Cooler Master Announces The MasterLiquid Maker 92

Cooler Master has announced the MasterLiquid Maker 92, a liquid CPU cooler that packages a radiator, pump and water block all in one unit that sits directly on your CPU. The cooler mounts like a traditional heatsink and fan combo but it also has the ability to switch from horizontal to vertical on the fly without having to remove the cooler.

Liquid cooling is now swiveling its way into cases and onto motherboards of all sizes. This all-in-one cooler's rotating configurations make it both agile and versatile. With its compact, single frame combining the radiator and pump, even the tightest case layouts are accessible. Fit both liquid and dual fans easily and snugly over the CPU, sending liquid and air to the motherboard's core and its surrounding components.

But why?

From a performance perspective water coolers are less efficient than air coolers because the heat has to transfer first to the water, and then out to the radiator. Simple HSF's are more efficient in that regard.

Water coolers make up for this by being able to either pull in cold air from outside the case, or being able to vent hot air outside the case, and - in some cases - being able to use larger radiators, due to moving them away from the immediate CPU area allows you more space.

I don't understand what something like this is good for. It seems like the worst of both worlds. The inefficiencies of water coupled with the limitations in space, and hot air inside case of a traditional HSF.

It seems like a gimmick, and nothing else.

Seems like for short distances heat pipes are going to be better transport for heat from the CPU to the fins/radiator. The point of water is to move the heat somewhere in the case where you can either directly suck in cooler air, or discharge the hot air out of the case, or move it somewhere that has more room for the heat sink like a larger 240mm radiator. Sticking a smaller radiator on top of the CPU where the size is going to be reduced due to additional pumps, hoses, and water block isn't really going to gain you anything over already hyper efficient (and no moving parts) heat tubes and a larger heat sink

Why would you want to blow the heated air, back on to the CPU area... lol Seems it would be fighting itself.

Also, the above two thoughts!

I'll certainly be interested to see a proper evaluation of this when it comes out.

It still dumps the heat back into the same mass of air the cooler draws air in from. The entire draw of watercooling for me is the ability to dump my waste heat away from my other components.

Like everyone else I am skeptical of this, but I would love to be proved wrong. Where is the [H] review?!!!

The only really efficient way I could see for this is possibly to sit it in it's upright position and then use some ducting to vent the hot air outside the case, which would really be easier to do by just positioning the radiator/fan on the side/top of the case to vent outwards anyway like a traditional setup. The only place I could see this being really targeted at is small form factor PCs, but if you want watercooling in something like that generally you just use a unit with an external radiator. It'll be interesting to see some testing on this though.

Did Bruce Wayne start designing computer parts?

Not to rain on anyone's parade BUT what do you guys do 1 year to 6 months after you build or have water cooling systems? It is bad enough with air cooling and I have plugged every hole in my case (making sure all air in is filtered) and have very fine filters to boot. I have 3x120 mm blowing in and 2x120mm fans blowing out trying to create positive air pressure in the case to aid in keeping out dust.

+1 on not liking this so much. But they do state that it's for compact installs however I agree that in a compact install it is especially important to have cooler air in the rest of the system. This seems more like a marketing gimmick than anything else to me.

This cooler actually has a pretty nifty feature, to let you change the orientation of the twin fans and the radiator on the fly. You could easily move it to work with the airflow in your case, or the particular confines of your case. The extra ability of the water to suck up additional heat over a heat-pipe arrangement should help make up for it's diminutive size. I actually think this is a pretty sweet little piece of kit.

Steve, can we see a [H]ard Review of this in the near future? I'm really interested to see how it stacks up.

mullet said:

Not to rain on anyone's parade BUT what do you guys do 1 year to 6 months after you build or have water cooling systems? It is bad enough with air cooling and I have plugged every hole in my case (making sure all air in is filtered) and have very fine filters to boot. I have 3x120 mm blowing in and 2x120mm fans blowing out trying to create positive air pressure in the case to aid in keeping out dust.

