Conclusion.

The Danamics LMX liquid metal cooler is one of those products that doesn't currently have a niche, that isn't to say that there will never be one, just that at the moment there is still a well defined line between high end air cooling and decent water cooling.  In theory, the LMX should have fallen somewhere between the two camps, making itself a spot and satisfying demand.  The problem that we have is that although the LMX does beat the rest of the high-end air-cooled pack, it doesn't do it by a significant enough margin for it to be a viable proposition for most people.  Cost is a significant factor and at €170 Euros, it's over twice the price of its nearest rival.  Water cooling is just a few $$/££/€€ away from the price of the LMX.

There were a number of issues with our sample that needed looking at, the lack of any kind of comprehensive manual is an odd omission, there's a very basic guide but nothing to even show how to fit the cooler, and that brings me on to my next gripe, the mounting kits.  Because there was no manual, it first appeared as though there were parts missing from the 1156 kit, it turns out that parts needed to be taken from the 775 kit to make it complete, again, the lack of documentation meant that this wasn't immediately obvious.  Our sample also shipped with the wrong Powerbooster - The internal electronics are apparently the same, it's just that the newer version can be fastened into a drive bay and doesn't need disassembling to fit the wires from the LMX's electromagnetic pump.

The final issue, and perhaps the most disappointing was the fan mounting system, this doesn't seem to have been thought through properly - Just three or four fitting and removals of the fans left the top few fins sliding down the copper tubes and bunching up.  As a result of this, the upper few fins had very little contact with the copper tubes and the top fin rattled around.

On the plus side, performance was excellent and Danamics should be commended for bringing such an innovative and unusual product to market.  The LMX operates with very little power, my Kill-A-Watt showed around five watts of extra power being drawn from the mains with the pump connected.

The LMX managed to beat all the current cream of the crop at stock speeds by a good margin. Another interesting thing about this is that it was able to run passive on our test bench, and by passive, I mean without fans, the pump was still on, this is with an i7 860 with HT on at stock speeds and again at a modest 3.3GHz overclock, this is much more than any of our other test coolers could manage, their temps just got higher and higher until the PC shut down.

Overclocking performance was the best we've seen so far from any air cooler when using the slower fans, the larger, high CFM fans didn't have as much of an impact on the LMX - No biggie really.

To sum up, I would say that the Danamics LMX is certainly an interesting bit of kit, right from the ever-so-slightly dangerous materials it's made from, to the industrial looking Powerbooster.  The LMX still feels very "prototypey" and there are several issues that need addressing before I could recommend it as a serious purchase, but if Danamics can fix the issues I've mentioned and possibly bring the cost down, I'd have no hesitation in recommending it.

Hopefully, we will re-visit the LMX next month for more tests.

Discuss on the forums.

For all UK purchasing enquiries, please contact the distributor, Shiny Hardware.

All the test conditions and test gear are the same, just the LMX is different.  The replacement LMX pulls back 2C over the faulty unit when using the high CFM Scythe fans but is still 2C behind the Noctua NH-D14.  The rest of the results were exactly as in the previous tests.  Overall though, a very good performance and our original award stands.