Introduction

Ah, Koolance! My journey into custom watercooling began with one of their CPU water blocks, the CPU-380I to be specific, and it remains a part of my collection even to this day. As with other companies, Koolance has since revised and released newer versions, including the CPU-390I I had examined on release, and it seemed fitting to be able to do so again with their latest and greatest. Koolance is unlike most other brands in that they deal a lot with industrial customers, with the consumer market getting products few and far between. This does not mean they do nothing in the interim, however, with their products coming out when they deem it appropriate and competing right at the top of the performance charts. We put their new CPU block to the test today, and thanks again to Koolance for providing a review sample.


No surprise when it comes to the name since the new CPU-400I from Koolance is the update to their previous CPU water block. Unlike the CPU-390I, however, Koolance no longer has the option to go with an acrylic top and instead only provides a single opaque top version. This comes in both Intel and AMD flavors to be purchased separately, with the "I" in the name indicating the Intel socket version here. With a predominantly black color scheme, Koolance is looking to let the product blend in well with just about any watercooling build, and we will take a closer look at this—both inside and out—as we begin the review with a look at the specifications below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

Koolance operates a web shop in the USA, which is where this sample came from. There was another sample included, however, so I decided to shorten the shipping packaging section here by simply stating that they continue to package products very well with packing peanuts filling over an inch of the space all over inside the shipping box. The product box adopts a simple clean-looking black and white color scheme with the company and product names on front, which is where you also find out that the product was designed in the USA and manufactured in (South) Korea. More of the same is seen on the other sides, and there is a single flap on an edge to keep the box closed and the contents inside in place.


Opening the box, we see a plain white cardboard sheet with a cutout in the corner to help remove it. Underneath it is a thick piece of foam to protect the contents inside. The cardboard sheet provides a flush surface for the packaging to close onto, thus allowing for a snug fit to the contents inside, which makes it another piece of the great packaging Koolance uses. The accessories are seen next, inside a large plastic pouch. Koolance provides a set of four metal mounting posts/standoffs for the supported Intel sockets; LGA 115x, 1366, 2011, 2011-3, and 2066. A tube of Koolance-branded thermal paste is included as well, enough for a few uses, but rated at 1.3 W/mK, so you may want to use something better if you want better performance. More mounting hardware comes in the form of each four plastic washer, metal springs, metal locking nuts for the mounting posts, and metal thumb nuts. Koolance also adds in an Allen key to aid in installation, as well as a few pieces of metal tape to help attach thermal probes to the edge of the cold plate and then Koolance systems with pumps, reservoirs, radiators, and fans that are all integrated to help provide a feedback signal with which to control the pump and fan speeds. You can also use the thermal probes with other compatible hardware, say headers on your motherboard, to read out the CPU IHS temperature.


The accessories rest on a second cardboard sheet with a similar cutout as the first for its removal, which gives us our first look at the CPU block itself. There is a third and final sheet of cardboard separating this layer from the bottom one that houses the requisite backplates for Intel socket LGA 115x and 1366, along with a rubber spacer to prevent shorting via direct contact of the metal backplates with the motherboard.