The entire story ....

Some time ago there was an amino check on a Dutch forum. Somebody made some water blocks and wanted to know whether there were people interested in buying it. Lots of people gave a positive response, including some of our Madshrimps crewmembers. Cees send us over samples of his blocks right away!

They looked good, copper base and plexi top, but there were some problems with the materials used, the plexi started to break from the moment there was a little bit too much pressure on them. Not that good.



But now he's back, and how! This new series of blocks is made totally of copper, and that won't break easily :)

We received a Socket 478 Block, Intel chipset block and a Geforce 4 / FX block. Time to put it the test.

I will review this block in three ways, if possible.

First I'll take a closer look at the block, how does it look and how the finishing. A block should be good performing, but in my opinion that doesn't mean that it has to be butt-ugly.

Installation, plug and play ? Or lose an entire day on installation?

And performance, probably the most important part. I'll monitor the temperature of the CPU and the video card. I'll pass the chipset, because my motherboard’s northbridge didn't have a built-in sensor.







Let's start with the most used type of water blocks: the CPU block.

CPU block

Looks

The block looks very solid, much stronger then any block with plexi. The block is made fully out of copper, it has 3/8" fittings, and the top and bottom part are held together with four steel screws.
The design itself is simple. That doesn't imply that it isn’t a sight for the eye. Its good looking, not too square shaped, but with some elegant curves.

Installation

When you receive this block, the package contains of course the block itself, but the parts needed for installation, such as 4 bolts, 4 springs, 12 nuts, ...

Installation is very easy, place the four bolts through the main boards holes, don't forget the isolating rings between the bolts/nuts and the main board. Then you tighten it with a nut.
After that you place the water block itself, place the other rings and springs, and finally tighten the last nuts.
Sounds complicated? Take a look at the pictures below.

I recommend removing the Pentium 4 retention bracket. This water block fits in it, but very tight, so a very small difference on the block or bracket and it won't fit anymore.

Temperatures

Performance that's what it's all about.
Nowadays there a lot of water-cooling sets around. One of the best performing kits, and one of the most expensive, is the Asetek Waterchill ([M]adshrimps review). I compared the water block from the asetek with this block. I installed the Waterchill, monitored the temperature, then I removed the Waterchill block, and put this one in its place. Thus the radiator and fan remained the same, and wouldn't have any influence on the tests done
.
And just for comparison I throw in an SLK 947U ([M]adshrimps review) with an 80 mm fan at about the same sound level as the WaterChill fan.

Test setup:
CPU	Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz 800 fsb HT @ 3.3 GHz - 1.65 Vcore
Mainboard	Asus P4P800 deluxe

I used Arctic Silver 3 As thermal paste and stressed the system for about 30 minutes before jotting down the temperatures.

Keep in mind, the temperatures are not that high, why? Ambient temperature was 20° C and the most important thing: no case was used.

	Temperatures after 30min 100% load
Asetek Waterchill	26°C
Custom Made Water block	27°C
Thermalright SLK947U	34°C

The difference in performance between these two water blocks is too small to declare a real winner.


The block:





Nice & shiny:





The package & installation:







Let's take a look at the chipset block.

Chipset block

Looks

Also made fully out of copper, this block has two "arms" and each of them has a slot. This is needed for the installation mechanism.
But here I have some negative remarks. The overall finishing is once again perfect, but the slots have some burrs. Not a big disaster, but I have to mention it of course.

Installation

I like this mechanism. Place the chipset block on the chipset, put the clips through the slots and hook them to the original mounting system.
This method is very easy in use and looks professional. The Waterchill Chipset block, for example is a complete different story. In the manual they recommend to install their block using zip-ties...

Temperatures

The Asus P4P800 has only a heatsink as chipset cooling. And while using your system at a FSB of over 275, these things gets extremely hot. So, almost anything has to be better than that...

Unfortunately the chipset has no built-in temperature sensor, so I couldn't really monitor the temperatures.


Before:



After:









Minor detail:




But I can monitor the temperature from my VGA card! On to the next page for a closer look at the VGA block ->

VGA block

Looks

This one definitely looks special. Basically this block has much in common with a normal water block, but for the installation, there’s a big "fin" installed. And through this fin there are two holes, which match with the mounting holes on the video card.
There are some notches on the fin, but these can also be found on the block itself on the same side, so I think the Belgian Mail wasn't very carefully with my package...

Its one great looking block, can't deny that.

Installation

Just like the CPU block there are bolts, nuts, springs ... supplied with this block. And the installation is pretty much the same.

Temperatures

Geforce FX 5900 XT ([M]adshrimps review), great card, hot card...
The default cooler is silent, in 2D mode, but when starting a game the 3D mode kicks in the fan starts spinning faster and this video card becomes noticeably louder quickly!

It's of course logical that water cooling will do better, but by how much?

I monitored the temperatures just after boot-up, for the idle temperatures and recorded the maximum temperature reached after looping Nature test (3D mark 2001 Se) for over an hour
.
Don't forget, running this test also stressed the CPU, which heats up the water as I was using the VGA,Chipset and CPU at the same time. The only change in my water cooling system layout was the radiator, Waterchill’s Black Ice Pro was swapped for the “Watercool HTF2-Dual Fan”

	Temps @ Idle	Temps @ Load
Stock Cooling	36	56
Water Cooling	26	34

More then 20° C difference under full load! Impressive.


Package:



Shiny base:





All the parts needed for installation:



I think the Belgian Post dropped my package, a couple of times...



And finally, installed !




Three great blocks tested -> time for a conclusion.

General

All the blocks look great and have a good finishing except for some minor details. Installation wasn't very difficult, on the contrary! The performance is on par with a retail water-block!

Price

Water-cooling is expensive you say? I admit that it isn't the cheapest solution, but it's not that expensive.

When you want to make your entire system silent, you'll probably have to buy a top-ranking heatsink, which sometimes even costs more then the CPU itself.
The Video card will be cooled by a heat pipe solution, but you can't completely passively keep your hot Radeon or Geforce on a decent and stable temperature, so a decent airflow is needed, and this requires more then one fan.

Of course when everything is added up, air cooling will be cheaper, but you can't overclock that high nor have a completely silent system. If you are into case modding then considering water cooling “just for the looks” might be reason enough too :)

But now you still don't know the price of these blocks...

The Asetek water block can be bought for +- € 80, while this custom made CPU block cost less then half of that price!
Danger Den has a similar chipset water block which costs +- 40 €, but Danger Den products are hard to find in Belgium and if you want to order them yourself the shipping and taxes will cost you more then the cost of the block... same can be said for the VGA-block.
At the time of writings, this revision of home-made water blocks cost around 35 € each, not too expensive right?!

So, for these of us who live in Belgium, the Netherlands, or somewhere in the neighbourhood, these blocks are really worth your consideration.

I would like to thank Cees for providing us with these blocks.

For more details on how to order these blocks, you can mail him.

Currently he's designing water blocks for Athlon 64, and he's improving this revision of blocks. I'm sure we'll hear more from him soon.

If you are interested in how you can create your own water-blocks then don’t forget to check out our guide


Questions/comments? Forum thread