EK Performance 280 and 360 Liquid Cooling Kit Review: Open Loops Made Easy

[Guest]

By offering complete open-loop component kits, EK aims to make custom liquid cooling loops less intimidating.

EK Performance 280 and 360 Liquid Cooling Kit Review: Open Loops Made Easy : Read more

 

[blppt]

Maybe if you could test a premium closed loop cooler alongside as well, for comparison? Or something like a H115i?

 

[RedJaron]

It's already tested against a Predator, which, while expandable, is set up to be a sealed loop also.

 

[thundervore]

Nice kits!!

 

[thundervore]

Maybe if you could test a premium closed loop cooler alongside as well, for comparison? Or something like a H115i?

Testing a custom loop against a AIO is not a good test. The AIO will always loose.

This is because the AIO does not have that much liquid and made with inferior parts (weak pump with built in block, aluminum radiator)

Testing a custom loop with only go head to head with other custom loops like Swifttech,

 

[blppt]

Of course the AIO would lose, but for those of us iffy about putting together an open loop, it would have been nice to see by how much.

 

[1800Allen]

What would be great is to see the value vs cost vs performance of adding a GPU block in there. It is the next logical step for someone who is getting into water cooling. I know there is GPU addin kits for the Predator line, using the same block and swapping connectors for your custom loop would give some insight on all 3 kits value.

 

[RedJaron]

Of course the AIO would lose, but for those of us iffy about putting together an open loop, it would have been nice to see by how much.

As I already said, I compared this against a Predator 240. I think more than a few people would consider that a "premium" AIO. You can see how much better the Performance kits were if you looked at the graphs.

What would be great is to see the value vs cost vs performance of adding a GPU block in there. It is the next logical step for someone who is getting into water cooling. I know there is GPU addin kits for the Predator line, using the same block and swapping connectors for your custom loop would give some insight on all 3 kits value.

Depends on where you put the value. In straight performance / cost, the more money you put into a custom loop, the more the value drops. You're simply too far past the ideal return on investment point. As I said in the review, you can almost always get better performance value using air. A GPU block is also $100+ on top of the cost for the rest of the loop, which makes it even more cost prohibitive.

If your value is on noise or consistent temps that allow less thermal throttling, then that's a slightly different matter. However, you're spending $100s to get that small benefit, so again, value in the traditional sense isn't much a factor.

 

[zodiacfml]

Didn't notice immediately that this is a different cooler to Anandtech's review.
Am i missing something, that it has 30 degrees above ambient?

 

[n0ns3ns3]

Didn't notice immediately that this is a different cooler to Anandtech's review.
Am i missing something, that it has 30 degrees above ambient?

So ?
let's say the ambient is 25C, so it makes overclocked 6 core 140w (before overclock) CPU to run Prime95 at 55-60C.
That's quite amazing.

 

[RedJaron]

Didn't notice immediately that this is a different cooler to Anandtech's review.
Am i missing something, that it has 30 degrees above ambient?

You'll need to specify which Anand review you're referring to as they've covered more than a few liquid coolers.

But yes, Nonsense has explained the temperature delta. The ambient temp during my tests was between 20 - 24 °C ( day to night fluctuation, and yes, I recorded the beginning and ending ambient temp of each test ). The P280 and P360 keep this CPU at least 15° cooler than some of the best big air coolers like the D15 and Dark Rock Pro 3. You just pay more than three times the money for these liquid kits, which is why it only gets an Approved award instead of Recommended.

 

[bucca]

I recently bought an ekwb extreme liquid kit- I've noticed the pump is not variable speed. no way to change pump speed except with fan controller. and in the long term hard tubing would not collect sediment and hard tubing seems much preferred- not sure if I can use the 360 extreme kit fitting for hard tubing- kit literature says tubing is 9.5mm/12.7mm (3/8 and 1/2 inch)- can I use these fittings for hard tubing? Obviously this is my first attempt at liquid cooling. so far very hard to reach ek so any help is appreciated

 

[RedJaron]

I recently bought an ekwb extreme liquid kit- I've noticed the pump is not variable speed. no way to change pump speed except with fan controller.

If you're seeing this, blame your motherboard. Lots of mboards don't have PWM support on all their fan headers; they change voltage output instead. Since the pump isn't drawing power from the mboard, this won't help you. Many boards I see only have PWM support on the main CPU fan header and not the rest. If you want to change the pump speed, plug it into your CPU header and move your radiator and other fans to the system marked headers. If you're using such a massive radiator, your fans shouldn't need to change their speed much, so voltage control should be sufficient for them.

and in the long term hard tubing would not collect sediment

The only sediment in the loop is what you originally put in there. If you didn't rinse out the rad, pump, reservoir, and waterblock before you assembled it, I recommend flushing your system and doing so now. Only used distilled water to fill the loop. If you're talking some kind of chemical precipitate, that's a different issue. Also, if you do have any foreign material in your loop, it's much more likely to collect in the waterblock fins instead of the tubing.

hard tubing seems much preferred

Preferred by whom? Yes, it can look nicer and neater in a case, but it's also harder and more time consuming to deal with.

not sure if I can use the 360 extreme kit fitting for hard tubing

No, you can't. Those are compression fittings for soft tubes. However, you can replace those with hard-tube fittings if you want.

so far very hard to reach ek so any help is appreciated

I've not had that problem. How have you tried so far?