• Built in 240mm radiator and 2x 120mm fans help dissipate the heat keeping the CPU as cool as possible. Fan can also be swapped or customized.
• Compatible with current and future Intel and AMD sockets.
• Teflon Nano Bearing in the fans reduce noise and increase lifespan, while the curved housing improves air flow through the radiator to limit vibration and noise.
• Variable controlled fans allow dynamic fan speed based on CPU temperature, and the water cooling efficiency means the fans can operate at a lower speed to reduce noise.

Specs Waterblock:

• Premium Retention parts for Intel LGA2066/2011/2011-v3/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366 and upcoming variants
• AMD retention ring for supporting AM2/AM3/AM4/FM1/FM2/TR4 and upcoming variants
• 100% Copper
• Fully controllable RGB LED
• Noise Level = 20dB(A) (MAX)

Specs Radiator:

• 276mm X 122mm X 28mm (LxWxH)
• Aluminum

Specs Fan:

• Size: 120 x 120 x 25mm (x2)
• Teflon Nano Bearing
• Speed = 500-2400RPM
• Airflow = 74.82 CFM (MAX)
• Static Pressure = 4.04 mmAq (MAX)
• Noise Level = 16.0 dB(A) (MIN) – 39.9 dB(A) (MAX)

Warranty

5-Year Limited Warranty

A Closer Look EVGA 280mm CLC Cooler RGB (Water Cooler) (EVGA # 400-HY-CL28-V1)

The largest of the three EVGA CLC Coolers the 280mm should give slightly better performance than the 240mm version due to the larger fans and greater surface area of the radiator. As we’ve previously seen EVGA went with the Johnny Cash style (Black on Black) packaging.

Well planned and well executed our 280mm EVGA CLC Cooler shows the same resilient foam and just as important that heavy cardboard radiator cover we like so much. Some radiators just picking them up touching the fins will bend the fin and without the cardboard sleeve pinching the fins could happen with this packaging. The cardboard sleeve effectively spreads the force across a larger area preventing bent fins. You should never handle and radiator by grabbing anything but the sides. Never haul it up by the hoses, water block or by grabbing the fins.

All three models of CLC share the same CPU block and hold down hardware and from what we are seeing it’s the exact same waterblock with the same wiring, There is nothing wrong with that arrangement and it’s cost-effective to produce and helps cut costs to the consumer.

We had to get in close to this waterblock and we did notice a few mill marks on this one. The 240 and 120mm were completely smooth with no obvious mill marks. We don’t think these mill marks are significant enough to affect performance. The stamped metal waterblock hold downs are nice thick metal and bent for extra structural integrity which will help them not bend. Some AIO coolers have a flat stamped metal hold down that isn’t as thick as the metal on a tin can (not the new pull off type the old need a can opener type). Some AIO’s you can fumble the waterblock and just a 6-inch drop can bend the hold down, these look like they can survive a reasonable amount of abuse without damage.

Here’s the mini USB port used to pass data to the USB port on your motherboard and subsequently to EVGA Flow control. Notice this isn’t the mini-USB like the charger on your phone, you know the one we replace them like 3 times a year. Once again we are impressed with the braided cloth over the hoses. So many AIO’s use a heavy black rubber tubing with nothing over it, we like the braided coverings much better.

Here we see the curved sides of the fan casings and just how far they have been carved back which we suspect is the way EVGA gets 113.50 CFM with only 39.5 dBA.  Back in the day, 90 CFM fans were screamers only used by cooling fanatics that could stand the loud noise. Notice the ridges on the fans those probably help cut the noise by deflecting the airflow a tad.

It is worth noting that the 280mm CLC pushes 113.5 CFM while the 120mm push 74.82 CFM that’s a huge airflow difference but we will have to see if it yields a big difference in CPU heat reduction.

The fins on the EVGA 280m CLC Cooler are perfection incarnate and we see no sign of bent fins or mars on the powder coated surface of the radiator or fins. We got 3 samples the 120mm, 240mm and the 280mm and none of them show the slightest imperfection on the radiator, hoses or powder coated surfaces.

We mentioned it earlier and it will take some zip ties to run all the wires to the CPU block without running a spaghetti nest to the CPU. With the monitoring and control, EVGA Flow Control software offers we could see this becoming the new standard but with shrink sleeves for the fan wires. Optionally I suppose you could forgo EVGA Flow Control software and plug the fans into motherboard headers and the block into a CPU/pump power header but then you lose the ability to control and monitor. Likely by default without EVGA Flow Control, everything runs at maximum speed.

Here again, it’s the same exact hardware kit to hold down the waterblock in all the kits.

Specs Waterblock:

• Premium Retention parts for Intel LGA2066/2011/2011-v3/1150/1151/1155/1156/1366 and upcoming variants
• AMD retention ring for supporting AM2/AM3/AM4/FM1/FM2/TR4 and upcoming variants
• 100% Copper
• Fully controllable RGB LED
• Noise Level = 20dB(A) (MAX)

Specs Radiator:

• 312mm X 139mm X 27mm (LxWxH)
• Aluminum

Specs Fan:

• Size: 140 x 140 x 25mm (x2)
• Teflon Nano Bearing
• Speed = 600-2200RPM
• Airflow = 113.50 CFM (MAX)
• Static Pressure = 4.20 mmAq (MAX)
• Noise Level = 16.0 dB(A) (MIN) – 39.5 dB(A) (MAX)
• Lifespan = 80,000 Hours

Warranty

5-Year Limited Warranty

EVGA Flow Control

The EVGA Flow Control Software resembles Precision XOC and is intuitive and easy to use but provides full control of the Pump and Fan speeds as well as displays those values. The CPU temperature is displayed as is the coolant temperature.

You can set the Led Logo to display different colors as the CPU temperatures change.

FLow Control allows you to set fan profiles easily and multiple profiles can be saved with one click. For those wondering yes this is the profile we used for the review at 20^o C the fans jump to 100%. We found the default profile both silent and more than adequate for general computing and gaming.

Test Equipment & Setup

Testing Hardware

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Code

RAM: 32GB Kingston HyperX 3200Mhz

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2 ICX

SSDs: Kingston KC1000 480GB

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Testing Setup

We pondered what software to use for stressing the CPU 100% and OCCT and Prime 95 as well as Intel Burn just product an unrealistic amount of heat. Some of the CPU stress programs are designed specifically to generate heat which has no real bearing on real-life computing. We tested a host of software from Realbench to never heard of programs and finally landed on CPU-Z and the Stress CPU utility. It's easy, free and available to everyone and during test selection, it consistently kept 4 cores 8 threads at 100% and generated enough heat to convince us of the validity of the Stress Test. 

Notice the Stress CPU Button, we used 4 Core 8 Thread testing

We went with a worst case scenario, no chassis fans, no ambient air movement. Lab temperature was kept at 72^oF or 22^oC throughout testing. We disabled Intel's Turbo feature and locked the CPU to a steady frequency and CPU voltage for each clock speed on the CPU. We went into BIOS and set OC profiles for 4.5GHz, 4.6GHz, 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz and 4.9GHz. We cut off at 4.9GHz as the CPU voltage required to reach 5GHz stable with a stress test load running for an hour were just unacceptable and liable to degrade the CPU. To sustain a 5GHz OC we were well over 1.42v and Asus recommends triple radiator cooling for 1.35v (which we exceeded). We fired up the test station and let it Idle for 30 minutes and recorded the Idle reading. We then ran the test at each CPU speed for an hour then recorded the reading.

Between tests, we shut the machine down for 30 minutes then went to the next CPU speed.  Each test at each speed was repeated 3 times then we report the average of the 3 readings. Every test was run using the pre-set profile in BIOS without any changes to maintain test consistency.

We used the provided thermal material on the CLC coolers for testing. The thermal material which we recommended replacing earlier well we can eat our words on that one. We did each test with Arctic Ceramique and the readings didn't change to use the included pre-applied paste if you want it's pretty good. Thermal measurements were taken using RealTemp not EVGA Flow Control but it should be noticed Flow Control mirrored RealTemps readings but we wanted a per core breakdown of temperature readings.

Testing & Performance

Now keep in mind this represents the 7700K with no chassis fans, no ambient air movement, fan profile set to 100% fan at a CPU temperature of 20^oC. Every virtual core (8) driving at 100% for an entire hour. This isn't a circumstance normal computing will ever see in most circumstances. 

Running 4.5 GHz

The EVGA CLC 120mm held it's own and tossed us a 29^oC Idle and a load of 63^oC not bad for a 120mm radiator single fan AIO. The CLC 240mm dropped a 61^oC load and 29^oC idle. Idle temperatures were incredibly consistent even up to 4.9GHz. The CLC 280mm amazed us pulling close to the EKWB triple radiator and giving a 30^oC idle and 59^oC. We studied the dual radiator vs triple radiator conundrum for a few moments then realized that the EVGA CLC was driving 74+CFM and the EKWB fans were lower CFM and RPM.

Running 4.6GHz

The CLC 120mm ran us a 31^oC idle and a 64^o C load while the CLC 240mm was an identical idle and a 61^oC which isn't bad for all 4 core thumping at 100% for an hour. The Big dog CLC 280MM punched out a 30^oC idle and a 60^oC load a mere 2^o C below the EKWB Predator 360. With the fans at maximum RPM and on an open testbed chassis the 39.9dBA was audible but not hair-raising annoying. Inside a chassis even at 100%, which you won't need all the time anyway, the noise level would be considerably lower.

Running 4.7GHz

At 4.7GHz the CLC 120mm was starting to warm up a little but at the end of an hour, it was holding at 71^oC. We wouldn't recommend the CLC 120mm for 100% load 24/7 on all 4 cores as you will probably get coolant temperature creep but we wouldn't recommend 24/7 operation at 100% for any computer or cooler. These are extremely harsh conditions for a machine and cooler. The CLC 240mm idled at 32^oC and at load gave us a 66^oC while the 280mm idled at 31^oC and loaded at 64^oC just 2^oC below the triple radiator kits. Again we suspect if you strapped the excellent EVGA fans on the triple radiator kits they would get better results but we are testing stock out of the box kits.

Running 4.8GHz

At 4.8GHz and 1.312v the CLC 120mm was running 73^o C load with minor but steady upward coolant temperature creep, the 120mms idle was still low at 31^oC. The CLC 240mm idled at 31^oC while the load came in at 68^oC a respectable temperature for a dual radiator AIO kit. The CLC 280mm was beginning to show it's advantage hitting 65^oC load and holding steady while the idle hit 31^oC.

Running 4.9GHz

The EVGA CLC 120mm really wasn't built for such an extreme OC with 100% core usage and we cut the test off at 85^oC which is our cutoff as we don't like to run any of our CPU's past 85^oC. We know the upper limit is 100^oC and built-in throttling will prevent damage but past 85^oC our brains start melting down. Since the CLC 120 isn't built for this we won't use the 4.9GHz test in scoring it. The CLC 240 pulled a 78^oC after an hour of brutal 100% CPU utilization so you know we are happy with that result. The EVGA CLC 280mm ran a highly respectable 74^oC at 4.9GHz and testing results on all 3 EVGA CLC kits just shows you how well engineered they are.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

We are well pleased with the EVGA CLC cooling solutions! The fans are well engineered with Teflon Nano Bearings, "C" shaped fan cases and we didn't register anything above 39dBA on sound testing. At 2000+RPM (by EVGA Flow Control readings) that 39dBA was at maximum settings using the adjustable fan curve software and not a constant level during normal operation. We found the default fan curve very reasonable and kept the coolers whisper quiet. CFM ran between 74 on the 120mm and 115 on the 140mm fans and we suspect that and the variable flow on the pump to be EVGA's secret to the excellent test results we got.

The Radiators came out of the box in an unblemished condition with no visible surface marring and the fins were perfection with no dents dings or bending. On the Z270 platform, we chose we did have to use a backplate which is pretty normal for the 1151 platform so if this is an upgrade removing the motherboard will be required but that's normal for any 1155 socket install of a cooling solution. We popped the 280mm kit onto a 2066 Intel board and that install was easy and fast.

