INTRODUCTION

   If you're gathering parts for a new system and you want to enter the world of water cooling there are three choices currently available in the market for you. The first and most popular is AIO closed loop liquid CPU coolers which offer a great performance/cost ratio and thanks to the countless models out there you can easily find exactly what suits your needs. Second we have expandable AIO liquid CPU coolers and although these are usually not as affordable as their closed loop counterparts they usually offer better cooling efficiency and can also be used to cool your graphics card or cards (by using extra parts of course). Finally we have complete / custom water cooling kits which may offer superior cooling performance (do keep in mind that this is not a rule so exceptions do exist) and looks compared to AIO models but they are not only more expensive but also much harder to install. EK Waterblocks released their first generation of expandable AIO liquid CPU coolers back in late 2015 called the Predator MLC (modular liquid cooling) and after a very successful 2-year run they released its successor the Phoenix MLC which we ended up testing for the better part of July.

   EK Water Blocks bears the name of its founder Edvard Konig, who started experimenting with liquid cooling in 1999. From the humble beginnings in the early years of the previous decade, the company grew steadily to become a global premium liquid cooling gear manufacturer. Today, EKWB offers a complete range of products for liquid cooling, from a renowned Supremacy line of CPU water blocks, wide range of in-house developed CoolStream radiators, Vardar high-static pressure fans, Phoenix Modular Liquid Cooling (MLC) solution, bringing affordable Fluid Gaming aluminum liquid cooling products to the market and providing overclocking enthusiasts, PC builders with the best of what the market can offer. With continuous research and design, we will always strive to bring best possible liquid cooling performance and experience to our customers all around the world.

   Unlike AIO liquid CPU coolers the Phoenix MLC by EK Water Blocks consists by up to three pre-filled (with EK-CryoFuel) parts the main core module (radiator), CPU cooling module (CPU waterblock) and the GPU cooling module (GPU waterblock). Of course it goes without saying that you can use just the core module with any or both of the two currently available cooling modules (for example for this review we only used the CPU cooling module since we wanted to get comparable results to other AIO models). All three components feature quick disconnect couplings (QDC) for quick and tool-less expansion of the system without first having to drain the entire unit (zero drop design). The core module features an EK-Coolstream PE 360 radiator, custom SPC water pump (6W operating power with 250 liters per hour flow rate and 3.2m maximum pressure), three high-static pressure EK-Vardar EVO 120ER fans (2200RPM/77CFM/3.16mmH2O/33.5dBA) and two 255mm long (not including QDC) EK-ZMT 10/15 sleeved tubes. The CPU cooling module on the other hand is based on the EK-Supremacy waterblock and also features two 145mm long (QDC not included) braided tubes and LED illumination. As for the GPU cooling module it's based on a full-cover copper waterblock (split-flow cooling engine for optimal cooling) which is compatible with multiple NVIDIA (Titan X and GTX models) and AMD (Radeon Vega) graphics cards.