Cooler Master Set to Launch A-L2 Water Cooling Unit

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.

The 120mm demo unit featured a block with a new stacked copper fin design instead of the more common micro-channel design found in many all-in-one units. Cooler Master claims this design increases the surface area that the liquid contacts and allows for more heat to be pulled away from the processor. Another improvement was a larger than normal pump capable of moving an increased amount of fluid to help keep temperatures lower than that of competing units.

Various sites reporting on this unit claim the pump can move 450 litres per second or 450 litres per minute. Those numbers are extremely high considering a stand-alone Swiftec pump costing $100 pushes 20 litres per minute and the pump used for CoolIT’s popular ECO all-in-one cooling unit moves only 2 litres per minute. 450 litres per hour seems more likely and while that is over 3 times the amount of the ECO, take the available information at face value until the official specifications are released.

Anticipated prices were unavailable but expect to see the A-L2 in stores in the first quarter of this year with a dual fan, 240mm version to follow.

Veteran enthusiasts may remember how Cooler Master was one of the pioneers of the all-in-one water cooling solution with a product known as Aquagate early in the millennium. Unfortunately, while the device received good reviews it was arguably launched too early to be accepted as a viable and reliable cooling solution. The past few years have seen very similar solutions by competitors take off like wildfire and Cooler Master has now decided it is time to redesign a new, better water cooling solution.