Cooling for each class of EVGA CLC Cooler was top notch and the 280mm version approached triple radiator AIO quality cooling which was pretty amazing. 

The surface of the all copper CPU contact plate was pretty well milled and almost appeared polished which was a nice touch. The braided hose coverings were a feature we really enjoyed. The only thing we noticed was that for EVGA Flow control to work at full feature availability was that the fans had to run to the CPU block connector(s) as well as pump power and USB cords totaling 4 wires in the CPU vicinity which might take a little wiring time to hide. A couple of zip ties will probably satisfy wiring fanatics so we don't see that as much of an issue.

EVGA Flow Control resembles EVGA Precision XOC and was easy to use and very intuitive. Easy access to fan control, CPU temperature, and coolant temperature was nice to the point of addictive.  

Noise levels were good, the software was great, quality was unbeatable on manufacturing and we doubt you will find a better All In One cooling kit for the price or performance.

EVGA CLC 120mm

Small elegantly implemented and effective for mild OCing at the $85 price point.

EVGA CLC 240mm

Fits common case sized packs a good punch for a 240mm AIO watercooler, fans are top notch and offers excellent cooling for $110. While other AIOs might be a little less expensive don't be fooled by lower prices that equate to lower quality. The AIO's we say approaching this quality are more expensive.

EVGA CLC 280mm

The performance is first rate and approached a couple of triple radiator kits performance and did it for under $130. If you have a chassis that can accommodate the 280mm EVGA CLC Cooling solution or plan on buying one we would heartily recommend this beast. This one stays on the Proclockers test bench!

Introduction

Computer case fans have become a necessity for our computer builds. Let’s face it, we need to get rid of all of the heat our high-end computer components generate quickly and effectively out of our computers chassis. By doing so we keep our computer components cooler; which, gives us users less serious problems down the road, as well as, increase the life expectancy of our computers by keeping them cooler.

That’s not the real question we need to ask ourselves, it is pretty rhetorical, we need fans. The question we need to ask ourselves is a much simpler one, do we want an everyday plain Jane chassis fan(s) in our computers, or do we want to use chassis fan(s) that grabs the attention of anyone who comes in the door and sees our computer?  We over here at Proclockers going to be looking at a set of chassis fans that will do just that, grab the attention of anyone who walks the door and looks at our computers. The chassis fans more specifically are from a very reputable company that has been in the computer industry for as long as I can remember, and has a very good reputation for making top-tier quality products. Today these chassis fans are none other than Corsairs LL120 RGB fans. These chassis fans come in two popular sizes of 120mm, as well as 140mm sizes and are fully customizable in a wide variety of colors, and different patterns to fit our personal moods or personal computing styles.

Specifications:

• LL120 RGB Specification Value
• Dimensions (mm) 120 x 120 x 25
• Rated Voltage - Fan 12V
• Rated Voltage - RGB LED's 5V
• Operating Voltage - Fan 7V - 13.2V
• Startup Voltage - Fan 7V
• Rated Current - Fan 0.30A
• Rated Current - RGB LED's 0.62A
• Speed (rpm) - 600-1500 +/- 10% (120mm), 
• Airflow (@ rated speed) - 43.25 CFM(120m)
• Static Pressure - 1.61 mm-H2O(120mm)
• Sound Level - 24.8 dBA(120mm
• Connection Cable - 4-pin
• PWM Control - Yes
• Bearing Type - Hydraulic
• Cable Length - Fan (mm) 600
• Cable Length - RGB LED's (mm) 600
• MTBF - Life Expectation 40,000 hours @ 25c

Looking at the above Specifications of the two offerings from Corsair, the LL120/140 RGB fans should provide us with both visually appealing aesthetic, as well as a quieter computer. We will be looking at the Corsair LL 120mm fans today. Let’s turn to the next page and see what these chassis fans are all about shall we.

Packaging & Unboxing

Got to start somewhere, so might as well start off on the packaging. Like always with Corsair this company does an outstanding job on presentation of their products. The front of the packaging lets us know that these are indeed LED RGB style of fans, also gives us a quick run-down of the chassis fans sizes, fan speed, its dBA, and that there are 3 of these fans in the packaging.

Turning our attention over to the back side of the packaging we are given quick specifications of the enclosed chassis fans, in multiple languages, and that we can control these chassis fans with Corsairs very own Corsair Link software, more on that later.

Opening up the top of the packaging, and removing the top compartment, we can see that Corsair does a pretty good job of ensuring that our investment will not get badly damaged through the rigors of shipping. Also, that everything looks so neat and tidy, not having wires and connectors just floating about in the packaging. Making it loads easier for us to keep track of what is what.

I removed the top compartment and opened it to see how well Corsair packaged up the accessories. Once again, nicely done by Corsair; this is our electrical components that will be needed in order to get the full effect of Corsairs LL120mm RGB chassis fans. Underneath all of the connectors/wires is the manual on how to properly hook up these chassis fans to our computer systems. I should also mention that this manual is printed in multiple languages, and is really easy to follow from step to step.

All the electronics laid out, from left to right, Corsair includes, a USB header cable (motherboard 10pin USB 2 header) to Lighting Node PRO, a Lighting Node PRO to LED Hub Link Cable, LED Hub, Lighting Node Pro. Also 3 sets of chassis fan screws (top).

The other three compartments house the fans. Once again Corsair does do a great job on the presentation, the organization of the internal parts of the LL 120mm LED RGB chassis fans. The white blades and innermost part of the chassis fan is semitransparent. Though they do allow plenty of light through this translucent plastic covering, it also conceals the RGB LEDs quite nicely; giving these chassis fans a professional appearance. Near the corners of the chassis fans, near the screw mounting holes, Corsair also includes a small rubber anti-vibration rubber inserts. Which should reduce any unwanted vibrations from our fans, therefore further reducing any chattering and noises from these chassis fans?

A quick look at the backside of the Corsair LL120mm RGB chassis fans.

I decided to do a quick mockup installation of how to hook up everything that is required in order to properly use these chassis fans. Once again, the installation manual was very clear and precise on how to plug everything in and how to hook up to our computers. A word of note, as the manual also states, make sure you hook up your fans in sequence, 1,2, 3, 4, ETC…. do not skip any numbers ie. 1, 3, 4…. The Lighting Node PRO can run up to 2 LED Hubs, and each LED Hub can run up to 6 Chassis fans. So yes if you already have this kit with the 3 Chassis fans, you can just purchase the individual chassis fans and hook them directly up to the LED Hub.

RGB Gallary 

Here's a Gallary of RGB goodness with some of our favorite color selections.

Corsair Link Software

Before we go anywhere on this program, you will have to download it from Corsairs website HERE. This software is not included with the packaging, and it will be required if you plan on changing the LL120/140mm RGB fans modes/colors.

Once we get Corsairs Link software installed as well as up and running our desktop, we can make our adjustments on the Corsair LL 120/140 RGB fans. The first screen you are greeted with is the home screen; this is where we can monitor our temperatures across the entire computer system. I like to add, that this is a nice touch from Corsair to give us a bit more than just a simple LED controller.

We can also save, load different profiles depending on our mood, or even the user at that time. There is a lot of different things we can do with the Corsair Link software.

 If you look towards the bottom left-hand side of the home screen, you will see a small window that has LED channel #1 and a configure button to the immediate right you can adjust the LEDs of the LL120 RGB chassis fans there.

NOTE: if you get a warning about needing to update the firmware of the Lighting Node Pro, please do so now. I had to go into Options>Devices>Force  Update.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

The Corsair LL120/140mm RGB chassis fan kit is well thought out, and well-executed design. As the lady of the house puts it, “Oh My God, I love all of the colors. It really makes your computer jump right out at you doesn’t it?” Well, even I cannot disagree with that simple assessment. On top of being aesthetically pleasing, they are also very quiet. Though I cannot hear them over my other fans on my computer system, your results may vary greatly from my own depending on what types of fans you have on your particular computer system.

Running at 43.25CFM and under 25dBA these aren't wind tunnel fans but they move enough air to keep the airflow scheme of your chassis carrying out that excess heat and they do it in a mind boggling array of colors.

All in all, I will have to say that if you are looking for a set of full-spectrum RGB chassis fans that will add that unique touch to your computer, while keeping your computer cool, and quiet, as well as allowing us to expand up to 12 LL120/140mm RGB chassis and have full control of each fan individually, or in sequence, then the Corsair LL120/140mm RGB chassis fans are right up your alley.

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite ML240L & ML120L RGB Review

CPU’s are getting faster and sporting more cores than ever and as that happens the need for increased cooling capacity increases. Large bulky air coolers with multiple fans towering over your CPU and filling a large part of your chassis are an option but All In One water-cooling is fast becoming mainstream. Typically they are easy to install, zero maintenance and outperform air cooling. The prices on the AIO coolers have dropped as demand has gone up and even the RGB AIO’s have gotten to a reasonable price point. Cooler Master sent us their MasterLiquid ML120L and ML240L RGB AIO water-coolers to take a gander at.

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L RGB is a compact 120mm fan AIO water-cooling unit usually mounted on the rear fan slot on your chassis and like its bigger brother the ML240L is capable of syncing with Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI motherboards that have RGB capable motherboard headers. The kits also contain a standalone controller for changing RGB colors and effects.

The Cooler Master ML 240L RGB is a 240mm double fan AIO water-cooling it uses the same fans as the ML120L and the same dual chamber pump. Both AIOs feature a nicely braided hose with rubber shrink sleeves over the connectors to further protect the connections.

Features & Specifications MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

Features

Liquid CPU cooling optimized for low noise and performance. Easy to install 120mm radiator makes this the perfect all-in-one liquid cooling for novice to experienced builders. Now enhanced with RGB lighting feature, this is for anyone that also wants lighting effects in their system.

RGB Lighting SyncMasterLiquid ML120L RGB makes syncing the lighting easier than ever before. It comes with MF120R RGB, a water pump lights up with RGB and controller to easily control and sync it all.

Dual Chamber Pump with RGB

Isolates the heated coolant to maximize the results of the cooling of the processor.

RGB function to sync with the system.

Custom design low resistance radiator allows higher flow rate, heat exchange efficiency and provides unmatched cooling performance.

Air Balance Fans aside from having the perfect balance of airflow and air pressure to exhaust air through the fins and out of the case, the MF120AB RGB fan uses a silent driver IC that smoothens fan operation to reduce fan clicks and vibrations.

Specifications

Schematic

Courtesy Cooler Master

The CoolerMaster provided schematic shows a Dual chamber RGB PUMP that isolates heated coolant and has an RGB Logo. The Tubing shows FEP tubing that is flexible and durable as well as sleeved in a nicely done braid. There is a slight discrepancy on the fan description as our fans clearly read MF120AB but it may be mislabeled on the schematic as our fans look exactly like that. It’s noted that the Radiator is low resistance and 120mm. Now the controller shown here isn’t in scale with the other images and is actually about 1 ½” and controls 6 preset modes, color of the fan and brightness.

After playing with the controller that resides inside the chassis there were plenty of presets to keep the RGB fan in you happy.

Packaging & Unboxing MasterLiquid Lite ML120L

The ML120L RGB comes in a sturdy cardboard box with plenty of information and specifications to help the consumer make an informed decision about its purchase.

Opening the box we find a pressed cardboard insert with pockets to protect the individual components. We didn’t find any damage and the outer box it we shipped in had taken typical package carrier abuse so the protection is pretty good in its cardboard cocoon.

After removing the components you can see the sturdy interior container with the bends and curves that strengthen it.

Just under the lid, we found a warranty booklet and an accordion manual.

A Closer Look MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

Out of the box, the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML120L shows a nicely braided hose and rubber shrink wrapped connectors. The quality looks good and it has a solid feel to the product.

With the MasterFan 120AB RGB (66.7CFM Max) attached by some easy to use thumbscrews, we can easily tell that this is a much upgraded version of the original MasterLite 120.