Click to expand...

And why is dust a bad thing again other than for OCD? Do you know of any server racks with dust filters? Do you know of any dell/hp/lenovos with dust filters? They all seem to be fine running for a decade or more before non dust related components die.

The only reason i can think of for a dust free case is if you have easily killed fans, have the pc on the floor with pet hair (that can be filtered with rough screen), or you smoke and the dust can turn into some thing i call "barfunkium" that is conductive during high humidity conditions.

Wonder what happens to people with skeleton cases...

But really on most water cooler setups, the fan is mounted on the inside of the case and blows through the radiator that is mounted on or outside the case. As with everyone else here chiming in, a water cooler's main purpose is to get the heat out of the case to prevent heat soak. If you just wanted to get the heat away from the cpu as quickly as possible, you would just use a heatpipe setup the size of babie's head. However have fun with air-to-air cooling when you are trying to exhaust 200 watts of heat. You might suck in some dense 25c air, but are exhausting 45-55c air that is a lot less dense (.4 bars or more).

Holy lack of proof-reading Batman! Cooler Master needs to put a new set of eyes on that webpage and fix all the typos!

EDIT: Also noticed it doesn't use that corrugated type tubing (WTF is that called?) that looks really fugly.

EDIT 2: Only things on the support list: "Intel® LGA2011-v3/ 2011/ 1151/ 1150/ 1155/ 1156 socket"

No AMD support or a different SKU?

mullet said:

Not to rain on anyone's parade BUT what do you guys do 1 year to 6 months after you build or have water cooling systems? It is bad enough with air cooling and I have plugged every hole in my case (making sure all air in is filtered) and have very fine filters to boot. I have 3x120 mm blowing in and 2x120mm fans blowing out trying to create positive air pressure in the case to aid in keeping out dust.

Click to expand...

You could try vacuuming the room.

Seems like a "worst of both worlds" solution right there.

--- edit---
WTF can I never write solution in singular the first time...

Zarathustra[H] said:

But why?

From a performance perspective water coolers are less efficient than air coolers because the heat has to transfer first to the water, and then out to the radiator. Simple HSF's are more efficient in that regard.

Water coolers make up for this by being able to either pull in cold air from outside the case, or being able to vent hot air outside the case, and - in some cases - being able to use larger radiators, due to moving them away from the immediate CPU area allows you more space.

I don't understand what something like this is good for. It seems like the worst of both worlds. The inefficiencies of water coupled with the limitations in space, and hot air inside case of a traditional HSF.

It seems like a gimmick, and nothing else.

Click to expand...

So solid metal heatsinks are better than heatpipe coolers?

Heatpipes have liquid in them as well. It is just under a vacuum so the liquid boils at a low temperature, moves to the area that is cooler, cools down, and then condensates back to liquid so it can run back down to the cooler base. They usually have a wicking material in them so they work in different orientations.

Seems to me like a water cooler with a pump in theory should work better than a heatpipe setup.

Man, it's probably not better than a comparably priced air cooler, but at least it's a lot heavier.

What the actual fuck

nightanole said:

And why is dust a bad thing again other than for OCD? Do you know of any server racks with dust filters? Do you know of any dell/hp/lenovos with dust filters? They all seem to be fine running for a decade or more before non dust related components die.

Click to expand...

I don't like to see my video card, HS full of dust or my fan blades that will make more noise with dust. Most of the server rooms I have seen have humidity control with very good filtration for the room, I haven't seen carpet or dogs running around in there or people smoking.

The only reason i can think of for a dust free case is if you have easily killed fans, have the pc on the floor with pet hair (that can be filtered with rough screen), or you smoke and the dust can turn into some thing i call "barfunkium" that is conductive during high humidity conditions.

Click to expand...

I clean my case every 6 months and it takes about 10 minutes max but like I said I filter my air.

