MaximumPC 2008 08

W

e never said water cooling was
simple, and Cooler Master’s
Aquagate Max doesn’t make the
delicate assembly process any easier. But
once you connect your last run of 3/8-inch
tubing to this beastly setup, you’ll have ac-
complished two goals: doubling your geek
cred and giving your processor an awesome
heap of non-peltier cooling.
Both the kit’s 120-gallon-per-hour
pump and 260ml reservoir fit within a mon-
strous black-and-green enclosure that takes
up two 5.25-inch bays. Two holes on the
enclosure’s face indicate how much fluid is
in your reservoir and allow you to wonder
why the Aquagate’s flow indicator is spin-
ning so slowly. The pump is half as strong
as the market’s best (the Laing D5), but it’s
still powerful, leading us to believe that
the indicator is improperly placed if Cooler
Master intended for it to do anything more
than sluggishly rotate.
This is the first Enthusiast System
Architecture-certified water-cooling
device we’ve tested.
Two sensors you

attach to the tubing report

information back to an Nvidia

software GUI, which lets you

adjust the speed of the two

12cm fans attached to the

Aquagate’s 30x14x7cm alumi-

num radiator. The only other

information presented in the

GUI is the temperature of the coolant and

the reservoir’s fluid level; we expected far

more options than that, such as the ability

to control pump RPMs or automatically

vary fan speeds against temperatures.

While the din of the Aquagate’s fans

will keep your neighbors up at night, the

cooler performs impressively. It cools a

bit better than the best air cooler we’ve

tested, Thermaltake’s DuOrb (July 2008),

in both our CPU idle and burn-in tests.

And its large size allows it to bully smaller

all-in-one water-cooling kits—like its

predecessor, the Aquagate S1—right off the

benchmark chart.

The installation process is taxing, but

the cooler’s overall prowess is worth the

payoff, making the Aquagate Max our

water-cooling kit of choice. But if ESA is

where the future of cooling is headed, we’re

curious to see what other manufacturers ,

or even a Cooler Master firmware update,

might offer. –D A V I D M U R P H Y

Cooler Master Aquagate Max

This Maximus of coolers gets an emperor’s thumbs up

The Aquagate Max comes

with its own coolant additive that

gives the kit a neon-green glow.

VERDICT

$230, http://www.coolermaster.com

9

Powerful cooling,

beautiful appearance,

software-based

control of fan speeds.

Meager ESA functional-

ity; short fan cords force

you to mount radiator

near reservoir.

ROME

COOLER MASTER AQUAGATE MAX

SPARTA

Best scores are bolded. Idle temperatures were measured after an hour of inactivity. Load temperatures were measured after an hour’s worth of CPU Burn-In (four instances). Test system

consists of a stock-clock Q6700 processor on an EVGA 680i motherboard.

BENCHMARKS

CM Aquagate CM Aquagate MaxCM Aquagate MaxCM Aquagate CM Aquagate Thermaltake DuOrb DuOrb CoolerStockCooler

Idle (C) 32.0 34.0 34.0 34.0 40.040.040.0

100% Burn (C) 32.0 34.0 34.0 34.0 40.040.040.0

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