Taiwan-based Enermax, has been a mainstay in the component and cooling realm for decades, producing PC cases, power supplies, fans, CPU coolers, and more. Some of its past liquid coolers have been problematic, but its not like competing companies haven’t had issues with AIO coolers or other components of their own in recent years. For what it’s worth, I’ve found Enermax’s more recent products to work well.
The cooler we’re looking at today, the Enermax Aquafusion ADV 360mm, was originally released last year. I tested the 240mm version of this cooler at that time, and while I found it to be a capable AIO, I felt it ran much louder than it really needed to. Since then, Enermax has revised the ADV lineup and included a low-noise adapter.
With today’s review, we’ll be testing the 360mm Aquafusion ADV in both full-speed and low-noise modes, to see how much – or little – is lost with the low-noise adapter. Does the low noise adapter improve the cooler enough that we can add it to our list of Best AIO coolers? We’ll have to put it through testing to say for sure. First though, here are the cooler’s specifications, straight from Enermax.
Specs
| Cooler | Enermax Aquafusion ADV 360mm |
| MSRP | $119.99 |
| Radiator Material | Aluminum |
| Pump Speed | Unlisted |
| Pump MTTF | Unlisted |
| Socket Compatibility | Intel LGA 1700/115x/1200/1366/2011(v3)/2066 |
| Row 6 – Cell 0 | AMD: AM5/AM4/FM2(+)/FM1/AM3(+) |
| Base (CPU & SSD) | Copper |
| Max TDP (Our Testing) | ~250W on Intel i7-13700K |
| Installed Size (with fans) | 394mm (L) x 120mm (W) x 53mm (D) |
| Warranty | 5 years |
Packing and Included Contents
Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV arrives in a box similar is size to most other 360mm AIOs, using foam, molded cardboard, and plastic for the protection of the inner contents.
Included with the package are the following:
- Three 120mm fans
- 360mm radiator & CPU block
- Thermal paste
- PWM splitter cord
- ARGB splitter cord
- Mounts for all modern CPUs
- Low Noise PWM adapter
LGA 1700 Cooler Installation
1. As with other AIOs, I would advise installing the fans to the radiator and securing the radiator to your computer case prior to other installation steps. In most cases, this makes the rest of installation easier.
2. The second step is to secure the mounting bars against the CPU block using the included screws
3. Next you’ll put together the motherboard backplate, securing the studs with washers.
4. Press the backplate against the motherboard’s rear, and then secure it with the included standoffs.
5. After applying thermal paste to the CPU, it’s time to secure secure the CPU block to the motherboard. Before you do this, make sure to remove the plastic peel from the copper plate. Use the included screws with springs to secure the mounting brackets against the motherboard.
6. Connect the PWM and ARGB headers, and don’t forget to take off the plastic peel before turning on your computer.
Enermax also provides a helpful YouTube video demonstrating the installation, for those interested:
Features of the Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV
*️⃣ Fully rotatable tubing
The tubing of Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV can be rotated in any direction, making installation easier.
*️⃣ Pure Copper Contact Plate
This AIO arrives with a pure copper CPU contact plate, like most others on the market.
*️⃣ Patended Dual Chamber Water Block Design
Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV includes a dual chamber pump designed to isolate heat generated from the CPU away from the liquid pump, which significantly increases the cooler’s lifespan.
*️⃣ 27mm-thick radiator
The AIO includes a radiator 27mm thick. With fans installed, the thickness is a total of 53mm.
*️⃣ Infinity Mirror CPU Block
The CPU block includes an Infinity Mirror illuminated by ARGB to give it an aesthetic flair.
*️⃣ Full RAM Compatibility
As the AIO’s CPU block doesn’t overhang or interfere with a motherboard’s DIMM slots in any manner, you are free to use any size of RAM not matter how tall without any worries of incompatibility.
*️⃣ Accessible Refill Port
While you shouldn’t need to refill this unit’s coolant at any time during the duration of it’s warranty, Enermax provides an accessible refill port should you need to do so. Unlike certain other manufacturers, they don’t include a technically illegal “warranty void if removed” sticker on the port to trying to scare you away from servicing your own equipment.
*️⃣ Enermax RGB Control Box
While you can control ARGB settings using your motherboard’s BIOS and/or software via the 3-pin ARGB connection, Enermax also provides a hardware ARGB controller which allows you to change the colors, brightness, and speed of the lighting effects.
*️⃣ Dow Corning TC-5121C Thermal Paste
Included with the AIO is a small tube of Dow Corning TC-5121C thermal paste that should suffice for three or four applications of thermal paste.
*️⃣ 3x 120mm ENERMAX SquA RGB ADV fans
There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fans have a significant impact on cooling, noise levels, and the unit’s aesthetic. ENERMAX includes 3 of their SquA RGB ADV 120mm fans. These fans are 9-bladed and optimized for use with liquid cooling radiators, they are designed to maximize airflow and utilize a vortex frame to increase static pressure. Vibration dampening rubber pads are included to help reduce noise levels.
| Model | ENERMAX SquA RGB ADV |
| Dimensions | 120 x 120 x 26mm |
| Fan Speed | 500-2000 RPM |
| Air Flow | Up to 79.8 CFM |
| Air Pressure | Up to 3.6 mmH2O |
| Bearing Type | Unlisted |
| Lighting | ARGB |
| MFFT | >100,000 hours |
*️⃣ Low Noise PWM Adapter
When I tested the 240mm version of this cooler last year, one of the pieces of feedback I gave Enermax is that the fans ran much louder than they really needed to. I didn’t expect anything to come of this criticism, but Enermax surprised me by updating this cooler to include a low noise adapter. As you’ll see in our benchmarks, the included low noise adapter causes this AIO to run much quieter while maintaining good thermal results.
LGA1700 Socket Bending
Note there are many factors other than the CPU cooler that can influence your cooling performance, including the case you use and the fans installed in it. A system’s motherboard can also influence this, especially if it suffers from bending, which results in poor cooler contact with the CPU.
In order to prevent bending from impacting our cooling results, we’ve installed Thermalright’s LGA 1700 contact frame into our testing rig. If your motherboard is affected by bending, your thermal results will be worse than those shown below. Not all motherboards are affected equally by this issue. I tested Raptor Lake CPUs in two motherboards. While one showed significant thermal improvements after installing Thermalright’s LGA1700 contact frame, the other motherboard showed no difference in temperatures whatsoever. Check out our review of the contact frame for more information.
Testing Methodology
Modern CPUs, whether Intel or AMD, are difficult to cool in intensive workloads. In the past reaching 95C+ on a desktop CPU might have been a cause for concern – but with today’s processors, it is considered normal operation. Similar behavior has been present in laptops for years due to cooling limitations in tight spaces.
All testing is performed with a 23C ambient room temperature. Multiple thermal tests are run on each CPU to test the cooler in a variety of conditions, and acoustic measurements are taken with each result. These tests include:
1. Noise normalized testing at low noise levels
2. “Out of the box”/Default Configuration Thermal & Acoustics Testing
a.) No power limits enforced
b.) Because CPUs hit Tjmax in this scenario, the best way to compare cooling strength is by recording the total CPU package power consumption.
3. Thermal and acoustics testing in Power Limited Scenarios
a.) Power limited to 175W to emulate a medium intensity workload
b.) Power limited to 125W to emulate a low intensity workload
The thermal results included are for 10-minute testing runs. To be sure that was sufficiently long to tax the cooler, we tested both Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE and DeepCool’s LT720 with a 30-minute Cinebench test with Intel’s i9-13900K for both 10 minutes and 30 minutes. The results didn’t change much at all with the longer test: The average clock speeds maintained dropped by 29 MHz on DeepCool’s LT720 and 31 MHz on Thermalright’s Assassin X 120 R SE. That’s an incredibly small 0.6% difference in clock speeds maintained, a margin of error difference that tells us that the 10-minute tests are indeed long enough to properly test the coolers.
Testing Configuration – Intel LGA1700 Platform
| CPU | Intel Core i7-13700K |
| Motherboard | MSI Z690 A Pro DDR4 |
| Case | Be Quiet! Silent Base 802, system fans set to speed 1 setting. |
| Monitor | LG 45GR95QE |
| PSU | Cooler Master XG Plus 850 Platinum PSU |
| SSD | 2TB TeamGroup Z540 PCIe 5 SSD |
No Power Limits Thermal Results
Without power limits enforced on Intel’s i7-13700K, the CPU will hit its peak temperature and thermally throttle with even the strongest of air coolers. For most coolers, we’ll measure the CPU package power to determine the maximum wattage cooled.
That is what I would do for most coolers, but not this one – Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV achieves a level of cooling performance that many competing liquid coolers are unable to achieve. That is, it kept Intel’s i7-13700K under its peak temperature during this workload. As such, I’ve compared the actual temperature of the CPU in this benchmark against the only nine liquid coolers I’ve tested capable of this level of cooling capacity.
With results of 69C over ambient in the default configuration and 71C with the low noise adapter installed, Enermax’ AIO doesn’t outperform any of the competitor coolers featured here. But it’s worth noting this is a curated list of top tier liquid coolers, the fact that it is even on this list demonstrates that its cooling capacity is amongst the strongest results on the market. Most AIOs, even 360mm AIOs, are not capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under TJMax in a maximum intensity workload.
I highly recommend using the included low noise adapter if you’re considering this AIO – with the low noise adapter installed, Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV is the quietest liquid cooler capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under it’s peak temperature with a recorded noise level of only 46.3 dBA.
Without the low noise adapter, the acoustics at full fan speeds are a bit noisy with a recorded noise level of 50.8 dBA. This is a bit loud, but it’s comparable to many other coolers of this class which usually range from 48-52 dBA.
Thermal Results with noise normalized to 38.2 dBA
Finding the right balance between fan noise levels and cooling performance is important. While running fans at full speed can improve cooling capacity to some extent, the benefits are limited and many users prefer a quiet system. With this noise normalized test, I’ve set noise levels to 38.2 dba. This level of noise is a low, but slightly audible, volume level.
The thermal results when set to a low noise level were unexpectedly impressive. With 233W cooled on average during the course of testing, the Aquafusion ADV tied for 3rd place with Cooler Master’s 360 Atmos and Teamgroup’s Siren Duo 360.
175W Cinebench Results
Most coolers on the market are able to keep Intel’s i7-13700K under it’s peak temperature if the power consumption is limited, so for this test we’ll be looking at the CPU’s actual temperature. Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV performed similarly to MSI’s S360 and DeepCool’s LT720 in this scenario in both full speed and low noise modes.
When it comes to noise levels, Enermax Aquafusion ADV is both at the top – and bottom – of our results! The default configuration runs loudly compared to other coolers with a noise measurement of 47.7 dBA recorded during testing. However, with the low noise adapter installed Enermax’ Aquafusion performs very well, providing the 2nd quietest result we’ve seen from any AIO capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under TJMax.
125W Cinebench Results
The lowest power limit I test with Raptor Lake CPUs is 125W. This is a high enough limit to allow the CPU to maintain it’s base clockspeeds even in the most intensive tests, and most coolers should be able of keeping the CPU below Tjmax – even low end coolers.
Looking at thermal performance, the result of 39c over ambient is similar to most of the other 360mm AIOs shown here. Really, thermals do not matter in this scenario. Even Intel’s basic stock cooler can handle a load like this with ease. Noise levels, rather than CPU temperature, are the most important factor here.
The acoustics in this scenario are much like the earlier results. In it’s default mode, the Aquafusion runs loudly compared to other coolers. At 41.4 dBA, it ties with Cooler Master’s 360L Core for the loudest result we have for a liquid cooler in this test.
Installing the low noise adapter provides a much better result of 38.9 dBA, tied for the 2nd quietest result we have from any AIO. As with our 175W results, there is no thermal difference between the default configuration and the low noise configuration – as such, I highly recommend installing the low noise adapter!
Conclusion
It does run a bit loudly in it’s default configuration, but the included low noise adapter rectifies this weakness and transforms the AIO into one of the quietest units we’ve tested – and doing so doesn’t result in any loss of performance.
At $119.99, Enermax’ Aquafusion ADV is one of the cheapest offerings on the market capable of keeping Intel’s i7-13700K under it’s peak temperature (even in intense workloads), and it’s 5-year warranty means you won’t have to worry about the cooler’s longevity.