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.


As of the time of this EK active backplate review, I have tested six entries in total. Unless specifically mentioned, every one of them was tested with an accompanying backplate. As that is the majority of them at this time, this will not change in the near future and was done because both Alphacool and CORSAIR include a backplate. All six will have dedicated reviews, and at least two more from Bitspower and Watercool are being tested right now. So keep in mind that the highlighted entry here is for the EK-Quantum Vector block and active backplate combination.

Of course, I would generally say that a backplate does not matter as far as liquid-flow restriction goes, but this is not a normal backplate. We saw before how the active backplate ends up in series flow with the EK-Quantum Vector GPU block, which, as expected, makes the combination more restrictive than the GPU block by itself. However, the cooling engine is quite simple to where the added restriction from the active backplate in minimal.