Liquid Flow Restriction

To make things simpler, I have decided to use a CORSAIR Hydro XD5 pump/reservoir combo unit rather than a discrete pump and reservoir. The pump is powered by a direct SATA connection to a CORSAIR HX750 PSU and controlled by an Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 XT. There is a previously calibrated in-line flow meter and Dwyer 490 Series 1 wet-wet manometer to measure the pressure drop of the component being tested—in this case that of each radiator. Every component is connected to the manometer by the way of 13/16 mm tubing, compression fittings, and two T-fittings.


I suppose it could be worse—the Alphacool NexXxos ST 25 could have had thinner tubing similar to the Black Ice radiators and its various OEM solutions adopted by Bitspower and CORSAIR. This is otherwise quite restrictive for the rest, mostly owing to the 12-way split of coolant in parallel instead of more tubes or even more rows, with the latter physically not being feasible here, of course. Though it is still a lot lower than your average CPU block, and nothing by itself that a decent pump should worry about.