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CoolerMaster AquaGate Liquid Cooling System |
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Analysis and Conclusion
Performance Analysis:
In the stock CPU configuration the AquaGate’s idle temperatures - at each different Fan Speed - are pretty much the same. This may well represent the ‘capacity’ of the AquaGate’s cooling ability – about 15degC above ambient. The coolant tank inside the LCU is not really very large – it holds about 250ml of liquid - and as a result the change from minimum to maximum temperatures were achieved fairly quickly, generally in within about 10 minutes, but still roughly twice the time it took the FalconRock II air-cooler.
In many typical CPU intensive applications – such as games – you would expect on-off type loading, however in our tests where we provided a constant 100% CPU load. The system’s thermal mass should allow for more gradual changes in temperature, especially in an on-off type CPU load situation, and so this may mean that the Liquid Cooling System’s performance would appear to be better again than our results showed.
Also of note is the change from minimum (idle) to maximum (load) temperature, in each of the tests and at each Fan Speed, the AquaGate shows a consistently smaller spread of temperatures when compared to the FalconRock II. In most tests the change from idle to load temperature was only about 5 or 6 degrees.
Each of our results also indicate that the AquaGate’s Fan Speed settings have a marked impact on its performance. At the whisper-quiet but not quite silent Fan Speed 1, the system returns an adequate level of performance, consistently better than the FalconRock by about 15%. Increasing the Fan Speed to level 2, improves the performance of the AquaGate, but it also becomes noticeably noisier.
At Fan Speed 3 the AquaGate shows a significant (about 25%) improvement in cooling ability when compared to the FalconRock, however this level of performance comes at the cost of the unit being annoyingly loud.
These results indicate that the CoolerMaster AquaGate Liquid Cooling System peforms well in several different situations. Even when we tried to maxamise the CPU's thermal output the AquaGate produced consistently good results.
Overclocking:
Although the results are not indicated in a graph on the previous page, I did attempt to see how far the liquid cooling setup would allow us to overclock the CPU. Again the system did POST and load Windows a higher speeds, but it was stable and would run Folding at a maximum of 207x11.5, or 2387MHz as reported by WCPUID. In this case I was looking to achieve the ‘best’ system performance, so cannot be sure it was the CPU that was stopping us from achieving higher speeds or some other system component. While multipliers of both 11 and 12 were tried, 207x11.5 was the most we could successfully push the system to.
Conclusion:
One of the major features of the CoolerMaster AquaGate is how easy and simple it is to install and run. It's well designed and targeted at the novice watercooling market and it hits its mark very well, with a number of key features. The easy-to-use features include easy to assemble components, non-drip fittings, comprehensive manual and flexible mounting options for the LCU.
CoolerMaster have really outdone themselves with all the included components and options for installing the kit, including the special non-conductive liquid coolant, thermal probe and corresponding monitoring and control LCD panel, and by providing three different waterblock mounting kits that allow the unit to be used with a number of different CPU types.
Three different fan speeds allow the performance and noise level of the AquaGate to be manually selected, and at each of the settings the AquaGate performs well. The compact Liquid Cooling Unit can be installed in multiple different configurations and is presented in an attractive aluminium housing.
Unfortunately the major design aspects also have several draw backs. The compact LCU means that the system is quiet but not quite silent at Fan Speed 1 and anoyingly loud at Fan Speed 3. The LCU unit does not fit in a number of different case chassis, without modifying the drive bay rail mount tabs. It also seems the emergency shutdown function may not always work.
When the CoolerMaster AquaGate hits the local stores, with the correct pump configuration, and depending on its retail price, I expect the kit will be a welcome addition when considering system cooling options. Personally, as a novice watercooler I was pleasantly surprised by how easy the kit was to set up and run - it really makes watercooling accessible to the masses. I have trusted my new PC's setup to the AquaGate and had it running Folding day and night for several weeks. Its comparative performance is very good even at its quietest settings and, while it was not quite silent, for an off the shelf solution I think CoolerMaster have done very well.
Thanks go to CoolerMaster who provided our review unit, and keep your eye on CoolerMaster's list of retailers, for product availability information, for at the time of publication it does not available in local stores.
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