Enermax Unveils AIO Liquid Cooling Lineup With a VRM Cooling Fan

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The extra fan is for cooling motherboard VRMs.

Enermax LIQMAXFLO CPU AIO Liquid Cooler
(Image credit: Enermax)

Enermax has announced a new lineup of LiqMaxFlo AIO coolers that come with a brand new pump design and an additional cooling fan dedicated to cooling motherboard power delivery components. The new lineup is available in standard and SR variants, featuring 120mm, 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm radiator options. As well as 27mm and 38mm thick radiator options.

The VRM fan is one of the newest changes added to Enermax's new LiqMaxFlo series. The fan measures 60mm in diameter and is placed directly on top of the pump housing, pushing air across all four sides of the CPU area and into the VRMs that typically surround the CPU socket. It should also provide a bit of airflow to the memory area of the motherboard.

The fan aims to improve the thermals of the motherboard components, particularly the power delivery system that can run hot on motherboards that don't have adequate VRM heatsinks that work well in stagnating air. The fan could also help cool off the memory section of the board, which may improve memory overclocking headroom in some cases.

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Enermax LIQMAXFLO CPU AIO Liquid Cooler
(Image credit: Enermax)
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Enermax LIQMAXFLO CPU AIO Liquid Cooler
(Image credit: Enermax)

The new Enermax cooler series also comes with an improved coolant flow rate and higher pump pressure, compared to previous Enermax cooler designs. The pump comes with Enermax's patented shunt-channel technology, an enlarged coolant inlet, and an optimized flow design that improves pump pressure by 30% and improves coolant flow rates by 20%. Enermax says its improved design can reduce CPU thermals by 8C when operating under a 250W CPU load.

Enermax is offering the LiqMaxFlo in two flavors, a vanilla model and an entry-level SR variant. The vanilla variants will come with RGB illuminated fans on the radiator as well as a thicker 38mm radiator, while the SR variants will come with a standard-sized 27mm thick radiator, and non-RGB fans. (The VRM fan on the pump still appears to have ARGB lighting.) The premium models will come in 240mm, 360mm, and 420mm radiator sizes, while the entry-level SR models will come in 120mm, 240mm, and 360mm sizes.

Enermax reports that its new LiqMaxFlo coolers are available right now at its online USA store and selected retailers.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • atomicWAR
    Nice idea but that fan and the air cut outs in the water block won't be moving much air. Unless its running full tilt which would be loud in turn kind of defeating the point of water cooling. I would love to see more designs that take VRMs into consideration though. Hopefully I am wrong and its wonderful at lowering temps for VRMs (possibly to a lesser extent ram as the article points out).
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    small fans add noise and at very least increase prone failure rate.
    Reply
  • daworstplaya
    atomicWAR said:
    Nice idea but that fan and the air cut outs in the water block won't be moving much air. Unless its running full tilt which would be loud in turn kind of defeating the point of water cooling. I would love to see more designs that take VRMs into consideration though. Hopefully I am wrong and its wonderful at lowering temps for VRMs (possibly to a lesser extent ram as the article points out).
    If you look carefully at the images, it seems there are slits on all 4 sides of the plastic water block shroud. I'm guessing the fan is pushing air through those to cool down the motherboard components.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    daworstplaya said:
    If you look carefully at the images, it seems there are slits on all 4 sides of the plastic water block shroud. I'm guessing the fan is pushing air through those to cool down the motherboard components.
    Oh I saw...I am concerned with their relative size to the air the fan can push. It looks elegant I just worry about functionality.
    Reply
  • tamalero
    Admin said:
    Enermax announced a new AIO liquid cooling series featuring enhanced cooling performance and a dedicated VRM cooling fan to cool the motherboard power delivery system.

    Enermax Unveils AIO Liquid Cooling Lineup With a VRM Cooling Fan : Read more
    I think everyone else wants to know if ENERMAX finally fixed their ridiculously bad quality and design failures in their AIOs.
    Reply
  • AgentBirdnest
    tamalero said:
    I think everyone else wants to know if ENERMAX finally fixed their ridiculously bad quality and design failures in their AIOs.
    Anytime I hear the name "Enermax", all the images of brown sludge in AIOs instantly come to mind. Fair or not, I think I'm forever going to associate the name with that, and be wary of the brand. I know all brands screw up at some point, but that really stuck with me...
    Reply
  • Colif
    Gee, how original, no one else has VRM cooling fans on an AIO

    oh wait


    https://www.arctic.de/en/Liquid-Freezer-II-280-A-RGB/ACFRE00106A
    curious why forum software always convert German sites into the German language versions.
    Reply
  • torbjorn.lindgren
    atomicWAR said:
    Oh I saw...I am concerned with their relative size to the air the fan can push. It looks elegant I just worry about functionality.
    Even a small amount of airflow will significantly increase the efficiency of the VRM and board cooling compared to "air is standing still". Now, to be fair to normal AIO's it's often possible to arrange this using just the normal (AIO & case) fans but it does reduce one worry. And they're not the first AIO to do this either.

    Getting further improvement above what you get with "barely moving air" OTOH do require noticeable airflow which on a fan mounted like and that small likely would result in lot of noise, so I do hope they choose "air moves a bit" tuning of the fan rather than "screaming jet engine".

    There's really no sane reason for it to need to move significant amount of airs, if the VRM is that outmatched by the power draw it shouldn't be used for that CPU.

    Now, this is Enermax so I'd be a lot more concerned about the long-term reliability than anything else, I consider them a serial offender (in multiple ways!) on that front.
    Reply