The Radiator has a nice sturdy housing and is a custom design that allows for higher flow rate.

The radiators fins are in good shape with no obvious deformities and the housing is of sufficient strength and thickness you shouldn’t have a problem with durability.

Courtesy CoolerMaster

Here’s a shot of the cooling arrangement, showing the cooling channels.

The CPU waterblock/pump is solidly built and operates quietly at 15dBA or less. Notice the nice weave on the hoses giving it a premium look and feel and the shrink rubber cover over the connectors. You should note that the connectors swivel to make the install easier. The waterblock/pump has an LED logo on it that syncs with the color of the fans. While the fans will sync with compatible motherboards the waterblock needs the included controller to sync.

The copper plate on the dual chamber pump/block shows some mill marks and as you can see the power is done with a 3 Pin fan connector and it has a 4 pin female RGB controller wire.

The MasterFan 120AB runs between 650 and 2000 RPM at an advertised maximum of 66.7 CFM and a dBA rating of 6 – 30dBA. During testing from 1 meter away we registered 55 dBA but that was with the side open on the chassis. Notice the same two-wire connection scheme on the fan, one 4 pin PWM and a 4 pin female RGB controller wire. This arrangement is common on RGB fans so if you want that RGB bling you need to put in a little more wiring time.

Here we have the MasterFan 120AB RGB with the controller strap. The single wire from the top connects to the controller and the side with 3 wires connects to the block and fan(s). We say fan(s) because this is the same setup as the ML240L. With the ML120L you can actually control a chassis fan with the extra wire, however, all the wires are used on the ML240L.

As you can see we received MasterFan 120AB RGB fans that run 650 – 2000 RPM manufactured a couple months ago.

The RGB controller is powered by a pass through Molex connector and connects via a little connector that comes off the Molex setup. It would have been more elegant to use a SATA connector as most of us don’t use Molex anymore and this adds another wire to the chassis to corral.

The backplate consists of 9 pieces, the backplate, 4 threaded pins that come up through the bottom and 4 clips that slide into 3 different slots depending on your CPU socket. Assembly was fast and easy but we did have to glance at the manual.

Here’s a shot of the ML120L RGB in our test rig TryRedasuaras Rex. We disabled our RED Corsair fan to show how nicely the ML120R lights the chassis and we can say you won’t be disappointed by the brightness and if it’s too bright you can use the controller to tone it down a little.

No worries this puppy is RGB so you get plenty of color choices.

No worries this puppy is RGB so you get plenty of color choices.

Courtesy Cooler Master

The bundle contains everything you need for all modern sockets and even included 4 extra fan thumbscrews if you want to go push/pull on the radiator.  

Socket compatibility is listed below for your convenience.

Intel® LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 socket

AMD® AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 socket

Features & Specifications MasterLiquid Lite ML240L RGB

Features

Liquid CPU cooling optimized for low noise and performance. Easy to install 240mm radiator makes this the perfect all-in-one liquid cooling for novice to experienced builders. Now enhanced with RGB lighting feature, this is for anyone that also wants lighting effects in their system.

RGB Lighting SyncMasterLiquid ML240L RGB makes syncing the lighting easier than ever before. It comes with MF120R RGB, a water pump lights up with RGB and controller to easily control and sync it all.

Dual Chamber Pump with RGB

Isolates the heated coolant to maximize the results of the cooling of the processor.

RGB function to sync with the system.

Custom design low resistance radiator allows higher flow rate, heat exchange efficiency and provides unmatched cooling performance.

Air Balance Fans aside from having the perfect balance of airflow and air pressure to exhaust air through the fins and out of the case, the MF120AB RGB fan uses a silent driver IC that smoothens fan operation to reduce fan clicks and vibrations.

Schematic:

Courtesy Cooler Master

The CoolerMaster provided schematic shows a Dual chamber RGB PUMP that isolates heated coolant and has an RGB Logo. The Tubing shows FEP tubing that is flexible and durable as well as sleeved in a nicely done braid. There is a slight discrepancy on the fan description as our fans clearly read MF120AB but it may be mislabeled on the schematic as our fans look exactly like that. It’s noted that the Radiator is low resistance and 240mm. Now the controller shown here isn’t in scale with the other images and is actually about 1 ½” and controls 6 preset modes, color of the fan and brightness.

After playing with the controller that resides inside the chassis there were plenty of presets to keep the RGB fan in you happy.

Specifications: Master Liquid ML240L RGB

Packaging & Unboxing MasteLiquid ML240L

On the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we see similar packaging to the ML120L RGB and both kits share everything except the ML240L gets a second fan and 240mm radiator.

Inside the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we find the same pressed cardboard scheme with all the components safely stored in their own compartment.

Emptied we find the same deep protective pockets as the ML120L and the curves and ridges that give it the needed durability to protect your prize.

Under the hood, we find a warranty information booklet and an accordion manual.

A Closer Look MasterLiquid ML240L

On the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we find the same dual chamber pump, sleeved hoses, and sturdy radiator construction.

The radiator has a well constructed thick frame and the fins and channels show no imperfections to the human eye.

We attached the fans with the 8 provided thumb screws and these are the same MasterFan 120AB RGB fans as on the ML120L. It would have been a nice touch to include 8 more thumb screw for those wanting a push-pull setup.

Notice the swivel connectors on the waterblock and here again visible mill marks on the copper portion of the pump/block.

The 240mm radiator is of good solid construction and the channels and fins don’t show any blemishes or bending.

The MasterLiquid Lite ML240L comes with two MasterFan 120AB RGB fans with 4 pin PWM connectors and the 4 pin female RGB controller wires.

Here’s the pair of MasterFan 120AB we received, covering the coils of copper in the center with a sticker would have been a nice touch.

Here’s the label on the MasterFan 120AB which shows the 650 – 2000 RPM rated speed.

Cooler Master provides a dual can to single connector adaptor and it’s partially sleeved and we would have liked to see full sleeves on the exposed wires.

We went ahead and attached the controller to the Molex power and RGB controller cable so as you can guess your RGB controller is going to be inside your chassis.

We connected the wires outside the chassis so you can get an idea of what you are dealing with on the RGB/Controller setup. We did a front chassis mount on the Corsair Spec-04 Carbide series mid-tower we used for in chassis testing so it wasn’t too bad running the wiring.

We ran a measuring tape on the hoses and from radiator base to pump/block it’s 12 inches and front mounting on a mid-tower was a little tight, top mounting should leave plenty of room.

Courtesy Cooler Master

Here’s the bundle on the MasterLiquid Lite ML240L and you’ll find everything you need for mounting on all modern sockets and for those clinging to their LGA 775 socket the Master Liquid series will even cover that.

Socket compatibility is listed below for your convenience.

Intel® LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 socket

AMD® AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 socket

Testing Environment & Equipment

Testing Hardware

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Code

RAM: 32GB Kingston HyperX 3200Mhz

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2 ICX

SSDs: Kingston KC1000 480GB

Chassis: Corsair Spec-04 Carbide Series

EVGA 74.83 CFM Fans Extra Testing

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Testing Setup

We pondered what software to use for stressing the CPU 100% and OCCT and Prime 95, as well as Intel Burn, just produce an unrealistic amount of heat. Some of the CPU stress programs are designed specifically to generate heat which has no real bearing on real-life computing. We tested a host of software from Realbench to never heard of programs and finally landed on CPU-Z and the Stress CPU utility. It's easy, free and available to everyone and during test selection; it consistently kept 4 cores 8 threads at 100% and generated enough heat to convince us of the validity of the Stress Test. 

Notice the Stress CPU Button, we used 4 Core 8 Thread testing

We went with a worst case scenario, no chassis fans, no ambient air movement. Lab temperature was kept at 72^oF or 22^oC throughout testing. We disabled Intel's Turbo feature and locked the CPU to a steady frequency and CPU voltage for each clock speed on the CPU. We went into BIOS and set OC profiles for 4.5GHz, 4.6GHz, 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz and 4.9GHz. We cut off at 4.9GHz as the CPU voltage required to reach 5GHz stable with a stress test load running for an hour were just unacceptable and liable to degrade the CPU. To sustain a 5GHz OC we were well over 1.42v and Asus recommends triple radiator cooling for 1.35v (which we exceeded). We fired up the test station and let it Idle for 30 minutes and recorded the idle reading. We then ran the test at each CPU speed for an hour then recorded the reading.

Between tests, we shut the machine down for 30 minutes then went to the next CPU speed.  Each test at each speed was repeated 3 times then we report the average of the 3 readings. Every test was run using the pre-set profile in BIOS without any changes to maintain test consistency.

We used the provided thermal material on the CoolerMaster coolers for testing. The thermal material which we recommended replacing earlier well we can eat our words on that one. We did each test with Arctic Ceramique and the readings didn't change so use the included pre-applied paste if you want it's pretty good. Thermal measurements were taken using RealTemp.

Testing Results:

The results in Red are done with the Stock MasterFan 120AB RGB at full speed, the tests in blue are the result of swapping out the CoolerMaster Fans for EVGA 77.82 CFM with a static pressure of 4.04 mmAq (MAX). The Cooler Master 120AB RGB hit 66.7 CFM with a static pressure of 2.34 mmH2O (Max) so the more powerful EVGA fans might give us a little better results.

4.5GHz Test

Idle temperatures are always well within acceptable limits so we’ll deal with load temperature in our testing. Idle temperatures are listed for your convenience. The ML120L got us a 65oC under load at 4.5GHz and an hour’s run of the stress test. Replacing the fan with the EVGA Higher CFM and Pressure fans dropped us down to 64^o.

The ML240 kept us at a cool 62^oC with stock fans while the EVGA fans gave us a load temp of 61^oC.

4.6 GHz Test

At 4.6GHz the stock fans on the ML120L hit 65^oC and change out to the EVGA fans we dropped one degree to 64^oC.

The ML240L kept the line at 62^oC and stronger fans dropped it to 61^oC.

4.7GHz Testing

Things start to heat up at 4.7GHz and the ML120L hit 70oC and tack on the EVGA fans it hits 68^oC.

The ML240 hits 67^oC with the stock fans and the EVGA fans pushed that down to 66^oC.

4.8 GHz Testing

Voltage wasn’t too bad here at 4.8GHz requiring 1.312v for stability on the CPU and the ML120L gave us a 75^oC and adding the EVGA fans it hit 64^oC.

The ML240L hit 69^oC and with the EVGA fans dropped to 68^oC so yes higher CFM higher pressure fans are helping.

4.9GHz Testing

Here at 4.9 GHz, we cut off testing at 85^oC on the ML120 with both sets of fans it was obvious after just a couple of minutes temperatures were getting out of hand quickly. That’s to be expected with a 120mm cooler they aren’t designed for extreme overclocks.

The ML240L hit 83^oC after an hour’s test at 4.9GHz and 1.36V and tossing on the EVGA fans dropped it to 79^oC so it seems at higher temps the stronger fans become more important.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120mm RGB’s performance was in line with what we expected and while it didn’t top the charts in 120mm performance it held the line up to 4.8GHz on the notoriously warm 7700K. The wiring took a little time to get it to look good in the chassis but once we kicked off the RGB effects well worth it.

The ability to sync it with RGB capable motherboard headers is a big plus!

If you need a compact AIO water cooling system for mild overclocking or just keeping your stock speed CPU nice and cool the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L RGB might be what you are looking for!

CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite ML240L RGB

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite ML240L had dazzling RGB effects via a hardware controller and by RGB capable motherboard headers. The cooling capacity was good all the way up to 4.9GHz under worst case conditions and under normal use should give you plenty of overhead for moderate overclocking.

The quality of the ML240L was good and the radiators sturdiness impressed us. The cloth covering on the hoses was a nice touch and the brightness of the RGB fans lit up the entire chassis.

If you’re looking for that little extra bling and crave some RGB action while keeping your CPU cooled the Cooler Master ML240L should do the job for you and provide an eye catching RGB experience!

