Liquid Flow Restriction

I use a CORSAIR Hydro XD5 pump/reservoir combo unit with the pump 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 I knew going in what to expect, especially since the EK-Quantum Surface X360M was tested after the thinner S360. For the purpose of this section, the only difference between the two is the increased number of coolant tubes from 16 to 32, so the already low-restriction core on the S360 is bested by the dual-core X360M. The thicker tubes also bring it within reach of the lowest restriction radiators tested to date, and those happen to be triple-core units, too! Needless to say, I would classify this as a low-restriction radiator thus, and it would not change much for your pump choices compared to a typical CPU or GPU block. This also means EK's claims of the radiator having low coolant restriction is valid.