There was a time when CPU coolers were mere pieces of copper with fans strapped to them. Then you installed them, listened for strange noises for a few minutes after first boot, and watched temperatures. Thereafter, you immediately forgot they existed.
The MSI MPG Coreliquid P13 clearly did not get that memo, arriving with a curved design, hidden cables, RGB lighting, and a 2.1-inch IPS display attached to the pump housing that screams, look at me. It’s also quite handy, I might add.
The first thing I noticed was just how neat the overall package looks in the case. MSI has hidden much of the wiring through the fan assembly itself and routes the pump cables through the tubing sleeve. If you have ever spent forty minutes cable-managing fan and RGB cables behind a motherboard tray while whispering threats at the zip ties, you’ll know the frustration, this feels like the engineers over at MSI actually build PCs.
The pre-installed CycloBlade 9 fans also remove a bit of the usual setup pain. Instead of mounting three separate fans and then beginning your annual cable-management depression session, most of the heavy lifting is already done.
From a technical standpoint, the cooler is carrying respectable hardware underneath the shiny bits. You get a 360mm aluminium radiator, three 120mm fans pushing around 64.9 CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) of airflow, a 34,00RPM pump, and support for both AM5 and Intel’s newer platforms. The IPS display itself runs at 480 x 480 with 600 nits of brightness, which is honestly sharper than I expected from something attached to a CPU block. Best of all, you can use it as a second monitor for gaming if you really, really, really need to.
In our custom MSI-built PC, the Coreliquid P13 is paired with the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, and it never felt stressed during gaming when I tested it. CPU temperatures mostly settled into that comfortable mid 50°C to upper 60°C range, depending on the title, while heavier productivity workloads pushed things into the 70°C territory. It remained controlled and, more importantly, fairly quiet while doing it.
Looking at what is on offer with this cooler, you can see that MSI is selling an experience as much as cooling performance here. It is for people building systems that are meant to be looked at through big glass-wrapped cases. Also, let’s be honest, nobody buys a cooler with a tiny display because they need one. You buy it because eventually you are going to put a stupid GIF on it.
And we all know exactly how that story ends. Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger………
