Enermax Liqmax III ARGB 360
Cooling in color at a bargain price
WHEN WE LOOKED UP the Liqmax III ARGB 360, we found that it was the cheapest three-fan AIO cooler on Newegg.com. And its competitors lack flashy lighting. One hundred bucks for a cooler setup packing a 360mm radiator, with ARGB fans, and a light-up pump block? Incredible.
A low price like that can be enticing, but it also made us nervous. Could we expect good performance from such a cheap AIO cooler? A few hours of testing and we had our answer: Yes, we really could.
Compared to a stock AMD cooler, the Liqmax III performed incredibly. Nothing pushed the Ryzen 7 2700 in our test bench over 60 C during testing, even while overclocked to its max boost clock of 4.1GHz. The stock Wraith Spire that comes with the CPU broke 60 C at 3.2GHz, reaching 81 C when overclocked.
No matter how hard we thrashed the processor, we couldn’t get it anywhere close to overheating. It didn’t perform quite as well as more expensive 360mm AIO coolers—with temps averaging 4 C higher than a triple-fan Corsair Hydro, priced at nearly double the Liqmax III— but it’s fantastic value for money if you’re only interested in performance.
It’s not as aesthetically pleasing as more expensive coolers—the fans do look cheap out of the box, although they light up nicely once they’re running, and the pump block has a ring of LED lighting as well. It’s quite gentle, not the bright RGB of Corsair and Cooler Master AIOs, but they shine through tinted glass perfectly well. We do wish the light-up logo on the pump wasn’t so prominent, but Enermax isn’t the only manufacturer guilty of that.
Controlling the lighting isn’t as easy as we’d like; while daisy-chaining those fans together to synchronize them isn’t hard, getting our ROG Strix board to manage the lighting took ages. The included physical controller does work well, though, allowing for a good amount of manual customization, but it requires an additional accessory power connector.
The pump block has a better internal design than its cubic exterior suggests, too. Enermax’s patented dual-chamber design separates the pump from the heat plate to keep internal temperatures low enough to extend the pump’s lifetime. We imagine that the fans are always more likely to give up the ghost before the pump when it comes to AIO units, but it’s still a smart bit of design. The weaved tubing
feels just as high-quality as any premium AIO cooler, as does all the cabling from the fans and pump. The long radiator isn’t quite as robust in terms of build quality, but it’s hardly noticeable.
Compatibility is a sticking point. It fits standard AMD and Intel CPUs, but it doesn’t support Threadripper chips, and the overall setup took a while. Where other manufacturers have designed pumps that work with existing stock brackets, Enermax’s solution involves numerous screws, springs, and washers.
An AIO cooler that can match the Liqmax III for value won’t be easy to find. It is worth noting that 360mm of radiator space will be excessive for many builds, especially if you don’t overclock your CPU. If you like to boost your processor, though, or you’re building a big powerhouse PC, there’s now no need to spend hundreds on a cooler. –CHRISTIAN GUYTON