But really on most water cooler setups, the fan is mounted on the inside of the case and blows through the radiator that is mounted on or outside the case. As with everyone else here chiming in, a water cooler's main purpose is to get the heat out of the case to prevent heat soak. If you just wanted to get the heat away from the cpu as quickly as possible, you would just use a heatpipe setup the size of babie's head. However have fun with air-to-air cooling when you are trying to exhaust 200 watts of heat. You might suck in some dense 25c air, but are exhausting 45-55c air that is a lot less dense (.4 bars or more).

Click to expand...

I just want to change the air in the case as many times as I can in a minute. I have never used water so I don't know.

cyclone3d said:

So solid metal heatsinks are better than heatpipe coolers?

Heatpipes have liquid in them as well. It is just under a vacuum so the liquid boils at a low temperature, moves to the area that is cooler, cools down, and then condensates back to liquid so it can run back down to the cooler base. They usually have a wicking material in them so they work in different orientations.

Seems to me like a water cooler with a pump in theory should work better than a heatpipe setup.

Click to expand...

No, because heat pipes use the latent heat of vaporization to remove heat much more efficiently than turbulent flow through a heat exchanger can. For heat transfer over short distances you really can't get much more efficient than heat pipes, which have thermal conductivity in the range of thousands of times higher than copper alone. Plus heatpipes don't require waterblocks, reservoirs, or pumps to work so even ignoring the reliability of heatpipes, which can work indefinitely so long as they don't leak, over powered pumping, you have more room with heatpipes for heatsink surface area.

nightanole said:

And why is dust a bad thing again other than for OCD? Do you know of any server racks with dust filters? Do you know of any dell/hp/lenovos with dust filters? They all seem to be fine running for a decade or more before non dust related components die.

Click to expand...

The whole room has positive pressure to keep out dust. The room AC unit has filters. The servers themselves don't need them. The whole goal is less maintenance in that regard. Fix it at one point, so you don't need someone cleaning every server in your server farm.

The only reason i can think of for a dust free case is if you have easily killed fans, have the pc on the floor with pet hair (that can be filtered with rough screen), or you smoke and the dust can turn into some thing i call "barfunkium" that is conductive during high humidity conditions.

Wonder what happens to people with skeleton cases...

Click to expand...

It gets dusty, so I just hit it with a can of air. It stays cleaner than my closed case, as it doesn't trap the dust inside. Here's my case.

But really on most water cooler setups, the fan is mounted on the inside of the case and blows through the radiator that is mounted on or outside the case. As with everyone else here chiming in, a water cooler's main purpose is to get the heat out of the case to prevent heat soak. If you just wanted to get the heat away from the cpu as quickly as possible, you would just use a heatpipe setup the size of babie's head. However have fun with air-to-air cooling when you are trying to exhaust 200 watts of heat. You might suck in some dense 25c air, but are exhausting 45-55c air that is a lot less dense (.4 bars or more).

Click to expand...

A water coolers main purpose is to cool the cpu or gpu. Well, whatever it is your trying to cool. Dumping that heat out the case is a benefit, if designed as such. Leaving the heat in the case just means you'll have a higher delta for the loop. So less overclocking or whatever. Course, you can just put decent case fans on your case, you know. Like you would with an air cooler.

For me, I just don't want a massive cooler sitting on top of my mobo, even if it has a support bracket on the back.

-Dragon- said:

No, because heat pipes use the latent heat of vaporization to remove heat much more efficiently than turbulent flow through a heat exchanger can. For heat transfer over short distances you really can't get much more efficient than heat pipes, which have thermal conductivity in the range of thousands of times higher than copper alone. Plus heatpipes don't require waterblocks, reservoirs, or pumps to work so even ignoring the reliability of heatpipes, which can work indefinitely so long as they don't leak, over powered pumping, you have more room with heatpipes for heatsink surface area.

Click to expand...

You do know that the heat still has to travel through copper first to get to the liquid in those heatpipes. No different than a watercooling setup. You're just more limited in design when it comes to a heatpipe, where it's just, a smooth pipe (inside and outside) with some liquid. While a watercooling setup you have a small plate of copper with a ton of spikes on it and force water through those spikes to remove the heat.

