Cooltech Watercooling Kit

Good performance, good features — Joe

SUMMARY: A nice water cooling kit from a new face on the scene, Cooltech.

Cooltech was kind enough to send a sample of their Water Cooling Kit to test. I received three items:

• Waterblock WB75 rev1.1
• RD121 Radiator
• Hardware AC24

I will describe each component in detail, followed by performance test results.

The waterblock is a copper base – aluminium top design; the top assembly bolts to the base with a gasket between them. The copper base is a spiral-design, as shown below:

What I really like about this design is the backing plate. The plate mounts to the back of the motherboard – the four bolts are then used to mount the waterblock to the CPU. Once the plate is in place, slip the waterblock over the four bolts, add the springs and carefully tighten the springs down with the knurled knobs.

I did have one problem: The holes on the Iwill KK266+ are small and the bolts just made it through the holes – it was a tight fit. Tight enough that I had to exert some pressure on the back place to fully seat it to the motherboard. The more adventuresome users might consider drilling or reaming the holes on the board a touch, but only as a last resort.

I did get it to fit without widening the holes, however. Once the plate is in place, removing the waterblock is not a problem; simply unscrew and the waterblock comes right off WITHOUT having to remove the motherboard – others should take notice of this approach.

The base

is relatively smooth although I could see very light polishing marks on it; I could not feel any roughness of the base and it is flat.
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The Radiator features copper tubes and aluminium fins, with swivel nipples that accept 8x10mm tubing. There are four tapped holes on the body for mounting the fan or securing the radiator to a case. The radiator without the blue cover requires a space 5″ x 8″ x 2¼”.

The blue protective cover is easily removable. The fan is a Sunon Model #KD1212PTB3-6A, 120mm rated 69 cfm @ 2400 RPM, 2.4 watts. Noise will vary depending on how it’s installed in a case, but the fan itself is not very loud. Blowing in or out makes no difference.

The kit includes 4 right-angled nipples and 2 meters of transparent poly tubing. The tubing is relatively stiff, so the 90 degree nipples come in handy. If you use more flexible tubing of the same size, these fittings may not be required.

Securing the tubing to the nipples is very easy; slip the tubing over the fitting and screw the retaining cap down – you have to use a small wrench. With stiff tubing, there is no problem with the tubing twisting as you tighten it down.

The Cooltech Kit was first tested on the CPU Die Simulator which gives results that are unaffected by motherboard influences. I used an EHEIM 1046 waterpump. I then tested it on an Iwill KK266+, modified to read AMD’s on-die diode, as an example of what users might see on their systems.

Interpreting C/W: For every watt the CPU radiates, the heatsink will cool the core by the (C/W x watts) plus ambient temp. For example, at an ambient temp of 25 C, a C/W of 0.25 with a CPU radiating 50 watts means that the CPU core temp will be 50 x 0.25 = 12.5 C over ambient temp, or 37.5 C. The lower the C/W, the better.

Die Simulator results place the Cooltech Kit in the top ranks of CPU cooling solutions (Heatsink Ranking). Even though there are competitive air cooled solutions, the noise/performance tradeoff definitely favors water.

The Cooltech kit has some nice features, specifically its waterblock mounting method.

For serious cooling at low noise levels, watercooling solutions are coming on strong and are moving out of the “hobby” stage into readily available commercial products.

Thanks again to Cooltech for sending their kit our way. Grazie Andrea!

Cooltech is looking for distributors:

Intema S.r.l.
Street Enrico Mattei 8
41042 Fiorano Modenese (MO)
Email Cooltech