Introduction

When most enthusiasts think of how to cool their next build, an air cooler probably doesn’t even make the list. They are big, ugly, loud, can’t keep up with the heat over an overclocked CPU, and collect more dust than your furnace filter right? Actually, Enermax disagrees completely: Enter the new ETS-T50 Axe air cooler. With five large 6mm heat pipes, a 12CM 3 color LED fan with Dust Free Rotation, a patented adjustable air guide to direct exhaust air where you want it, and a staggering 250 watt+ TDP support, this cooler has capabilities that send many All in One liquid coolers home in shame. Can the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler really handle the heat, all while looking good, staying dust free and avoiding the complexity and cringe factor of having ‘liquid’ and ‘expensive computer’ in the same sentence? We are about to find out!

ProClockers would like to thank Enermax for sending the ETS-T50 Axe cooler over to us to try out!

Enermax Product Video

Enermax’s Take on the ETS-T50 Axe cooler

ETS-T50 AXE, a high-performance side-flow CPU cooler with 5 x Ø6mm heat pipes, features a 12cm DFRTM(Dust Free Rotation) technology fan and patented Pressure Differential Flow (PDF) design, offering users an outstanding cooling solution with powerful 250W TDP support. The patented Rotatable Air Guide is an ideal design for preferred airflow direction adjustment. With a patented circular-type 3-color LED fan, ETS-T50 AXE can deliver dazzling LED lighting effects and help gaming enthusiasts create a personalized look that matches their styles.

About Enermax

Established in 1990, Enermax has quickly grown into a world-renowned manufacturer of power supplies, cases, coolers and peripherals. Their farsighted R & D department is always striving to come up with the best and most satisfactory products with cutting edge designs. The spirit of “Technology Innovation” and “Quality First” to constantly create award winning products, recognized by numerous awards from iF, Red Dot, Good Design and Taiwan Excellence Awards Those are proven evidence of their top-notch quality and design competency recognized by the professionals and reviewers worldwide.

Features & Specifications

Features

Packaging & Unboxing

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe has a very colorful box. The top is taken up by 4 pictures, one each of the 4 lighting combinations, Red, Blue, Green or all 3 at once.

The Front of the Box gives a quick rundown of what makes this cooler stand out from the competition.

The rear shows the difference Enermax’s DFR (Dust Free Rotation) makes over time, as well as the lighting modes and some other features.

The Right side of the packaging gives the full specification as well as some dimensional drawings to help you determine if this will fit in your case.

And lastly, the Left side of the box gives the intro in several languages as well as a quick rundown of what all is in the box, most of which probably won’t mean anything to you until you are reading the installation instructions. 

Opening the box, we are immediately greeted with the ETS-T50 Axe Cooler nestled into a cardboard tray with the manual laying on top.

Pulling everything out of the box gives us the Axe cooler, the manual, and a box of installation hardware.

This is the complete pile of installation hardware that allows the ETS-T50 Axe to be installed on all modern and many recent sockets, from Intel’s LGA-775 up and from AMD’s AM2 and up.

Since the pile of mounting hardware is small, and the list of supported sockets is pretty high, Enermax had to create a special real mounting bracket with lots of carefully planned cutouts and bends. Here you can see the AMD and Intel sides of the bracket are offset to provide clearance for the given socket. Above is a close up of the Dow Corning TC-5121 Thermal interface material and spreader in its sealed blister pack.

A Closer Look

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler is a rather imposing monster of heat sink! It is 100 Painted black sans the CPU contact area on the bottom to ensure it blends in to your build.

The Rotatable Air Guide on the back can be swiveled 360 degrees so that the slightly angled louvers can direct airflow to the best location, a rear exhaust fan for example.

Looking from the side, you’ll notice the entire heatsink is off center from the socket so that the fan will not interfere with Ram slots.

The CPU contact area is all 5 heatpipes flattened out so they contact the CPU heat spreader directly, providing the best thermal transfer as opposed to some other designs on the market that have to transfer heat through an aluminum block before getting to the heatpipes.

As the Copper heatpipes are already very thin, Enermax was unable to get a mirror finish on the CPU contact area , but the machined area is perfectly flat anyway.

The Fan and air guide can both be removed easily with clips on each, and can be swapped around to the other side if needed.

The Enermax ED122512H-PAL-C 120mm fan with 3 color Vegas Effects. Here you get a good look at the short pig tail with the lighting mode button. It is only a few inches long, so it really doesn’t provide a system builder with a good way to access it from outside a case.

And last but certainly not least, the patented Pressure Differential Flow design of the heatsink fin stack.

System Configuration & Installation

Testing Hardware

• Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact
• Intel Core i7-6700k
• 32GB G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz DDR4
• Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB SSD
• Corsair RM1000 Power supply
• Windows 7 Professional

 General Performance Testing

• Prime95

Installation

Something every system builder worries about when choosing a larger cooler is clearances. To that end, we decided to try the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler on the most cramped system we had on hand, and ITX build powered by the Asus ROG Maximus VIII Impact and the Intel i7-6700K.

For Intel LGA 115x platforms, installation begins with installing the 4 bolts into the proper holes per the manual, then sliding the 4 plastic retaining clips over the ends to secure them.

After aligning the notches on the bracket to fit around the 3 socket retaining screws on the back, 4 plastic spacers are placed over the protruding bolts on the front.

After placing the 2 cross-members over the bolts and installing the nuts, the cooler is ready to be installed.

This is where I ran into the first and only problem with this cooler’s design. Due to the asymmetrical heatpipe design, the stack of fins overlaps the rear mounting screw. There is nothing wrong with this in and of itself, but my standard screw driver was not long enough on the shank to be able to access this screw straight on.

You can see the screw is back from the edge a fair bit, and can only be access through a slot cut in the heatsink fins.

Whichever Phillips style screw driver you end up using, you need at least 5 inches of smooth shank to reach this screw. I ended up getting around it with another driver and an extension, but it did slow the show down for a few minutes while I went after other tools.

With the fan and air guide assembly snapped back on, we can finally check out clearances. Keep in mind this is a very cramped little board with almost no spare room anywhere, so if the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe fits on here, it should fit on any other board with no worries. In this case, the edge of the heat sink just barely rests on the VRM daughterboard and bends the lowest fin just a fraction of a millimeter.

Again, in this cramped build, the clearances are very close. As you can see, the fan just barely contacts the top edge of the fin on the G.Skill TridentZ ram, which is quite tall for DDR4 ram. There is no danger of damage here and the fan assembly can be slid up the heat sink just a few millimeters to clear with no issue at all. There are no other places with contact or anything else to mention here, so let’s fire it up and see how it performs!

Testing & Performance

Prime95

Prime95 is an application dedicated to finding new Mersenne prime numbers.  Prime95 is very popular in both the PC enthusiasts and overclocking communities as a stability testing utility. It includes different modes designed specifically for testing PC subsystems for errors in order to help ensure the correct operation of Prime95 on that system. The stress-test feature in Prime95 can be configured to better test various components of the computer by changing the fast courier transform (FFT) size. In this stress test, there are three pre-sets available. They are small FFTs, in-place FTTs and Blend. Small and In-place modes mainly test the CPU. We will be focusing on Blend mode since it tests everything, including the memory.

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler was tested on the above system with an ambient temperature of 70°F which is about 21°C. Each Prime95 Blended test was ran 3 times for 15 minutes each with the results averaged and allowed to cool 15-20 minutes between each test and run. Tests were performed at Stock speeds and voltages with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 40x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.5Ghz (45x Multiplier @1.3V) to push the cooler a little harder. . As with any cooler, fan speeds can heavily affect cooling performance, so each test was run with the Asus Q-fan controlling the fan on its default standard profile, and again with the fan manually set to 100% speed for the duration of the test. All Tests are reported in degrees Celsius.

You can see above that The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler turns in great temperatures under load, in fact, bumping the CPU up to a moderate overclock of 4.5 Ghz from stock only raised the temperatures about 2 degrees under load. The Idle temperature stayed about 4 degrees above ambient, which is not the best we have ever seen, but considering the loaded temperatures barely even register as warm, with automatic fan speeds never exceeding a gentle whisper of 1350RPM, we have to say it does a great job over all.

With such icy temperatures coming in from our Skylake based test system, it’s obvious this configuration isn’t even putting a dent in this coolers capability, so let’s crank up the heat!

Testing Hardware #2

• Asus X99-M WS
• Intel Core i7-5960X
• 64GB G.Skill TridentZ 3200Mhz DDR4
• Samsung 840 Evo 1 TB SSD
• Thermaltake Toughpower DPS G RGB 1250W Titanium
• Windows 7 Professional

The same tests were performed at again at stock speed with Speed Step turned off and all cores locked at a 30x multiplier, as well as Overclocked to 4.0Ghz (40x Multiplier @1.2V). For this test, we left the CPU fan speed in Control of the motherboard’s ‘Q-Fan’ fan profile on standard.

This round of testing put a much heavier load on the cooler, as indicated by the increased idle temperatures, about 10-12C warmer than ambient with loaded temperatures climbing to a still respectable 50C under load and 61C under load while overclocked. The Haswell-E based Core i7-5960X has a TDP of 140 Watts at stock, and scales up quite rapidly when overclocked due to eight hyper-threaded cores inside, but it’s clear the 250W+ TDP of the Enermax ETS-T50 Axe cooler is more than up to the task of even enthusiast chips.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

The Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler is a formidable contender in the high end air cooler market, and one of the few that can handle heavy overclocking and Enthusiast chips without melting. The Fan offers Enermax’s unique Vegas lighting effects and moves plenty of air for this cooler, while staying relatively quiet through most of its range, but we did find the Effect control button far too short for our liking. The lights are very bright and the ability to turn them off without having to remove the side door of your case would be nice. Installation is straight forward and can be done pretty quickly, provided you have a long enough screw driver before you start. Overall, we must award this our Highly Recommended Award! Great Job Enermax!

Buy from Enermax.com

Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler Black

Enermax ETS-T50 Axe Cooler White

Buy at other online retailers

Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite ML240L & ML120L RGB Review

CPU’s are getting faster and sporting more cores than ever and as that happens the need for increased cooling capacity increases. Large bulky air coolers with multiple fans towering over your CPU and filling a large part of your chassis are an option but All In One water-cooling is fast becoming mainstream. Typically they are easy to install, zero maintenance and outperform air cooling. The prices on the AIO coolers have dropped as demand has gone up and even the RGB AIO’s have gotten to a reasonable price point. Cooler Master sent us their MasterLiquid ML120L and ML240L RGB AIO water-coolers to take a gander at.

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L RGB is a compact 120mm fan AIO water-cooling unit usually mounted on the rear fan slot on your chassis and like its bigger brother the ML240L is capable of syncing with Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI motherboards that have RGB capable motherboard headers. The kits also contain a standalone controller for changing RGB colors and effects.

The Cooler Master ML 240L RGB is a 240mm double fan AIO water-cooling it uses the same fans as the ML120L and the same dual chamber pump. Both AIOs feature a nicely braided hose with rubber shrink sleeves over the connectors to further protect the connections.

Features & Specifications MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

Features

Liquid CPU cooling optimized for low noise and performance. Easy to install 120mm radiator makes this the perfect all-in-one liquid cooling for novice to experienced builders. Now enhanced with RGB lighting feature, this is for anyone that also wants lighting effects in their system.

RGB Lighting SyncMasterLiquid ML120L RGB makes syncing the lighting easier than ever before. It comes with MF120R RGB, a water pump lights up with RGB and controller to easily control and sync it all.

Dual Chamber Pump with RGB

Isolates the heated coolant to maximize the results of the cooling of the processor.

RGB function to sync with the system.

Custom design low resistance radiator allows higher flow rate, heat exchange efficiency and provides unmatched cooling performance.

Air Balance Fans aside from having the perfect balance of airflow and air pressure to exhaust air through the fins and out of the case, the MF120AB RGB fan uses a silent driver IC that smoothens fan operation to reduce fan clicks and vibrations.

