Cooler Master Set to Launch A-L2 Water Cooling Unit

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
It seems that everybody is trying to break into the water cooling market with self contained, all-in-one units that require little to no upkeep. Cooler Master showed off its own A-L2 unit at this year's CES, and marks the first time the company has produced a liquid cooler since its Aquagate Mini R80 in 2008. The new unit bears a striking resemblance to systems currently available from various manufacturers and OEMs but with a few differences.

coolermaster_al2_011311.jpg

You can read the rest of our post and discuss here.
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
I'm really excited to see the numbers on this since it uses a new block design and high volume pump. If the rest of the cooling isn't there though, the pump will be a moot point. Circulating warm fluid faster than the fan/radiator can cool it will simply increase temperatures.

I know we don't really do many heatsink tests but I'm tempted to see if we can do one on this since I'll have a 120mm CoolIT Vantage to compare it to. The Corsair units are pretty much bang on with the CoolIT versions so I'm not too worried about getting one of them for a comparison.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Those "450 litres per" figures have to be off... it'd just be impossible for a unit like this to push 7.5L per second. I don't think the amount of liquid it can push per hour matters as much as the unit's overall efficiency though, and this unit does look to have some great potential. Hopefully the release unit will be a bit prettier to look at, though.
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
How did the 450 litres per second/minute get through editing?

Heh. Now that I know you're a Borderlands fan I can bust this out again.

"She may not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but she'll put out the second you ask her!" - Scooter

Oh, and just because...

"Hey, you the one killin' all the crap when people ask? The Catch-a-Ride near Fyrestone is more busted than my momma's girl parts. Why don't you take a poke at it? The uh, system, not my mom. Hot dog down a Skag den, know what I'm sayin'?"
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
I'm going to keeping my eyes open for an updated version of this if someone finds it at CeBIT in March! I wanna test that new pump!
 
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Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Hmm, I have no idea how 450L/s made it through their press releases either, other sites didn't catch it. :D

The MCP655 I use is considered a high-volume, lower pressure pump as opposed to the MCP355 which is lower volume at higher pressure... block designs are optimized for either one or the other types of pumps and don't perform at their best when utilized with the opposite pump types, while other blocks take the middle of the road approach to their designs. Either way, the MCP655 I use maxes out around 20 liters a minute for flow rate, a far cry from 450 liters a second... ;)
 

Optix

Basket Chassis
Staff member
Break it out. You can go nostalgic and slap it on an E2180 on a P35 board with 2GB of DDR2 and an 8800GT!
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
I wish I could just WC my dang gtx 275s but I dont feel its worth it parts wise.

If you already got the WC loop cooling the CPU, then you can probably pick up the 275 block(s) fairly cheaply. Used and especially outdated waterblocks are dirt cheap, just browse ebay and PC trading subforums... If you would need to build an entire loop from scratch, then yeah I agree it wouldn't be worth it unless you have a specific need, such as CPU/GPU fan noise, were already thinking of buying a super-expensive CPU + high-end GPU cooler, etc. Otherwise without additional factors the cost to build one is pretty steep.
 
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