Cooler Master MasterLiquid Maker 92 Review: Palm-Sized Liquid Cooling
Final Thoughts about the MasterLiquid Maker 92
Although compact in size, the Cooler Master MasterLiquid Maker 92 is not short on ambition. Instead of attacking the high-end segment of the liquid cooling market where there are many players currently introducing their own brand of large radiator wielding self-contained units with expandability, Cooler Master was wise to seek innovation in the unexplored space of compact liquid cooling. Obviously, the demand in this space is not quite there yet with only a few coolers competing including some slim 120mm AIOs and Corsair’s H5 which is specifically designed for mini-ITX systems, so there is still a lot of room for growth.
The downside with AIO’s in this space is of course the cost. Complexity grows as manufacturing liquid coolers goes smaller compared to larger AIO coolers, so the cost does not necessarily shrink like it would relative to size with air coolers. The MasterLiquid Maker 92 retails for $99.99 and that price is easily its greatest weakness when it comes to attracting users. Its closest competitor is the blower-style fan equipped Corsair H5 which retails for $79.99.
The advantage with the MasterLiquid Maker 92 is that it is versatile with its vertical and horizontal option. This allows it to fit in almost any case without modding and if need be being actually reasonably easy to mod. It is bundled only with an Intel mounting bracket but it is locked in place only by a screw so users can actually just screw in an AMD mounting hardware kit from a different Cooler Master AIO unit (requires drilling holes) so that they can install it on an AMD system. Both mounting positions are very clearance friendly to every component and there are no difficulties with installing around it.
The fans bundled with the MasterLiquid Maker 92 is quite sensibly tuned acoustically, topping out at only 41.1 dBA on full blast. Normally, manufacturers would use a higher RPM fan to score higher in the benchmarks but since the MasterLiquid Maker 92 is designed for compact units, Cooler Master seemed to have kept that in mind. The best part is that the built-in fan hub can operate the fans in PWM mode while the pump is fed full 12V power via SATA so users only need to manage a single cable passing through rather than dealing with multiple ones on a typical AIO.
Overall, the MasterLiquid Maker 92 is an interesting piece of new design. It has enough versatility that it is very functional, and its fans are very quiet for a compact AIO. The pump could stand to be quieter but then that would affect performance too much. Once inside a case, it will operate at a relatively low noise. Temperature-wise, it is pretty much where I expected a compact AIO to land. There is only so much one can do with the physical limitations of cooling without resorting to ultra high-RPM fans or ground-breaking new technology so its cooling abilities did not come as a surprise.