Specifications

Schematic

Courtesy Cooler Master

The CoolerMaster provided schematic shows a Dual chamber RGB PUMP that isolates heated coolant and has an RGB Logo. The Tubing shows FEP tubing that is flexible and durable as well as sleeved in a nicely done braid. There is a slight discrepancy on the fan description as our fans clearly read MF120AB but it may be mislabeled on the schematic as our fans look exactly like that. It’s noted that the Radiator is low resistance and 120mm. Now the controller shown here isn’t in scale with the other images and is actually about 1 ½” and controls 6 preset modes, color of the fan and brightness.

After playing with the controller that resides inside the chassis there were plenty of presets to keep the RGB fan in you happy.

Packaging & Unboxing MasterLiquid Lite ML120L

The ML120L RGB comes in a sturdy cardboard box with plenty of information and specifications to help the consumer make an informed decision about its purchase.

Opening the box we find a pressed cardboard insert with pockets to protect the individual components. We didn’t find any damage and the outer box it we shipped in had taken typical package carrier abuse so the protection is pretty good in its cardboard cocoon.

After removing the components you can see the sturdy interior container with the bends and curves that strengthen it.

Just under the lid, we found a warranty booklet and an accordion manual.

A Closer Look MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

Out of the box, the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML120L shows a nicely braided hose and rubber shrink wrapped connectors. The quality looks good and it has a solid feel to the product.

With the MasterFan 120AB RGB (66.7CFM Max) attached by some easy to use thumbscrews, we can easily tell that this is a much upgraded version of the original MasterLite 120.

The Radiator has a nice sturdy housing and is a custom design that allows for higher flow rate.

The radiators fins are in good shape with no obvious deformities and the housing is of sufficient strength and thickness you shouldn’t have a problem with durability.

Courtesy CoolerMaster

Here’s a shot of the cooling arrangement, showing the cooling channels.

The CPU waterblock/pump is solidly built and operates quietly at 15dBA or less. Notice the nice weave on the hoses giving it a premium look and feel and the shrink rubber cover over the connectors. You should note that the connectors swivel to make the install easier. The waterblock/pump has an LED logo on it that syncs with the color of the fans. While the fans will sync with compatible motherboards the waterblock needs the included controller to sync.

The copper plate on the dual chamber pump/block shows some mill marks and as you can see the power is done with a 3 Pin fan connector and it has a 4 pin female RGB controller wire.

The MasterFan 120AB runs between 650 and 2000 RPM at an advertised maximum of 66.7 CFM and a dBA rating of 6 – 30dBA. During testing from 1 meter away we registered 55 dBA but that was with the side open on the chassis. Notice the same two-wire connection scheme on the fan, one 4 pin PWM and a 4 pin female RGB controller wire. This arrangement is common on RGB fans so if you want that RGB bling you need to put in a little more wiring time.

Here we have the MasterFan 120AB RGB with the controller strap. The single wire from the top connects to the controller and the side with 3 wires connects to the block and fan(s). We say fan(s) because this is the same setup as the ML240L. With the ML120L you can actually control a chassis fan with the extra wire, however, all the wires are used on the ML240L.

As you can see we received MasterFan 120AB RGB fans that run 650 – 2000 RPM manufactured a couple months ago.

The RGB controller is powered by a pass through Molex connector and connects via a little connector that comes off the Molex setup. It would have been more elegant to use a SATA connector as most of us don’t use Molex anymore and this adds another wire to the chassis to corral.

The backplate consists of 9 pieces, the backplate, 4 threaded pins that come up through the bottom and 4 clips that slide into 3 different slots depending on your CPU socket. Assembly was fast and easy but we did have to glance at the manual.

Here’s a shot of the ML120L RGB in our test rig TryRedasuaras Rex. We disabled our RED Corsair fan to show how nicely the ML120R lights the chassis and we can say you won’t be disappointed by the brightness and if it’s too bright you can use the controller to tone it down a little.

No worries this puppy is RGB so you get plenty of color choices.

No worries this puppy is RGB so you get plenty of color choices.

Courtesy Cooler Master

The bundle contains everything you need for all modern sockets and even included 4 extra fan thumbscrews if you want to go push/pull on the radiator.  

Socket compatibility is listed below for your convenience.

Intel® LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 socket

AMD® AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 socket

Features & Specifications MasterLiquid Lite ML240L RGB

Features

Liquid CPU cooling optimized for low noise and performance. Easy to install 240mm radiator makes this the perfect all-in-one liquid cooling for novice to experienced builders. Now enhanced with RGB lighting feature, this is for anyone that also wants lighting effects in their system.

RGB Lighting SyncMasterLiquid ML240L RGB makes syncing the lighting easier than ever before. It comes with MF120R RGB, a water pump lights up with RGB and controller to easily control and sync it all.

Dual Chamber Pump with RGB

Isolates the heated coolant to maximize the results of the cooling of the processor.

RGB function to sync with the system.

Custom design low resistance radiator allows higher flow rate, heat exchange efficiency and provides unmatched cooling performance.

Air Balance Fans aside from having the perfect balance of airflow and air pressure to exhaust air through the fins and out of the case, the MF120AB RGB fan uses a silent driver IC that smoothens fan operation to reduce fan clicks and vibrations.

Schematic:

Courtesy Cooler Master

The CoolerMaster provided schematic shows a Dual chamber RGB PUMP that isolates heated coolant and has an RGB Logo. The Tubing shows FEP tubing that is flexible and durable as well as sleeved in a nicely done braid. There is a slight discrepancy on the fan description as our fans clearly read MF120AB but it may be mislabeled on the schematic as our fans look exactly like that. It’s noted that the Radiator is low resistance and 240mm. Now the controller shown here isn’t in scale with the other images and is actually about 1 ½” and controls 6 preset modes, color of the fan and brightness.

After playing with the controller that resides inside the chassis there were plenty of presets to keep the RGB fan in you happy.

Specifications: Master Liquid ML240L RGB

Packaging & Unboxing MasteLiquid ML240L

On the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we see similar packaging to the ML120L RGB and both kits share everything except the ML240L gets a second fan and 240mm radiator.

Inside the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we find the same pressed cardboard scheme with all the components safely stored in their own compartment.

Emptied we find the same deep protective pockets as the ML120L and the curves and ridges that give it the needed durability to protect your prize.

Under the hood, we find a warranty information booklet and an accordion manual.

A Closer Look MasterLiquid ML240L

On the CM MasterLiquid Lite ML240L, we find the same dual chamber pump, sleeved hoses, and sturdy radiator construction.

The radiator has a well constructed thick frame and the fins and channels show no imperfections to the human eye.

We attached the fans with the 8 provided thumb screws and these are the same MasterFan 120AB RGB fans as on the ML120L. It would have been a nice touch to include 8 more thumb screw for those wanting a push-pull setup.

Notice the swivel connectors on the waterblock and here again visible mill marks on the copper portion of the pump/block.

The 240mm radiator is of good solid construction and the channels and fins don’t show any blemishes or bending.

The MasterLiquid Lite ML240L comes with two MasterFan 120AB RGB fans with 4 pin PWM connectors and the 4 pin female RGB controller wires.

Here’s the pair of MasterFan 120AB we received, covering the coils of copper in the center with a sticker would have been a nice touch.

Here’s the label on the MasterFan 120AB which shows the 650 – 2000 RPM rated speed.

Cooler Master provides a dual can to single connector adaptor and it’s partially sleeved and we would have liked to see full sleeves on the exposed wires.

We went ahead and attached the controller to the Molex power and RGB controller cable so as you can guess your RGB controller is going to be inside your chassis.

We connected the wires outside the chassis so you can get an idea of what you are dealing with on the RGB/Controller setup. We did a front chassis mount on the Corsair Spec-04 Carbide series mid-tower we used for in chassis testing so it wasn’t too bad running the wiring.

We ran a measuring tape on the hoses and from radiator base to pump/block it’s 12 inches and front mounting on a mid-tower was a little tight, top mounting should leave plenty of room.

Courtesy Cooler Master

Here’s the bundle on the MasterLiquid Lite ML240L and you’ll find everything you need for mounting on all modern sockets and for those clinging to their LGA 775 socket the Master Liquid series will even cover that.

Socket compatibility is listed below for your convenience.

Intel® LGA 2066 / 2011-v3 / 2011 / 1151 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 775 socket

AMD® AM4 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 / FM2+ / FM2 / FM1 socket

Testing Environment & Equipment

Testing Hardware

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Code

RAM: 32GB Kingston HyperX 3200Mhz

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2 ICX

SSDs: Kingston KC1000 480GB

Chassis: Corsair Spec-04 Carbide Series

EVGA 74.83 CFM Fans Extra Testing

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Testing Setup

We pondered what software to use for stressing the CPU 100% and OCCT and Prime 95, as well as Intel Burn, just produce an unrealistic amount of heat. Some of the CPU stress programs are designed specifically to generate heat which has no real bearing on real-life computing. We tested a host of software from Realbench to never heard of programs and finally landed on CPU-Z and the Stress CPU utility. It's easy, free and available to everyone and during test selection; it consistently kept 4 cores 8 threads at 100% and generated enough heat to convince us of the validity of the Stress Test. 

Notice the Stress CPU Button, we used 4 Core 8 Thread testing

We went with a worst case scenario, no chassis fans, no ambient air movement. Lab temperature was kept at 72^oF or 22^oC throughout testing. We disabled Intel's Turbo feature and locked the CPU to a steady frequency and CPU voltage for each clock speed on the CPU. We went into BIOS and set OC profiles for 4.5GHz, 4.6GHz, 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz and 4.9GHz. We cut off at 4.9GHz as the CPU voltage required to reach 5GHz stable with a stress test load running for an hour were just unacceptable and liable to degrade the CPU. To sustain a 5GHz OC we were well over 1.42v and Asus recommends triple radiator cooling for 1.35v (which we exceeded). We fired up the test station and let it Idle for 30 minutes and recorded the idle reading. We then ran the test at each CPU speed for an hour then recorded the reading.

Between tests, we shut the machine down for 30 minutes then went to the next CPU speed.  Each test at each speed was repeated 3 times then we report the average of the 3 readings. Every test was run using the pre-set profile in BIOS without any changes to maintain test consistency.

We used the provided thermal material on the CoolerMaster coolers for testing. The thermal material which we recommended replacing earlier well we can eat our words on that one. We did each test with Arctic Ceramique and the readings didn't change so use the included pre-applied paste if you want it's pretty good. Thermal measurements were taken using RealTemp.

Testing Results:

The results in Red are done with the Stock MasterFan 120AB RGB at full speed, the tests in blue are the result of swapping out the CoolerMaster Fans for EVGA 77.82 CFM with a static pressure of 4.04 mmAq (MAX). The Cooler Master 120AB RGB hit 66.7 CFM with a static pressure of 2.34 mmH2O (Max) so the more powerful EVGA fans might give us a little better results.

4.5GHz Test

Idle temperatures are always well within acceptable limits so we’ll deal with load temperature in our testing. Idle temperatures are listed for your convenience. The ML120L got us a 65oC under load at 4.5GHz and an hour’s run of the stress test. Replacing the fan with the EVGA Higher CFM and Pressure fans dropped us down to 64^o.

The ML240 kept us at a cool 62^oC with stock fans while the EVGA fans gave us a load temp of 61^oC.

4.6 GHz Test

At 4.6GHz the stock fans on the ML120L hit 65^oC and change out to the EVGA fans we dropped one degree to 64^oC.

The ML240L kept the line at 62^oC and stronger fans dropped it to 61^oC.

4.7GHz Testing

Things start to heat up at 4.7GHz and the ML120L hit 70oC and tack on the EVGA fans it hits 68^oC.

The ML240 hits 67^oC with the stock fans and the EVGA fans pushed that down to 66^oC.

