CoolerMaster AIOCooler in Depth Review

When we heard CoolerMaster had realised a water cooler with near identical specs to the H45 we just had to get our hands on it and put it through its paces. We previously tested the H45 against the H60, which can be found here! (http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/corsair-hydro-h45-review-a-89.html)

So this time round we are seeing if the MasterLiquid Lite 120 can outperform the H45 in a head to head cooling contest when using an i7 7700k at stock, 4.7GHz and 4.9GHz.

Let’s take a closer look!

Installation

Installation of the MasterLiquid Lite 120 is a breeze when compared to the H45. Not that the H45 is extremely difficult to install, it just requires a little bit of finessed hand yoga.

I think this is due to the MasterLiquid Lite 120 having ever so slightly more flexible tubing which isn’t elasticated as much as the H45’s. This means it doesn’t ping out of the way when trying to mount the cooler. This makes it a much easier and quicker task to accomplish while still having a strong and reliable mounting method, making sure that sufficient contact is made between the block and the processor.

Performance Cost Ratio

Corsair have their H45 for sale for typically £50, which for a cooler of its performance is a superb offering and anyone looking for a cheap entry into the world of watercooling will find this cooler to fit their needs perfectly without any hitches. 

CoolerMaster have made their impressive little cooler available from anywhere between £37.99 and £44.99 depending where you get it from. If this unit can put the Corsair H45 through its paces this is an incredible price point coming in at approximately 10%-20% lower!

Testing

After setting this cooler up on our testing rig we ran it through its paces using Prime95, a very widely used CPU testing software that really test’s CPU’s mettle.

Our system had the following specifications:

Motherboard: Asus Z270-P

CPU: Intel i7 7700k

RAM: 16GB 2400MHz Corsair Vengeance LPX

PSU: Corsair CX 430

SSD: Samsung Evo 850 Pro 250GB

GPU: GTX 1060 6GB

Thermal Paste: Arctic 5 Silver Pro

Testing Results

Overclocks Used

To fully test the cooling power of the MasterLiquid Lite 120 we decided to run 6 sets of tests on them.

Stock clock speeds, idle

Stock clock speeds, load

Overclock 1, 4.7GHz @1.260v idle

Overclock 1, 4.7GHz @1.260v load

Overclock 2, 4.9GHz @1.300v idle

Overclock 2, 4.9GHz @1.300v load

All of these tests were ran for 10 minutes to give the cooler and chip a fair chance to acclimate to the overclocked environmen

The Fans

Although the CoolerMaster fan pushes approximately 15% less air than the Corsair variant this does not seem to affect the cooling ability in any significant way. The maximum difference we had in temperatures between the two coolers was 6 degrees Celsius, proving that the MasterLiquid Lite 120 is up for a fight.

Another thing to note is the reduction in noise levels. The H45, while a very good cooler, is notoriously loud, this is where we are very impressed with the MasterLiquid Lite 120, it’s very quiet yet provides fantastic cooling capabilities in such a small form factor, meaning it can fit into small form factor cases and provide the necessary cooling power to get a nice overclock.

Conclusion

Overall we were immensely impressed with the MasterLiquid Lite 120 not only just as an AIO Water Cooler but especially for how cheap the unit is at RRP.

Cooler Master have been very excited to show this cooler off to reviewers and their potential new customers and it is easy to see why. The levels of performance they said it could achieve were almost unbelievable when they first announced this unit. But now we know first-hand how truly amazing this cooler is at what it does.

The method of keeping the pump on top of the block is a design choice I think that CoolerMaster put a lot of time debating whether to keep it there or not. We are glad with their decision as it not only keeps the unit smaller on the radiator side but also an overall cleaner aesthetic. Aesthetic is also now my next point; the radiator, the fan and pump/ block all look fantastic, very minimal design to keep a clean and concise look throughout the cooler. But… The tubing that has almost become synonymous with CoolerMaster AIO’s at this point is a design choice we wished and hoped that they would change. It’s, and this is the only way I can describe it, corrugated tubing. This look is very dated and does not fit in well with the rest of the cooler. However this is a very small setback in our books and it is only our opinion, the rest of the product is absolutely fantastic, especially (You’re probably getting bored of me mentioning this!) for the super low price point.