Operation
If the Aquagate Max is installed on a non-ESA system, as with the Thermaltake Bigwater 780e, nothing is adjustable. The default fan speed is 75%, which is audible and louder than I’d like, but not annoying.
If on an ESA system, launch the nVidia Control panel, and you have one adjustment, fan speed. They are inaudible at 60%. Obviously pump speed is not adjustable, which may not be a bad thing.
Launch the nVidia System monitor, and we see that inlet and outlet temperatures are at 750C. Since nothing was on fire, I assume that the temps are wrong. I was unable to get any reading other than 750C. A little research found that I am not the only person with that issue.
Testing
I checked CPU temperatures with the Aquagate Max at my CPU’s stock clock of 3.0gHz at idle and load. Idle was checked with the system sitting idle with no applications running for 30 minutes. Load was checked after running Sandra’s Burn-In running only Processor Arithmetic constantly for 30 minutes. To make things interesting, I compared the Aquagate Max’s temps with temps acquired by my Kingwin 12025 Heatpipe Direct Touch, a good but not great air cooler, and with the Thermaltake Bigwater 780e. This isn’t a shoot-out for sure, just something to see what kind of performance I was getting from the Aquagate Max.
Ambient room temperature was 68F, a fairly cool room temp, and I expect that to affect all three coolers with nice temps. Temperatures were monitored with PC Probe II, Asus’ system monitoring utility.
Needless to say, I was a little surprised by the idle temp from the Aquagate Max.
Next, I overclocked my CPU to 3.5gHz, and cranked up my VCORE to 1.45v, higher than needed for that overclock, to warm things up quite a bit.
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