Simple measurement of RADIATOR PERFORMANCE

[DaemonForce]

Are these radiators aluminum? How do they compare to copper rads of similar dimensions?
And are these single pass or double pass rads?

Aluminum rads suck, plain and simple. I started out 20 years ago with a Koolance 240mm rad with three scooped 80mm fans that would engage middle and upper presets whenever anything. Didn't help that I was literally putting it to task against the Pentium 4 Prescott either but that was the least of its issues. The dual inline pumps that were provided were quiet but troublesome because they were early designs prone to cracking or other failures. Then there was the issue of fans being annoying at any dB.

Aluminum radiators are not your friend in PCs. We have very high thermal output components that put high demands on weak cooling systems and you don't need the complication of mixed metals in the loop just to save a few dollars. Stick to copper + nickel or copper + gold if you're serious or aluminum + aluminum if you're a masochist. Also, bigger fans at a low speed help a lot.

I'm not going to take any of the opening data here seriously. It's a good try but there's no ambient temp listed, no clear delta and no information on other performing factors. There are a LOT of moving parts to water cooling and it's the reason I went with the data provided by Koolance to make things better. Now if only they could provide me with a nice low profile chipset block for X570.

 

[A Computer Guy]

100% Arctic P12. You could run the fans in push-pull to make it more quiet.

I have artic P12 slims in my NR200P and at 100% they sound terrible. I may need to rethink my plan.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I have artic P12 slims in my NR200P and at 100% they sound terrible. I may need to rethink my plan.

I was talking abour regular P12. I do not find them sounding terrible even at 100%.

I'm not going to take any of the opening data here seriously. It's a good try but there's no ambient temp listed, no clear delta and no information on other performing factors.

Ambient temperature is listed in each calculation sheet, as one value or as a time serie when I observed it changing during the measurement.

All performance figures depend on temperature delta.

Methodology and calculation is here clearly described and calculation sheets available.

Water flow is listed only in a few measurements, but from the professional specs sheets I posted is clear that cooling performance does not strongly depend on water flow.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Aluminum rads suck, plain and simple. I started out 20 years ago with a Koolance 240mm rad with three scooped 80mm fans that would engage middle and upper presets whenever anything. Didn't help that I was literally putting it to task against the Pentium 4 Prescott either but that was the least of its issues. The dual inline pumps that were provided were quiet but troublesome because they were early designs prone to cracking or other failures. Then there was the issue of fans being annoying at any dB.

Aluminum radiators are not your friend in PCs. We have very high thermal output components that put high demands on weak cooling systems and you don't need the complication of mixed metals in the loop just to save a few dollars. Stick to copper + nickel or copper + gold if you're serious or aluminum + aluminum if you're a masochist. Also, bigger fans at a low speed help a lot.

I'm not going to take any of the opening data here seriously. It's a good try but there's no ambient temp listed, no clear delta and no information on other performing factors. There are a LOT of moving parts to water cooling and it's the reason I went with the data provided by Koolance to make things better. Now if only they could provide me with a nice low profile chipset block for X570.

Aluminum isn't a horrible choice, you just need a little more surface area than a copper radiator. If the load is low enough, aluminum would suffice. AIO coolers sometimes have aluminum rads.

None of the testing our friend does is accurate. He's not in a lab, but probably is good fun.

So far I've learned that the old saying

"For every 120 rad, you can dissipate 100w of heat."

Still holds true after nearly 20 years of everyone else already doing similar testing, but most of the time in real world PC environments. Not from a 500w pond heater and pump in a 5 gallon bucket.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Aluminum isn't a horrible choice, you just need a little more surface area than a copper radiator. If the load is low enough, aluminum would suffice. AIO coolers sometimes have aluminum rads.

None of the testing our friend does is accurate. He's not in a lab, but probably is good fun.

So far I've learned that the old saying

"For every 120 rad, you can dissipate 100w of heat."

Still holds true after nearly 20 years of everyone else already doing similar testing, but most of the time in real world PC environments. Not from a 500w pond heater and pump in a 5 gallon bucket.

For awhile I was holding down 5950x and Rx5700 with only one EK Coolstream P360 medium fan speed only so 100w per 120 sounds about right.