4.8 GHz Testing

Voltage wasn’t too bad here at 4.8GHz requiring 1.312v for stability on the CPU and the ML120L gave us a 75^oC and adding the EVGA fans it hit 64^oC.

The ML240L hit 69^oC and with the EVGA fans dropped to 68^oC so yes higher CFM higher pressure fans are helping.

4.9GHz Testing

Here at 4.9 GHz, we cut off testing at 85^oC on the ML120 with both sets of fans it was obvious after just a couple of minutes temperatures were getting out of hand quickly. That’s to be expected with a 120mm cooler they aren’t designed for extreme overclocks.

The ML240L hit 83^oC after an hour’s test at 4.9GHz and 1.36V and tossing on the EVGA fans dropped it to 79^oC so it seems at higher temps the stronger fans become more important.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite ML120L RGB

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120mm RGB’s performance was in line with what we expected and while it didn’t top the charts in 120mm performance it held the line up to 4.8GHz on the notoriously warm 7700K. The wiring took a little time to get it to look good in the chassis but once we kicked off the RGB effects well worth it.

The ability to sync it with RGB capable motherboard headers is a big plus!

If you need a compact AIO water cooling system for mild overclocking or just keeping your stock speed CPU nice and cool the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML120L RGB might be what you are looking for!

CoolerMaster MasterLiquid Lite ML240L RGB

The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite ML240L had dazzling RGB effects via a hardware controller and by RGB capable motherboard headers. The cooling capacity was good all the way up to 4.9GHz under worst case conditions and under normal use should give you plenty of overhead for moderate overclocking.

The quality of the ML240L was good and the radiators sturdiness impressed us. The cloth covering on the hoses was a nice touch and the brightness of the RGB fans lit up the entire chassis.

If you’re looking for that little extra bling and crave some RGB action while keeping your CPU cooled the Cooler Master ML240L should do the job for you and provide an eye catching RGB experience!

Introduction

Cryorig founded in 2013 faced an uphill battle establishing their brand, here they are 4 years later still expanding their product line and thriving in a super competitive environment. The Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling is a unique 240mm AIO water cooling CLC (Closed Loop Cooling) AIO) with a small fan that site right on top the waterblock blowing cooling air across the block and chokes both not only cooling the block but the critical power delivery system around the CPU. The 140mm fans they include with the kit are just super quiet but when the going gets tough the 3000RPM kicks in and you can hear the little bugger cranking out that air cooling the entire CPU area. Cryorig uses Asetek as the OEM manufacturer and Asetek is known for quality and Cryorig designed the 5th gen pump offering some of the newest Asetek technology and offers improved performance over previous generations. 

The Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooler features a 38.5mm radiator design while the little brother runs a 27.5mm version and if you think about it for a few seconds that's 11mm more cooling width which will put the Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling close to the cooling capacity of a 25mm 360mm cooler. Smart design, solid construction, easy to install and zero maintenance it's pretty hard not to love this cooler!

Features & Specifications

A40/A40 Ultimate Spec
Supports Intel 2011(v3), 1366, 115x, AMD FM1/FM2, AM2/AM2+, AM3/AM3+.
Cold Plate Copper Micro Fin
Radiator Size 240x120x25mm (A40)/ 240x120x38mm (A40 Ultimate)
Fan Dual 120x25mm 2.200 RPM PWM

As you can see Cryorig used a 38mm radiator instead of the regular 25mm radiator found on most AIO coolers and it uses a copper contact plate with copper Micro fins. Now the regular A40 non-ultimate model gets a 25mm radiator so be careful when ordering which model you buy. We will link the correct model at the end of the review.

Packaging & Unboxing

Arriving in an armor-like box the outside of the container contains so much information the manual was almost an afterthought.

This side of the box shows how the 3000RPM fan fits on top of the waterblock in this unique configuration.

This side has some snazzy graphics and details the sockets it will fit.

Inside the box, your prize is well protected by the now popular pressed/shaped cardboard box.

Contained in the kit you will find all the needed hardware to connect the Cryorig to your system as long as it's a modern socket. If you are hanging on for dear life to that LGA 775 you are out of luck.

A Closer Look

Looking at the Cryorig A40 Ultimate we see they have spent some time making minor changes like running braided tubing, 37.5mm wide radiator and still mounting a small fan on top the CPU waterblock/pump.

The QF120mm Performance fans capable of jamming out 83CFM at 37dBA or less (Min 13dBA) and can run from 600RPM to 2200RPM.

The 37.5mm radiator is 12.5mm wider than a normal 25mm model providing that extra overhead to get teh most out of your CPU.

The 70mm fan can push 25CFM at a maximum noise level of 27dBA and also pushes air across the chokes in the vital CPU area. Cooler CPU, cooler chokes, cooler capacitors all equal cleaner power making OCing easier and potentially reach a higher freq.

The waterblock is quite substantial and includes the plugin for the 70mm fan, the curve seen on the hold downs helps to strengthen the hold downs and shows an attention to detail. Notice the nicely braided tubing an upgrade from other models.

Facing the side of the Cryorig you see the logo on the side nicely imprinted and you get an idea of the rounded hold downs. Stamped flat hold downs just don't offer the strength. 

The Cryorig kit doesn't contain 30 wires like a lot of AIO kits and connections and ease of install make this kit a snap to get in and wire tight.

We saved the block for last because we put a lot of stock in a well made polished block and on the Cryorig you get a highly polished brass contact plate with very tiny mill marks that we wouldn't even consider lapping.

From this angle, you can see the polished block and the pre-applied TIM and we tested with the TIM both with the provided TIM and with a high end ceramique product and thermal readings didn't change so feel free to use the pre-applied TIM.

The Build

With our RGB set to Rainbow, random, the Cryorig kit looks right at home about out GTX 1080Ti.

Notice that 70mm - 25CFM fan blowing across the block and and cooling the power circuits.

We got in close to the 70MM fan so you can see it in action, now that's a revolutionary idea.

Finally, we got a shot looking up at the mounting on the Cooler Master Masterbox Pro 5 and you can set the rig up using the RGBs as pull and the Cryorig fans as push and increase effeciency, For our testing we removed two of the RGB fans and let the Cryorig included fans do all the cooling.

Testing & Performance

Testing Hardware

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Code

RAM: 32GB Kingston HyperX 3200Mhz

GPU: EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2 ICX

SSDs: Kingston KC1000 480GB

Chassis: Corsair Spec-04 Carbide Series

EVGA 74.83 CFM Fans Extra Testing

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Testing Setup

We pondered what software to use for stressing the CPU 100% and OCCT and Prime 95, as well as Intel Burn, just produce an unrealistic amount of heat. Some of the CPU stress programs are designed specifically to generate heat which has no real bearing on real-life computing. We tested a host of software from Realbench to never heard of programs and finally landed on CPU-Z and the Stress CPU utility. It's easy, free and available to everyone and during test selection; it consistently kept 4 cores 8 threads at 100% and generated enough heat to convince us of the validity of the Stress Test. 

Notice the Stress CPU Button, we used 4 Core 8 Thread testing

We went with a worst case scenario, no chassis fans, no ambient air movement. Lab temperature was kept at 72oF or 22oC throughout testing. We disabled Intel's Turbo feature and locked the CPU to a steady frequency and CPU voltage for each clock speed on the CPU. We went into BIOS and set OC profiles for 4.5GHz, 4.6GHz, 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz and 4.9GHz. We cut off at 4.9GHz as the CPU voltage required to reach 5GHz stable with a stress test load running for an hour were just unacceptable and liable to degrade the CPU. To sustain a 5GHz OC we were well over 1.42v and Asus recommends triple radiator cooling for 1.35v (which we exceeded). We fired up the test station and let it Idle for 30 minutes and recorded the idle reading. We then ran the test at each CPU speed for an hour then recorded the reading.

Between tests, we shut the machine down for 30 minutes then went to the next CPU speed.  Each test at each speed was repeated 3 times then we report the average of the 3 readings. Every test was run using the pre-set profile in BIOS without any changes to maintain test consistency.

We used the provided thermal material on the CoolerMaster coolers for testing. The thermal material which we recommended replacing earlier well we can eat our words on that one. We did each test with Arctic Ceramique and the readings didn't change so use the included pre-applied paste if you want it's pretty good. Thermal measurements were taken using RealTemp.

Testing Results

We didn't bother with stock speeds we all know that at 4.2GHz you can cool the 7700K with a we washcloth so we went straight to 4.5 GHz.

4.5GHz

4.6 GHz

4.7GHz

4.8GHz

4.9GHz

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

We put the Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling AIO through its paces and frankly it well outperformed our expectations by a level or two. Packed into one 37.5mm radiator, two 120mm Fans capable of 83CFM and a small 70mm wind puffer Cryorig hid a little cooling magic. The Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling setup matched performance with a 360mm cooling system in a compact 240mm footprint AIO cooler. It's not often that you see that kind of performance in that sized package.

Wiring and installing were a snap and took under 10 minutes in a chassis we didn't have to remove the motherboard on (The Cooler Master MasterBox Pro 5). At first, the setup looked a little strange but when the performance numbers started coming in we wouldn't have cared if it looked like a stack ob bananas on a CPU the performance was there, the look is there and if they come out with an RGB model we'll be so on top it that it's be covered like a head with a hat on. 

Since it's inception in 2014 Cryorig has distinguished itself and clawed its way to top end cooling hardware and the Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling AIO proves proper engineering produces excellent results. The Cryorig A40 Ultimate Hybrid Liquid Cooling tamed the 7700K along with it's heat bug and taught the bug to sit up and beg after conquering it.

Introduction

CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi Programmable RGB Cooler

Cryorig originated in 2013 and has been climbing the PC Cooling ladder with innovative ideas and unique product. We recently had hands on their Cryorig 240mm AIO with 37.5mm radiator and waterblock top 3000 RPM fan and were impressed. So impressed we ask them to send over their Cryiorg H7 Quad Lumi air cooled CPU cooler to take a look at. The H7 Quad Lumi is the logical successor to the H7 line and low and behold Cryorig decided to dip their fans in the RGB rage and keep all the good features of the H7 and expand on them. The H7 Quad Lumi has one more heatpipe than the H7 and they use a proprietary Convex-Align™ System which staggers the heat pipes covering more area and whisking away that pesky heat.

With Water Cooling AIO’s all the rage, we imagine a few of you are scratching your head about a tower air cooler pushed into the Cryiorg lineup. Well as it turns out many of the new gen CPU chips run really well with good air cooling and really have no need for water cooling. Now extreme overclockers we already know need water cooling but your average Joe that might OC a couple of hundred MHz really has no need for an AIO and air cooling is more reliable and safer than water cooling. While we have never had a catastrophic failure of a water cooler we’ve all heard those horror stories.

Features & Specifications

Features

Enhanced Efficiency with Hive Fin Technology

Featuring CRYORIG’s proprietary Hive Fin™ technology, the H7 Quad Lumi gains the benefit of faster hot air exhaust speeds and air turbulence reduction, so air passes through further and is expelled faster!

Optimized Heatpipes Placement Improves Heat Transfer

CRYORIG’s proprietary Convex-Align™ System is again featured in the H7 Quad Lumi, allowing for more heatpipes concentrated towards the hot spots on the CPU surface. This grants better heat transfer from the CPU Die to all heatpipes.

Advanced Dual Channel RGB System

The H7 Quad Lumi features the most advanced lighting system on any cooling product to date. The dual channel RGB system that allows for individual lighting effects and colors for the top logo and bottom under glow. Reactive effects can respond to system conditions such as temperature, audio and more.

Compact Performance, Small yet Powerful.

The CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi much like the H7 is designed with compatibility in mind. Maintaining the original 145mm height the H7 Quad Lumi is made to fit almost all cases on the market. At the same time it’s 160watt TDP thermal design makes it one of the best performance options for its miniature size.

