Cooler Master Aquagate raises swimming pool question

THIS IS A REVIEW of Cooler Master's Aquagate Mini, a product which can make your computer both quieter and faster, but first, I want to talk about swimming pools. Why are swimming pools so cold? I mean, you jump in and the water feels freezing. What's with that?

Well the answer, of course, is that swimming pools aren't cold -- they're usually no colder than the air around them. They feel cold because water conducts heat away from your body much faster than air can. That's why 24 hours lying naked in 21 C (70 F) water will be fatal, while doing the same in air is merely embarrassing.

Now, the PC enthusiast community has known this for a long time (the part about water conducting heat better, I mean). That's why hardcore overclockers have been building water-cooled PCs for almost ten years now. They know water removes heat from the CPU much quicker than air can, enabling them to run their computers even faster, and do all kinds of neat stuff. There's an added bonus: unlike air cooling, you don't need to use a small fan turning at a furious speed, so water cooling can be quieter, too.

There's a big problem with water cooling, of course. That problem is water. If you just let it flow freely through the PC, your computer would be clean, but broken. Unlike air, water needs to be contained in pipes, and they mustn't leak. All this makes water cooling systems much harder to install than air cooling. For air cooling, you just plonk a heatsink and fan on top of the CPU, and you're done.

With water cooling, things are far more complex. Take a deep breath. You put a water block on top of the CPU, a radiator (and optional fan) somewhere at the back of the PC, a pump wherever you can find space, connect them all with pipes, and then fill the whole system with water (with de-icing and anti-bacterial additives). Any air bubbles in the water? It won't work. Used the wrong kind of water or additives? Congratulations! You've just created a miniature eco-system, teeming with a fascinating collection of tiny life forms who will show their gratitude by clogging your pump.

With the Aquagate Mini, Cooler Master is bringing water cooling to the masses. The Aquagate mini consists of just two connected parts, a combined water block and pump, and a radiator/fan. The pipes are already fitted, and the system is pre-filled with cooling fluid guaranteed for two years. PC watercooling can't really get any simpler than this.

Does it work? Yes. I tested it on a socket 478 1.6 Ghz Pentium 4 motherboard. Compared with the the stock Intel CPU fan cooler, the Aquagate Mini kept the CPU an impressive 11C cooler under load. This was with the fan running at full speed, which is rather noisy. After using the built in controller to reduce the fan speed to minimum, a near silent 750 RPM, the temperature difference was 6C. The Aquagate Mini allowed me to overclock the CPU to run without problems at 2.4 Ghz, which appeared impossible with the stock cooler.

This product comes with mounting kits for all commonly used CPUs. So I also carried out a quick test with an LGA 775 3.4GHz Pentium 4 mainboard. In this case I was comparing the Aquagate Mini to Cooler Master's own premium air cooler, the Hyper 6+, and the advantage was less pronounced: about 3C.

So the Aquagate Mini works. Should you consider it as a replacement for air cooling? Firstly you'll need to make sure you can actually install it in your PC. Cooler Master have done a very good job of simplifying water cooling, but there are still several potential difficulties.

You will need to remove the mainboard from the case to install the Aquagate Mini, but otherwise the first step, fitting the waterblock/pump to the CPU, is a fairly simple affair, much the same as mounting a heatsink.

The potentially difficult part is finding a place for the radiator and fan. If you have a large (over 50 cm high) tower case, you probably won't have a problem. Smaller cases aren't such a simple affair. The Aquagate Mini actually comes in two versions, the R80 and the R120, with different sized radiators and fans. I would caution against buying the Aquagate Mini R120, which has a large 120 by 160 mm radiator, unless you are absolutely sure you have clear space to fit it at the back of the case (or are prepared to cut a new exhaust hole in the side or, maybe, the top of the case).

At 30 cm the water pipes that connect the pump to the radiator aren't very long, and the actual flexible part of the pipe is only about 26 cm. This means that you can't put the Aquagate Mini's radiator at the front of the case.

The Aquagate Mini's instruction manual is good as far as it goes, but it makes the dangerous assumption that the user knows what he or she is doing. I noticed a few serious omissions. There's no warning about the risk of restricting the water flow by bending the pipes too acutely. There's also no mention of what to do with the existing retention model for a socket 478 P4. You have to unclip it from the mainboard, as explained here.

Be warned that step 1b of this procedure could easily gouge an expensive hole in your mainboard if you do it wrong.

The instruction manual provides no guidance at all on how tight to fasten the bolts which pull the waterblock down onto the CPU. It looks to me like you might be able to break the mainboard or CPU by really overtightening these with a long spanner or wrench. (leaving them too loose will simply mean less efficient cooling). There's a tiny socket wrench supplied with the product. I would guess that if you tighten this with your fingers alone, you'll get good results without risking any damage.

Verdict
Cooler Master brings water cooling to the masses. More effective, and quieter than air cooling. Retail pricing is currently unknown. Installation could be remarkably easy (in a large case), or it could be difficult (in a small case). So check dimensions carefully before you buy.

You can find the R120's full specifications here. µ