hi i surfed on this site from anand after a member brought up this review. I also have a nobies guide to h2o cooling over at anandtech. So just wanted to help a fellow guide writter out at another reputable forum.
I like to say the organization and content was great. However the choice in products was very poor.
Koolance is concidered at best a TOY to most watercooling people. The tubes are highly restrictive at 1/4th ID. And aluminum parts without zinc in the loop with copper can lead to TONS of nightmare with corrosion.
Also someone recomended fluidXP. I cant warn you guys how badly you should stay away from this fluid. Its a joke.
1. IT WILL STAIN YOUR BLOCKS WITH WAX
2. IT WILL STAIN YOUR TUBES WITH WAX
3. IT WILL BE A PITA TO CLEAN ON FLUSHES.
Promochill is a better alternative.
And for those of you in the UK, there are stores that carry reputable parts for h2o cooling. The koolance block also isnt ment to suport a cpu running at higher voltage. The flow and distrubtion of heat to rad is absolutely horrible. Dual pass, copper radiators, made by thermochill, or swiftech radiators are far superior to koolance in cooling and capacity.
Last thing to show my experience:
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/IMG_0406.jpg
This is how a uber quiet setup should look like.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/IMG_0397.jpg
This is how performance setup looks like.
The two builds are completely different. One uses dual radiators, while the other uses single. A watersetup is not simple where 1 is universal. This is the first myth everyone needs to get over. Water can give you either quiet, or Super cooling. The majority of the people find a sweet spot in the middle. But the two builds are completely different!
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/MyOpty.jpg
LAstly my load temps on performance for both GPU and CPU. There is absolutely NOWAY a koolance kit would come close to my setup
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/IMG_0399.jpg
Heres how they both look side by side.
Currently my setup has changed to a E6600. I am running 3.6ghz @ 1.45V. The idle and load temps are 28C idle on TAT and 36-41C Loaded. Water will reduce your LOAD deltas. My deltas as you can see is ~ 10-14C . This is a trait of a common h2o setup.
Also in comparision, a tuniq tower at my settings would idle ~ 44C and hit load at 65+C That is the power of water.
Ambients at around 62-64F. <-- forgot to list ambients
I should also list my parts out incase anyone is currious:
On the Performance:
D-tek Fusion CPU block
EK Reservoir
2 x EK 7900GT @ 1.5V OC'd i pushed them as high as 700mhz on SLI
2 x DDC-2 w/ Petrastechshop tops, there the radical tops, but cheaper!
1 x 120.2 PA120 thermochil
1 x 120.1 BlackICE GTS
1 x MCW30 chipset
On the NAS:
120x3 blackice GTS <-- i should get a thermochill
Swiftech 655 aka Laing D5
DangerDen Maze4 GPU block
Swiftech ApogeeGT CPU block
Swiftech Micro Res.
Enjoy
and feel free to use any of my pictures if you want. If you also feel my post was a bit to excessive, please get a hold of though pms, and i'll delete this post. I dont have the intension of bad mouthing or bring down anyone's review. It is a well organized and greatly written reivew. I just felt the product should of been left out completely. In my Guide i carefully left out all mentions of products except in comparison with different style of blocks. Like the CPU has two forms, accelerator, and non accelerator, ie low restriction. These are big things ones needs to take into account when setting up a proper system.
Also, this was more of a review minus the first section then a guide. As i said, the choice in koolance is a very poor choice. Even when EVGA deicded to jump there new 680i on the xspc blocks, the whole water cooling comunity that are veterans went WHY?!?!?!!?!??!? xspc would be koolance's greatest competitor in the class of watercooling as a toy.
And to be actually honest, i dont think your system would do that much greater then a cheaper tuniq tower with a high powered fan. That is another thing you should care to mention.