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Having never used an AIO or any other kind of liquid cooler I was intrigued when Hexus and MSI sent me one to try. While my Ryzen 3 3600 is only a 65w model I was hoping to see a reduction in temperatures, no increase in noise and to see just how garish the RGB would be when used in conjunction with my MSI B450 Tomahawk MAX motherboard. In the interests of disclosure I made an error when I asked to be considered. I thought I was running the stock AMD cooler but on opening the case remembered that I had in fact swapped it out for a Coolermaster Evo 212 last Christmas. That said, surely a £120 AIO (RRP is £150 but few places seem to sell it for that price,) should be able to beat a £20 air cooler?
The tl;dr version of the review is: This cooler surprised me in many ways positive and negative while challenging my perceptions of AIO coolers in general. While I don't think this cooler, in this case with these components is a superior choice there are definitely use cases where it would shine (pun intended.)
First impressions.
Click to embiggen.
This is a premium product and it looks and feels like one. The outer box is glossy and full colour printed, the inner packaging is robust and protects the contents well from any knocks it may receive in shipping. The radiator itself is finished in a nice matt black, complimented with the black sleeving on the hoses and the same plastic used on the top of the water block. An interesting feature for those looking to use this with a case window is that the top of the block is decorated with an addressable RGB enabled MSI dragon logo which can be swivelled to ensure it's the correct way up no matter how you have it mounted. The business side of the block is copper and polished to a pretty nice shine.
The 3 fans are 120mm addressable RGB enabled that run between 500-2000RPM claiming a maximum airflow of 78.73CFM and 2.39 mmH2O pressure. These also look smart, with the MSI dragon on the centre and rubberised pads in each corner to reduce vibration passing from the fan to the radiator it mounts to. These pads are on both sides and there is not an arrow on the fans indicating which direction they operate in which may confuse users unaccustomed to installing their own fans. Both the fans and the block have ARGB connectors that daisy chain neatly, as do the fan power cables meaning you only need 1 ARGB header and 2 fan plugs (one for the pump, one for the 3 fans,) on your motherboard.
Also included in the box are several plastic bags full of various fixings and brackets for just about every AMD and Intel consumer socket of the past 10 years or more, back to FM1/AM2 on the AMD side and LGA1150 and LGA 1366 on Intel. It also claims to support TR4/TRX4/SP3 for Threadripper. While I don't doubt the bracket will hold the block onto these sockets I wouldn't feel comfortable using it for this. Threadrippers are physically much larger chips and the supplied block just isn't large enough for comfortable coverage. The bag of goodies also includes a "noise reducer cable" which appears to just be an inline resistor but given my preference for quiet computing will definitely be getting a run out. Finally included is a surprisingly small Quick Installation Guide, which appears to follow the Ikea school of diagrams and numbering.
Installation.
My current case is a Fractal Design Meshify C. This only has room for a 360mm radiator at the front of the case but it should have plenty of breathing room behind that big mesh. When I built the system my focus was on acceptable temps as quiet as possible as my office is just off the living room and there are likely to be marital repercussions if it makes too much noise. As a result the case had 2 140mm F14 Arctic Silent PWM intake fans mounted in the front, bisected by the GPU. Aside from the fans on the CPU cooler and GPU the only other fan being a PWM 120mm rear exhaust. This has kept the case cool and quiet but it's important to remember that (CPU cooler aside,) they had all been brought at the same time as part of a considered plan for cooling.
Having removed the 140mm intake fans and the CPU cooler I checked the installation guide and found the relevant bits for my use case. Now if you followed the link above you'll know that the instructions aren't the most descriptive and steps aren't numbered. Assuming you're supposed to work the steps from top to bottom you'd attach the relevant CPU bracket onto the water block (which cleverly has a groove cut into the outside so it slots into the brackets,) apply the included TIM, attach the block to the board, then attach the fans to the radiator and install it. I cannot fathom why you would do it this way around. In my view you should attach the fans to the radiator, attach the CPU socket to the block, then attach the radiator to the case before fixing down the water block. This gives you much more freedom to manoeuvre. Interestingly the instructions did have a QR code, but only for MSIs Dragon Center software page. They do have a how to install video on Youtube but I only know this from searching as even the product page doesn't seem to link to it. Even then there are several third party ones that have more views and give clearer instructions.
Now I'm aware of Steve at Gamers Nexus promoted the use of vertically mounted AIOs with the reservoir with the pipes at the bottom. This is so the pump/block combination is not the highest point on the loop and thus where the air will congregate leading to noise, wear and lower performance. I hit upon a problem when mounting this way. While 400mm of tubing may seem generous it seemed unable to stretch from the bottom of the case to the CPU socket if a GPU or other full length card was installed.
Fortunately the Meshify C has adjustable mounting holes and by sliding the radiator to the very highest point I was able to get it mounted this way. It was very tight however so I would be uneasy keeping it this way longer term. Shout out to ik9000 for pointing out at this stage that as the pump is mounted in the radiator and not the waterblock on this unit (to avoid ASETEKs patent on this method,) it's possible it wouldn't have quite the same impact. Testing will show for sure!
Once it was all screwed in and the TIM applied actually fixing the block to the CPU socket was as easy as attaching the stock cooler. Hook one clip over the socket lug, apply some pressure and do the same the other side, very straightforward. The same is true of attaching the power cables from the fans to each other, tidying them up and plugging them into the motherboard along with the pump. My MSI board has a dedicated PUMP header, but according to their documentation if you don't have one a SYSFAN one will do, I assumed that the PUMP header meant it ignored PWM but I cannot see anything to confirm this so not sure it's accurate. Unlike other reviewers my radiator only had a cut out for routing the pump power cable on one side, this was frustrating when the rad was mounted pump down as then it was the wrong side. Seems some have them both sides while others don't so your mileage may vary.
At this point I tried to attach the RGB headers. My motherboard has two of them, unfortunately they are 4 pin RGB headers and not 3 pin ARGB headers which I have since discovered operate at 5v rather than 12v. MSI refers to RGB as Mystic Light and the landing page for this does show both this cooler and my motherboard. It's only if you go into the filters and search by RGB 12v or ARGB you'll see they can't work together. This is a shame because if you don't already know what you're doing you could easily buy incompatible products. To add to the frustration they don't sell a separate ARGB controller the way Corsair, Coolermaster and others do which seems like a missed opportunity to me. If I was determined to make my MSI board work with my MSI cooler I'd be forced to buy a competitors product! As a result I cannot review the RGB element of the cooler which is a big shame.
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Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