Zero RAM Interference, Unlimited RAM Compatibility

The H7 Quad Lumi features CRYORIG’s Zero Interference design, that keeps the full heatsink+fan compactly inside the CPU Keep Out Zone and away from the RAM slots. This means that users can choose whatever RAM they like and know for certain that it will work with the H7 Quad Lumi.

qf120led_intro_short_1.mp4

High Performance LED Fan, with Quad Air Inlet™ Tech

The H7 Quad Lumi includes the new QF120 LED. Based on the original QF120 series the QF120 LED features white LED lighting as well as all of the existing features from the QF series including Quad Air Inlet™ for added air intake, ultra wide PWM RPM range, integrated Acoustic Absorbers and HPLN™ bearing. It delivers a great balance of performance versus acoustics while adding LED lighting aesthetics.

Specifications

Packaging & Unboxing

Packed in a lightweight but smartly constructed cardboard box our Cryorig H7 Quad Lumi arrived in perfect condition despite its long arduous journey.

The back of the box shows plenty of specifications and information to help the consumer make and educated purchase.

Just inside the lid, we find a 3 year warranty card that proclaims that if you register your product the warranty extends to 6 years so get that warranty card out and head over to Cryorig and get your extra 3 years!

The cardboard box smartly forms its own ring of protection around the cooler and from the looks of it from the top the Cryorig looks to be one butt-kicking air cooler.

Included with the kit is a tube of TIM and all the goodies you’ll need for the sockets we mentioned in the specifications table. Ah skipped the table, well for your convenience here’s the sockets it will cover.

Intel: LGA1150, LGA1151, LGA1155, LGA1156, LGA2011
AMD: AM2, AM2+, AM3, AM3+, FM1, FM2, FM2+, AM4

A Closer Look

Looking past the original QF120 series the QF120 LED features LED lighting as well as all of the existing features from the QF series including that sweet RGB.

Flipping the cooler overtake a look past the programmable RGB fan and take a gander at that Hive Fin Technology Cryorig uses and it’s reminiscent of a bee hive structure. Imagine that man learning form nature.

One thing we like to see on coolers of all types are fins that are uniform and evenly spaced without obvious deformations. As you can see the fins on the Cryorig are just as straight and perfectly formed as a person could ask for. As you might have guessed by now while one fan is included Cryorig sent an extra set of clips so of course we will have to run it in its native configuration and in push-pull and you know how much we hate running those pesky benchmarks. (4 different ones running simultaneously right now)

We came at the CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi Programmable RGB Cooler from slightly above and standing at 145mm this beauty should fit most standard cases except small form factor with plenty of room left over.

Sneaking up behind the H7 Lumi we see a staggered fin approach and a highly protective top with the Cryorig name on it. This design should prove both effective and durable.

Looking in on the other side we find the same perfect fin alignment and a peek at the same fan mounting wires that have been around as long as tower coolers. Tried and true is a good thing but at times stretching those little wires around that edge can be a little nerve racking.

We always check the base plates for mill marks and Cryorig has gone above and beyond and this contact plate is mirror finished without a single mill mark.

Here’s a good look at the 4 heat pipes and the complete lack of mill marks. All in all after more years of handling coolers than we care to admit it looks like Cryorig got this one right but only the benches will tell!

Testing Environment

Testing Hardware

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Code

RAM: 32GB Kingston HyperX 3200Mhz

SSDs: Kingston KC1000 480GB

Chassis: Corsair Spec-04 Carbide Series

EVGA 74.83 CFM Fans Extra Testing

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Testing Setup

We pondered what software to use for stressing the CPU 100% and OCCT and Prime 95, as well as Intel Burn, just produce an unrealistic amount of heat. Some of the CPU stress programs are designed specifically to generate heat which has no real bearing on real-life computing. We tested a host of software from Realbench to never heard of programs and finally landed on CPU-Z and the Stress CPU utility. It's easy, free and available to everyone and during test selection; it consistently kept 4 cores 8 threads at 100% and generated enough heat to convince us of the validity of the Stress Test. 

Notice the Stress CPU Button, we used 4 Core 8 Thread testing

We went with a worst case scenario, no chassis fans, no ambient air movement. Lab temperature was kept at 72oF or 22oC throughout testing. We disabled Intel's Turbo feature and locked the CPU to a steady frequency and CPU voltage for each clock speed on the CPU. We went into BIOS and set OC profiles for 4.5GHz, 4.6GHz, 4.7GHz, 4.8GHz. We cut off at 4.9GHz as the CPU voltage required to reach 5GHz stable with a stress test load running for an hour were just unacceptable and liable to degrade the CPU. To sustain a 5GHz OC we were well over 1.42v and Asus recommends triple radiator cooling for 1.35v (which we exceeded). We fired up the test station and let it Idle for 30 minutes and recorded the idle reading. We then ran the test at each CPU speed for an hour then recorded the reading.

Between tests, we shut the machine down for 30 minutes then went to the next CPU speed.  Each test at each speed was repeated 3 times then we report the average of the 3 readings. Every test was run using the pre-set profile in BIOS without any changes to maintain test consistency.

We used the provided thermal material on the Cryorig cooler for testing. We did each test with Arctic Ceramique and the readings didn't change so use the included paste if you want it's pretty good. Thermal measurements were taken using RealTemp.

Testing & Performance

Now Cryorig sends 2 sets of fan clips so push pull is possible so out of respect for Cryorig we took a Cryorig fan from their 280mm AIO and tested both single and double fan. Single fan is designated by 1F and dual fan push pull is designated by 2F.

We haven’t tested a lot of air coolers of late so the Cryorig is on our AIO charts for comparison purposes only and will not be judged as AIR vs Water that’s just to apples and oranges.

4200MHz

We have been starting at 4500MHz but we are working on Air now so we backed up and clocked some coolers at 4200MHz the stock speed of the 7700K. Send TIM in large quantities via Proclockers.com. Idle wasn’t a problem at any speed tested as expected so we’ll stick with load temps. Here single fan we hit 65C single fan and dropped 1C using push-pull.

Jumping to 4500MHz we would be comfortable with this 7700K OC 24/7 and we maxed out at 65C and dual fan dropped that by 1C.

Here at 4600MHz, we maxed out at 71C single fan and 70C dual fan which is pretty good for an air cooler.

Running 4700MHz we are approaching uncomfortable temps but this is under full load continuously so it’s worse case. Gaming or non-full load continuously situations you might be ok at 4700MHz.

Here at 4800MHz we cut the test off at 83C single fan and dual fan 82C and we would be ok for glory runs or short benchmarks but we were seeing some thermal creep so we wouldn’t recommend 4800MHz 24/7 but for an air cooler, we are impressed!

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Well, it’s been a while since we had hands on an air cooler but Cryorig did this one right. The CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi produced good results for an Air Cooler but we saw one shortcoming. While the baseplate light is RGB and the logo is RGB the fan Is strictly bright white so it doesn’t get full points for RGB.

For jazzing up the inside of a chassis it gets decent points and when we turned off our rig the cooler stayed lit up but there are BIOS settings that can make it turn off.

For brightness, the CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi will light up your chassis interior and show off your components well.

The Logo and baseplate and RGB but the light from the white fan mute those colors a bit but as far as air cooling goes we wouldn’t kick it out of our rig and for light overclockers that don’t want to use water cooling the CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi should be on their short list of good affordable choices at $59.99. The 6 year extended warranty makes this a good choice for longevity, price, and performance.

Given the performance of the Cryorig products we’ve had in hand, it looks like we might have another major cooling company lurking out there ready to grab some market share and existing Air Cooling Companies should take notice. We especially like the USB programmability of the CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi. We like the air cooling capacity of the CRYORIG H7 Quad Lumi and for non-extreme overclockers, it’s a beautiful work of art that will cool your CPU more than needed so snatch some Cryorig and give them a shot you’ll like the results!

Introduction

H115i PRO Low Noise 280mm RGB LIQUID CPU COOLER

Corsair has been known for an excellent line of enthusiast grade products for years and to many enthusiasts the goto company for high end gear. Sometime back Corsair released the Corsair Hydro Series H115i Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler, 280mm that runs at 2000 +/- 10% RPM and 104.65 CFM topping 40 dBA and was considered by many to be far to loud. Complaints were heard across the land even though the name implicitly says H115i EXTREME PERFORMANCE, well Corsair listens to it's user base and has their finger on the pulse of the community so they have released a variant of the H115i in the H115i PRO Low Noise 280mm RGB Liquid CPU Cooler that the fans top out at 1200 RPM with an advertised dBA level of 20 at full speed pushing 55.4 CFM. Will the decrease in CFM decrease the effeciency of the Corsair H115i PRO 280mm RGB or has Corsair stirred in some of that magic and adjusted other components to bolster the cooling performance.

Stricken with the RGB craze Corsair threw in a little RGB here and added RGB to the pump head but the fans are not RGB soo this would be RGB Lite, less calories less filling. Being insane enthusiasts we would be tempted to replace the stock fans with 4 Corsair fully RGB fans and pump up the bling.

Features & Specifications Corsair H115i PRO 280mm RGB

We put the specifications for the Corsair H115i PRO 280mm RGB on a table for easy refrence. As you can see the specifications are simular to the previous generation H115i Extreme Performance but the fans have gone to 55.4 CFM at 1200 RPM and the noise level has effectively been cut in half.

H115i PRO

•  Dynamic Multicolor RGB Lighting: Vibrant RGB LED pump head produces vivid lighting effects to match your build. 
•  Powered by Magnetic Levitation: Two low-noise 140mm ML Series magnetic levitation PWM fans deliver improved airflow and produce just 20 dBA of noise at full speed. 
•  Powerful Software: CORSAIR LINK software allows you to adjust RGB lighting, monitor CPU and coolant temperatures, individual fan speeds and more.
•  Zero RPM Mode: Zero RPM cooling profiles allow fans to stop entirely at low temperatures, eliminating fan noise. 
• Quiet start: When turning on your system, the ML fans will start at the lowest rpm possible based on coolant temperature for a whisper quiet start-up experience. 
•  Precise Pump Control: Advanced pump speed control options to maximize performance or minimize noise. 
•  Easy to Install: Modular, tool-free mounting bracket for quick and painless installation on most major CPU sockets.

You should note that on the 1150 series motherboards and CPU's you will have to remove the motherboard or if your chassis has an onpen backing behind the CPU you might get lucky and install through that opening. Our install was super easy our chassis has an open back motherboard mounting surface.

Box Contents

Model: Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO Low Noise 280mm RGB Liquid CPU Cooler
• Mounting kit for most modern CPU sockets
• Two ML Series PWM 140mm high performance fans
• USB cable for Corsair LINK™ Integration
• Fan and radiator mounting screws
• Thermal compound (pre-applied)
• Quick Start Guide

The included mounting kit is both comprehensive and pretty easy to install. The biggest thing we ran into was really minor and it's a three handed balancing act to get the backplate lined up with all 4 holes given the sliding install design on the backplate. We don't hld that against the Corsair H115i PRO 280mm RGB as it's a necessacary evil to keep manufacturing costs reasonable.

Introduction

Corsair entered the liquid cooling world with the HydroCool kit clear back in 2002, but their first ‘AiO’ or All-in-One liquid cooler was the Hydro H50 in 2009. Since then, the Hydro series coolers have gained in popularity with the DIY computer community as a simple way to just ‘bolt-on’ quiet, high-performance cooling without the hassles and headaches of piecing together a custom loop. With the explosion of high-powered and high core count CPU’s last year, Corsair decided it was high time for some updates. Featuring their first 360mm radiator, Magnetic Levitation high-performance fans, and a new Zero RPM mode, the Hydro H150i PRO is ready to cool tomorrow systems today.

Of course, Corsair Link software lets you monitor and adjust pump speed, as well as individual fan speeds. The RGB accent lighting on the block can be changed from the default rainbow cycle to colors and patterns of your choice or even turned off completely if RGB isn’t your thing. Corsair’s ML series magnetic levitation PWM fans offer a wide RPM control range with high airflow up to 47.3 CFM and high static pressure up to 1.78 mmH20 for silent operation to hurricane force cooling and everything in between. Compatible will all recent Intel sockets including all variants of the 115X and 20XX, All AMD AM and FM sockets, and Corsair assures us AMD’s TR4 platform support is coming soon to round out the compatibility list.

