BEST single fan raidiator

I'll be getting a single fan raidiator sometime in the future and I'm just curious as to which one is the best.

Thanks.

I've got a few questions for you.
What do you mean by the best?

The best cost?
The best performance?
The best bang for your buck?
The best low noise/high performance rad?
What are you going to cool with it?
Do you plan on upgrading you cooling once you get into water?


If you can answer some of these questions a lot more folks will chime in and respond to you question with answers.

My personal opinion is the Black Ice Pro for low noise and low cost if I only cooled my CPU. Check my SIG for my current cooling setup.

I would suggest you get at least a 120x2 radiator for upgrades, and for low noise due to the ability to run low db/low cfm fans on a large radiator with great temps.

Good guidance from R&R. Best is subjective.I really like the XFLOWS.

RIG RIDER said:

I've got a few questions for you.
What do you mean by the best?

The best cost?
The best performance?
The best bang for your buck?
The best low noise/high performance rad?
What are you going to cool with it?
Do you plan on upgrading you cooling once you get into water?


If you can answer some of these questions a lot more folks will chime in and respond to you question with answers.

My personal opinion is the Black Ice Pro for low noise and low cost if I only cooled my CPU. Check my SIG for my current cooling setup.

I would suggest you get at least a 120x2 radiator for upgrades, and for low noise due to the ability to run low db/low cfm fans on a large radiator with great temps.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I should of elaborated further on this subject.

What I meant by best is best overall performance, money is no issue here. See, I currently have the Apex H20-220 Ultra kit installed and it's great. Thing is, I hate having the giant raidiator hanging off of the back and there is certainly no room in my case to install it inside. I'll only be cooling my CPU as my 7800GT runs cool enough. So I'm basically looking for the best single fan raidiator thats currently available.

the best performance radiator at tolerable fan noise level is the Thermochill PA 120

it was originally meant for a quite system but out preforms all other radiators at each respective size up to about 130 cfm

here is what mine looks like in my antec mid size tower

Icedfire101 said:

the best performance radiator at tolerable fan noise level is the Thermochill PA 120

it was originally meant for a quite system but out preforms all other radiators at each respective size up to about 130 cfm

here is what mine looks like in my antec mid size tower

Click to expand...

Sweet, thanks a bunch. I'll look into it.

Forgot to mention, but how are your temps? Idle and load?

MaSsAcRe764 said:

Forgot to mention, but how are your temps? Idle and load?

Click to expand...

well temp sensors are highly inaccurate in computers so always take them with a grain of salt; though as long as you keep the same setup you can see the delta in temperatures fairly well

and my setup is kinda of unique... let me explain I use 2 different fans on my radiator the first fan is always on, a Vantec Stealth, the second fan is on a switch so when i want to game or do video editing i can turn it on for extra cooling, a Panaflo M1A, this allows me to keep my system quite but still have extra cooling power when i do something demanding on my system...

All the following temperatures where taken after 2 hours of playing CS:S and an ambient of 73 F (and just for fun i ll include my GPU temps with it overclocked to 410MHz/1.05GHz)

with my current rig overclocked to 2.640 GHz (from 2.2 GHz) and a vcore up to 1.55v (from 1.4v)

Watercooled with the cooling system in my sig:
CPU: with only the Vantec=104 F / with Both Fans=96 F
GPU: Vantec=75C / Both=74C


For some comparison numbers when my rig was aircooled with a ThermalRight XP120 and a Panaflo M1A and at stock clock frequency and stock vcore
CPU:120 F
GPU:76 C

So a 24 F (or 13.33 C) drop in temperature with a greater heat load when I went from aircooling my rig to watercooling it

sorry no idle temps... at idle i don't really care what the temp is; under load is the only real thing that matters

Icedfire101 said:

the best performance radiator at tolerable fan noise level is the Thermochill PA 120

Click to expand...

Wrong. The best single fan radiator is the Thermochill PA160. It performs almost on par with a dual 120mm rad and works well with low cfm fans also.

Im running a setup similar to yours and my single Coolrad12-T does the job just fine as long as you have a solid pump. My loop: D5, RBX, MCW-60, Coolrad12-T and a 7volt 120x25mm keeps my opty [email protected] and 7900GS@770 under 40 degrees.
Thermochill will definatly do better, but if you wanna hang onto some money, this rad does the job nicely.
If your gonna drop cash on thermochill, you might as well get something worthwhile, like a PA120.2 or 3.

voigts said:

Wrong. The best single fan radiator is the Thermochill PA160. It performs almost on par with a dual 120mm rad and works well with low cfm fans also.

Click to expand...

yes your right let me rephrase my original statement the best single fan 120 mm rad...

voigts said:

Wrong. The best single fan radiator is the Thermochill PA160. It performs almost on par with a dual 120mm rad and works well with low cfm fans also.

Click to expand...

Bingo.

Yep, but pay attention to the rad's size...it might not fit all cases so easily.
PA160 all the way for an internal setup.