Now overall design of the watercooling setup will depend on if it'll be more efficient than a heatpipe setup. I can see this cooler beating out some of your low to mid-range heatpipe setups.

KrS said:

Why would you want to blow the heated air, back on to the CPU area... lol Seems it would be fighting itself.

Also, the above two thoughts!

Click to expand...

The CPU wouldn't care, it's watercooled. The mosfets and stuff by it would like it. It'd help cool them. Any airflow, better than no airflow. Like sitting in a hot ass room. You want to just sit there with no air or would you want a fan blowing you?


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While I would not buy it, I would like to see how this thing performs and what price it'll end up being.

-Dragon- said:

No, because heat pipes use the latent heat of vaporization to remove heat much more efficiently than turbulent flow through a heat exchanger can. For heat transfer over short distances you really can't get much more efficient than heat pipes, which have thermal conductivity in the range of thousands of times higher than copper alone. Plus heatpipes don't require waterblocks, reservoirs, or pumps to work so even ignoring the reliability of heatpipes, which can work indefinitely so long as they don't leak, over powered pumping, you have more room with heatpipes for heatsink surface area.

Click to expand...

From experimenting with making my own watercooling setup many years ago, I am still convinced that even current water block design and radiator design is severely lacking.

The one waterblock I made had the water inlet directly over the center of the CPU. The outlet was near the edge of the waterblock. The waterblock had no fins or anything inside it. The inside bottom was just kind of a rough surface.

And that thing worked way better than anything else I tried.

Also, from my experimentation, I am pretty sure that instead of those huge tubes that the radiators have, it would be much, much, much more efficient if you had a single smaller diameter tube that snaked back and forth from one end to the other. That is how oil coolers for vehicles are made, and they work crazy good at removing heat.

The way radiators are currently made is that they have a reservoir at each end with multiple tubes. There is absolutely nothing to make sure that liquid flows through all the tubes. The liquid is going to follow the path of least resistance which will very likely ensure that only a few of the tubes are going to get most of the flow through them.

I was interested in this for use in a case that's also using an AIO watercooled video card. If the GPU radiator is up taking that rear exhaust fan, my AIO choices for the CPU become more complicated. Something like the Maker 92 means I don't need to run tubes to the top or front of the case looking for fan grills. (I still want to see benchmarks. I'm really hoping at least it will be quieter than just plunking down a huge old-school air cooler in its place.)

cyclone3d said:

Also, from my experimentation, I am pretty sure that instead of those huge tubes that the radiators have, it would be much, much, much more efficient if you had a single smaller diameter tube that snaked back and forth from one end to the other. That is how oil coolers for vehicles are made, and they work crazy good at removing heat.

Click to expand...

That's how my radiator is. I thought I'd be getting a quiet watercooling setup, since that's something Zalman was known for. Not so for this specific AIO watercooler.

Zalman Reserator 3 Max Dual Review

The way radiators are currently made is that they have a reservoir at each end with multiple tubes. There is absolutely nothing to make sure that liquid flows through all the tubes. The liquid is going to follow the path of least resistance which will very likely ensure that only a few of the tubes are going to get most of the flow through them.

Click to expand...

It's the same problem that cars get too. Like 1/4 of the radiator isn't being utilized, since the water never makes it there.

It's 6 in one hand half dozen in another. If you snake around the radiator the liquid is moving quickly through the pipe and shedding heat along it's long but fast path, if you have multiple tubes in parallel then the liquid moves slower through each tube spending more time in the radiator, through a short but slow path. Generally speaking they perform fairly close to each other, and for a setup like a radiator with coolant (air) flow perpendicular to the liquid being cooled it doesn't matter much, if you have a setup where the cooling medium is flowing parallel with the medium being cooled it's best to have a one way coolant flow to the snake flow where the two coolants run counter to each other.