X-bit labs

Cooler Master Aquagate Viva Liquid Cooling System Review (page 5)

Category: Coolers

by Sergey Lepilov

[ 02/02/2007 | 09:40 AM ]

And finally you put the decorative plate on top of the cooler:

After that, you can assemble the system in the PC case. The pipes are flexible, so the procedure isn’t as difficult as it seems. When the Aquagate Viva is in the PC case, you should connect all the connectors to the included cable and power the system up from an ordinary Molex plug of your power supply. One connector is attached to a free fan connector on your mainboard.

When installed on a GPU, the Aquagate Viva looks like that:

The PC case has become rather too crowded. That’s the price you pay for the universality and the lack of external components. These factors may be decisive for some users, though.

To install the water-block on the CPU, you should first remove the water-block’s default steel fastening frame and screw in special bushings instead:

You put another universal plate on these bushings and then fasten it with nuts to the poles you’ve inserted into the mainboard beforehand.

You have to take the mainboard out of the case to do that. Note also that the pressure plate is rather large at 104x80mm and there’s about 32mm between the mainboard and the bottom edge of the plate after installation. Thus, high capacitors or heatsinks on the chipset or on the power circuit elements may get in the way on some mainboards.

Next, you put the plastic frame on the water-block and use it to install any 80mm fan.

The arrangement is firm, and there was no vibration (I used a Noctua NF-R8 fan at its maximum speed of 1800rpm). This liquid cooling kit doesn’t include a fan, yet it is good the user is provided the option of installing one on the water-block. Cooling the near-socket space is important for a modern overclocked system.

When installed on a CPU, the Aquagate Viva looks like that: