MSI MAG CORELIQUID A13 360 Overview
Available in both black and white versions, our review sample of the A13 came to us in the black colorway. The A13 is a 360mm cooler, and out of the box it is a pretty standard looking modern AIO. For air movement you have three 120mm CycloBlade 7 ARGB fans attached to a 27.2mm thick 360mm radiator, and a pump housing with a rounded-off square design that “draws its design inspiration from the harmonious balance between square and round elements”. I’m not really sure about the balance between circles and squares, but it does result in a pump housing design that is reminiscent of designs from the last 10 or so years. Not that there is anything wrong with this design – it just doesn’t have all of the flashy visual elements found on many advanced AIOs found on the market today.
The first component up in our overview is the 360mm aluminum radiator. This radiator is very straight forward in it’s design, with a black paint job and a surprising lack of any MSI branding along the sides. The 27.2mm thickness is right in line with the standard size we see on most AIOS, and should work quite well specs-wise with the included pre-installed fans.
With 20 fins-per-inch, the included 120mm CycloBlade 7 ARGB PWM fans are a bit of a wildcard for getting air through a dense fin array, based on their limited specifications that we will cover later on. These fans are a bit of a hybrid design, optimized with both airflow and static pressure in mind. This combination of feature-focus will be interesting when it comes time to test.
The nylon-braided EPDM cooling lines exit from one end of the radiator’s end cap, and connect to the radiator via crimped connectors. These lines are quite flexible, which makes installation just a bit easier, and I found their length to be pretty standard as well.
Moving on to the pump housing, we have a pretty basic design. The rounded cube body is void of any extreme design implementations. A silver top cap with an illuminated MSI nameplate is found on the top of the cooler, and is surrounded by an array of ARGB LEDs that illuminate the nameplate, as well as the area around the cap.
Thankfully, this top cap is removable, and can be rotated in 90-degree increments to make sure it is aligned properly for a variety of installation needs. Additionally, MSI provides a 3D printable file that you can customize to add your own design to this cooler – pretty cool!
Moving around to the sides we find the two cooling lines exiting from the bottom side of the pump housing. Each line is paired up with a swiveling fitting to make installation and fitment much easier than with fixed connections. Internally, the pump provides an operating speed of up to 3800 RPM, with an average noise rating of just 20 dBA.
The other sides of the pump housing are free from any features, simply providing a seamless surface that adds to the basic look of the housing. Both a 3-pin power and 3-pin ARGB cable exit from the pump housing to the right of the two fittings for the pump and LED control, respectively.
Taking a look at the base of the cooler, we find a large copper base, free from any pre-applied thermal material. We also find that there are no visible screws or components holding the copper plate to the pump, a feature that MSI says helps with sealing the unit and providing reliable operation. MSI includes a small syringe of thermal paste for installation needs. You can also see the four screws that hold the mounting brackets to the pump housing – these have to be removed and reinstalled if you need to swap from the factory installed Intel brackets to those that support AMD platforms.
As far as the included fans go, MSI has provided three of their 120mm CycloBlade 7 ARGB fans that provide up to 62.6 CFM of airflow at their full speed of 2,000 RPM. And while MSI does not provide any specifications regarding static pressure, other reviews indicate that these fans can provide up to 2.36mm-H2O. These fan specifications don’t necessarily convey much ability to efficiently move air through the radiator’s 20 FPI density, especially since they are even lower than the CycloBlade 9 fans that were used on the MPG CORELIQUID P13 that we previously reviewed, though we have seen in other recent reviews that these specification numbers don’t always equate to higher or lower performance alone.
The rubber feet at each corner help isolate any vibrations that may come from the nine fan blades, which is always a welcome feature. Speaking of the number of blades, the use of seven blades is typically associated with a high static pressure fan, whereas nine are typically found on higher airflow fans. That said, the ends of the blades on the CycloBlade 7 fans are all connected via a single ring, which helps guide all of the airflow through the radiator and not out across the edges of the blades.
MSI has already mounted these fans to the radiator from the factory, which is another welcome feature, and the fact that they also chain to each other will really help reduce cable clutter and installation headaches that can come from trying to wrangle the power and lighting cabling from each cable. A single cable exiting from the end of the fan chain provides both PWM connectivity to power and control the fans, as well as a standard 3-pin ARGB cable for lighting.
That said, there is still a bit of visible cabling that can be seen between the fans, and even sticks out past the fan frame in some instances. This isn’t a huge issue, but it definitely highlights the differences between the types of daisy chaining solutions found on many AIOs.