Pro Clockers would like to thank Corsair for sending the Hydro Series H150i PRO RGB Liquid cooler over to check out!

Corsair’s take on the Hydro H150i Cooler:

BE SEEN, NOT HEARD

The CORSAIR Hydro Series H150i PRO is an all-in-one RGB liquid CPU cooler with a 360mm radiator built for low-noise cooling and bold styling with an RGB LED pump head.

Features & Specifications

Package contents

• Hydro Series H150i PRO RGB 360mm Liquid CPU Cooler
• Mounting kit for most modern CPU sockets
• Three ML-Series PWM 120mm high-performance fans
• USB cable for Corsair LINK™ Integration
• Thermal compound (pre-applied)
• Quick Start Guide

Compatibility

• Intel LGA 1150, 1151, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011, 2011-3 and 2066
• AMD AM2, AM3, AM4, FM1, and FM2
• AMD TR4 Platform support – coming soon

Technical Specifications

• Coldplate material: Copper
• Tubing material: Low permeation with black sleeving
• Radiator Material: Aluminum
• Radiator dimensions: 396mm x 120mm x 27mm
• Fans included: 3x ML-Series 120mm PWM Fans
• Fan max speed: 1600 RPM
• Fan airflow: 47.3 CFM

• Fan static pressure: 1.78 mm-H2O
• Fan noise level: 25 dB(A)

Warranty

• 5 years

Packaging & Unboxing

 Corsair’s H150i PRO RGB comes in Corsair’s traditional black box trimmed with yellow on the edges. The font has a full-color picture of the cooler inside, as well as some basic features listed in the lower left corner.

The Rear of the box is full of helpful items like a dimensional drawing of the rad, to see if it will fit in your case and specifications in a few languages. The left half holds more information about the Mag-Lev fans, the pump assembly, Corsair Link and the new Zero RPM Mode.

The top of the box is pretty boring, you only get a short blurb about Corsair Link in 6 languages.

Opening the box up we are greeted with Corsair’s normal AiO packaging with the rad held firm on one side, the accessories and hardware in the middle, and the pump on one end so that the hoses sweep up gracefully. The trio of fans is all individually packaged in plain white boxes in the free space.

Every part of the cooler is wrapped in clear plastic to protect it except the manual and the fans in their white sleeves.

Inside the hardware bag, you get a newly redesigned AMD bracket, the usual Intel universal backplane, and the mounting posts for different sockets, the thumbscrews, and the AMD mounting screws. The Corsair Link USB cable is here, this time with a Micro-USB connector rather than the long-running Mini, a dozen short screws for mounting the rad directly to a case, and interestingly, 2 dozen long screws. Not only can you mount the 3 included fans to the radiator, but you can also mount the radiator over your own existing fans if you wish to do a push/pull configuration for ultimate performance. This is only a few cents worth of hardware, but it makes a big difference to the end user not having to try to find more screws the right length if you already have a few more fans. Also included are a pile of washers so your screws don’t fall through over-sized slots or holes in your case.

A Closer Look

The top of the pump assembly is a large piece of glossy plastic with the Corsair Logo right in the center.

The logo itself and the edge between the black and silver parts light up, as does the outer edge of the silver ring and the black body of the pump.

The tubing connects with rotary right-angle connections on what could be called the right side of the block, and the main wiring comes out between the tubes to make it fairly easy to hide.

The Corsair Link USB port is on the left side and uses a Micro-USB plug.

Despite the squarish appearance of the pump assembly, the actual cold plate is circular with pre-applied thermal paste.

The copper surface is a milled or machined finish that is not that well-polished as you can see. This isn’t terrible as long as it’s flat as the thermal paste will fill in the gaps.

You can also see the 4 locking pins the hold the mounting bracket in place, simply twisting the bracket slightly you can pop it off to install the AMD bracket.

We’ll see how resistant this is to accidental release after we get it mounted on our test platform.

The kit comes with two twist-on brackets, one for Intel, and one for AMD. Depending on Corsair’s upcoming TR4 socket mounting, they may well make another bracket for that monster socket.

A SATA power input cable, a 3-pin fan cable to feed an RPM signal back to your motherboard’s CPU fan header to make it happy, and a large cable that breaks out to connect to the three 4-pin fans included in the kit.

The ML 120 Fans share the same rugged, heavily-reinforced look of the rest of the ML120 series fans but are a bit but have the original grey colored rotor, different from the black or translucent versions on the PRO and PRO LED or PRO RGB versions. 

These are not the retail version of the Corsair ML 120 fans you can buy directly from Corsairs web store. They are close to the ML120 (non-pro version) but have been tweaked to this application. The slightly Lower 0.219A power draw accounts for the reduced 1600 RPM top speed over the 2400RPM of the retail versions.

The corners are hard plastic rather than the vibration absorbing decoupled rubber corners of the ML PRO series, but they should do quite fine for this application.

The cable passes through a hook on one edge so you can route the cable either out the edge or out the back depending on how you need for push or pull mounting on the radiator.

The hoses are permanently crimped into place on both ends and covered in a nice nylon braid to protect them, never mind the nice aesthetics.

The tubes come in around 7/16^th of an inch in diameter or in the 11 to the 12-millimeter range.

Th radiator is a standard 2-pass ‘U-flow’ system and fan mounts are tapped #6-32 thread for the included hardware.

The radiator has around 20 FPI (fins per inch) which is reasonable dense and should be able to handle a fair amount of heat, but also should work well at a wide range of fan speeds.

And lastly, the Corsair logo is on both sides of the radiator in a beautiful raised and chromed finish, pictures really don’t do it justice.

Installation

Installation is pretty straightforward like nearly all of Corsair’s other liquid coolers.  We’ll be using Intel’s newest consumer CPU, the i7-8700K, a 95-watt CPU that can break the 200 Watt mark when heavily overclocked and demands good cooling.

We start out taking the universal backplate and installing it around Intel’s socket backplate with the threaded part sticking through the mounting holes in the motherboard.

With the backplate sticking through, install the universal mounting studs.

We did make sure the tubing wasn’t going to interfere with the ram, but Corsair keeps it inside the dedicated space for CPU coolers so this shouldn’t be an issue on any boards even if you need to turn the pump another direction to make the hoses run better for your configuration.

After removing the plastic protection piece, install the water block over the studs. The hoses are long enough to cover most scenarios, but it’s a good idea to make sure you can reach your desired radiator mounting location in a dry run early on.

Last for this part is placing and tightening down the thumb screws in an alternating fashion for even pressure. The mounts are precise so once all 4 are bottomed out, you know everything is good to go.

We are using an open-air test bench here, but are installing the radiator in a similar orientation to how it would go in most tower style cases.

While here we connected the USB cable to the side of the pump and routed it down to a motherboard header.

The H150i PRO connects to any available USB 2.0 motherboard header.

Our last step was to mount the fans, but you may choose to do this in one step while mounting the radiator. Connecting all three fans to the cable coming from the pump was a breeze, as was connecting the power to an available SATA style power plug.

And that’s pretty well it, installation complete. If you choose to skip the USB cable, the pump will slowly cycle through colors and operate pump and fan speeds in a balanced manner depending on thermal load from the system.

Software

Corsair Link is a quick and easy download from Corsair’s website and starting it up the first time lands you on the Home page where all relevant system information is shown about your system. Amusingly, Corsair even decided to show our ram timings and clock speed of our Dominator memory modules.

The configure tab brings up a generic case picture where you can drag the live ‘tiles’ of each speed/temp/etc into its approximate physical location in your own system.

We moved our own relevant tiles into location.

You can quickly flip between profiles shown above and watch what the system does in real time.

If you want to make your own profiles, that’s quite easy as well. We made a quiet profile for ‘media’ usage, as well as a high-performance one for overclocking.

Some generic settings are available under the options menu.

Like most Link-enabled devices, sometimes firmware updates are available, and they are quite painless to install from here. We didn’t have any updates available at this time though.

You can also bring up graphing to watch all of the data over a period of time.

Each component such as fans, pump, and lighting can be configured by clicking on it.

You can also set notifications for some components for exceeding thresholds and notify you by running a program, flashing the LED’s, cranking all the fans to 100% or even just turning the PC off to protect it if you are away.

The RGB lighting of the pump can be adjusted to several static and dynamic effects in your choice of colors.

One fun dynamic effect is changing color based on temperature. It doesn’t have to be the CPU temp either….

Performance Testing

We’ll do our testing in the out of the box style ‘balanced’ mode for pump and fan speeds, this is how the unit would operate without loading the Corsair Link software. Our ambient temperature is 68F/20C for testing.

System Config

CPU: Intel Core i7-8700k

Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus X Formula

RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 3200Mhz

GPU: Galax GTX 1070 HOF

SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 2TB

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Cooling: Corsair H150i PRO

It starts out pretty apparent that a stock i7-8700K really isn’t much of a load for the H150i Pro with the CPU sitting about 4C above ambient and hitting about 43C under full sustained load, so we’ll skip to overclocking.

With our 8700K humming along at just over 5.1Ghz we see it idle at 30C and hit just under 90C at max load.

We actually watched with FLIR’s ONE PRO camera during a short run to get a visual of what was going on and the thermal load of our overclocked CPU really only heats up around half of the radiator.

With such a strong performance on our 95W system, we decided to crank it up by slapping the H150i PRO on our X299 platform with a 140W i7-7820X.

System Config #2

CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X

Motherboard: ASRock X299 Taichi XE

RAM: 64GB GeIL Evo Spear 3200Mhz

GPU: Galax GTX 1070 HOF

SSD: Samsung 960 PRO 2TB

OS: Windows 10 Professional X64

Cooling: Corsair H150i PRO

The higher-powered CPU puts a small dent in the H150i PRO, with the idle temps sitting around 40C and loaded temps about 54C, but the coolant inside only warms up to around 31C. This indicates we have plenty of radiator capacity left but are starting to tax the heat pickup of the block itself. One thing to note here is we had 2 of the fans connected to the motherboard directly and set to 100% speed.

To really put a load on, we’ll nudge the CPU up to 4.7Ghz across all eight cores.

We pretty quickly hit the thermal throttle limits of the CPU around the 100C mark, and heat the coolant up to over 36C. this is still all at default settings, so we’ll bump everything up to maximum speed.

The pump has three modes out of the box, Quiet at 1100 RPM, balanced at 2000 RPM, and performance at 2800RPM, we’ll run at 2800RPM for a repeat.

We immediately see a roughly 10C drop in CPU core temps and a 5C drop in coolant temps by cranking the pump speed to max. We can also finally hear the pump, it’s not loud, but the tone is audible through the noise on the open air bench, in a closed case, we’re not sure you would hear it still.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Corsair has given the popular Hydro series coolers a much welcome facelift and brought along a larger size offering with its first 360mm radiator. Raw performance from something like the H115i is largely unchanged, but the updates focus on noise, or more specifically, avoiding it and Corsair nail’s the bullseye here. The RGB lighting addition, while not something new in this day and age, is nice and done well. We do wish there was a bit more granular control of it, at the very least a brightness setting. Corsair caught a lot of flak in Link’s earlier days for a slow and buggy interface, but that has pretty well been resolved and all of the recent Link enabled gear we’ve had on the bench, including the H150i seamlessly tied in and worked well.

Raw performance doesn’t break any records here, but the H150I PRO does well, and more importantly to most, does it quietly. Cranking the pump up to maximum speed did show a notable improvement across the board in temps, but it didn’t seem to want to go up on its own at default settings so perhaps this could be made more aggressive down the road. Overall though, the H150i did great, it looks great, can’t be heard under normal circumstances and by un-scientific touch the pump and see how it feels, seems to run much more smoothly than previous generations. If you have room for a 360mm radiator in your case, then look no further for your next liquid cooler. Great job Corsair!