Liquid Flow Restriction

I used a Swiftech MCP50X pump with a FrozenQ 400mL cylindrical reservoir. The pump was powered by a direct SATA connection to an EVGA 1300G2 PSU and was controlled by an Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 XT. There was a previously calibrated in-line flow meter and a Dwyer 490 Series 1 wet-wet manometer to measure the pressure drop of the component being tested. Every component was connected to the manometer by the way of 1/2" x 3/4" tubing, compression fittings, and two T-fittings.


As expected, the serial flow design coupled with the thinner microchannels compensated by the higher number of channels in parallel resulted in the CORSAIR Hydro X Series XG7 10-series GPU block faring about average in the pack here. This was a similar situation as experienced with its XC9 CPU block relative, so the common DNA holds true here. GPU blocks are not as restrictive as an average CPU block to begin with, and the actual differences here are low enough to where this is really of no concern to anyone with a decent pump, such as the Laing D5 offered as part of CORSAIR's current Hydro X portfolio.

Note that the chart above has some item lines for blocks and backplates, and this was done to help distinguish any thermal performance differences. With the CORSAIR block, the included backplate was used as a complete package given it comes included in the box, and it also has zero impact on the block's coolant flow restriction.