Introduction::

AguaTec recently introduced a new type of cooler to the CPU cooler market, combining air-cooling with water-cooling and putting it into a compact solution. They came up with the following design for their product called "Blue ICE":



The Cooler comes in a plastic wrapping, with details of the product printed on the sides. The specifications are:

Larger, heavier and higher than most heatsinks. One thing you might notice right away, the water block (sink) is made of Aluminium, while the radiator is made of copper, corrosion anyone?

This heatsink is available in different versions. The one I tested has model number/name: CP-102. The difference between the CP-102 and CP-101 is in the fans.

CP-102 has a fan with following specs:




38+Dba is a lot! This 60mm fan is pretty close to the 60mm Black Delta known to irritate 95% of the world population.

the CP-101 has a slower fan:

But the difference is very small as running an 60mm fan at 5000rpm still produces 36+ Dba!

The CP-100 is a special one. Using 2x60mm fans running at 5000rpm each and producing 36Dba, per fan. And they are placed one on top of the other. Now I know from experience that this actually DEGRADES the airflow (Viperlair has an interesting article about dual fan setup right here).



As you can see the CP-100 model has a much smaller radiator than the 2 higher models. Smaller radiator = less heat that can be disposed of = higher temperatures.

Enough with the specifications, let's see what this unit actually looks like...

We go at this from the bottom up. First of all I would like to show you the "power" of this heatsink, a magnetic-based motor that serves as a pump to let the water go round and round:



The pump fits in here:



I made sure that I screwed everything down tight, don't want any leaks:



This is how the Aluminium sink looks like sideways:




The bottom's fairly flat, but far from perfect:



The radiator is made out of copper and the connection between the sink & radiator is "insulated" by a rubber/plastic string:



This insulation method is far from perfect and I had to verify everything over and over to see that everything fitted as it should, because the rubber string jumped out of it's groove quite often:



Time to put some pieces of the puzzle together:



Okay, with the radiator installed it looks like this:



First test-run is up next...

1st Test run:



We have a go, the water is making it's way around the innards of the heatsink and everything is looking fine.. for now. After running like this for ~10min I noticed the heatsink was warmer then before. The pump is actually causing the water to heat up. Hmmmm...

Well, onward with the installation, to close down the whole unit I used these things:



Nicely fitting where they should:



Now assemble everything and let it run for some time. The heatsink was put on some used paper to check for leaks. After running for 10-15min I notice that there's less water in the heatsink then before, and the marks on the paper lying underneath only confirm this.. we have a leak:



Apparently I am not the only one experiencing this problem with this Blue Ice, as you can see on this page here, the guy over there had the unit already installed when it started leaking, luckily for him there was none-conductive fluid in there..

I tried refitting every single rubber sealing ring to no avail. And the fact that NO manual was provided either (even the company's homepage provides ONLY specifications of their products, no support link).

I am not going to install a leaky water-cooling unit on my motherboard and risk frying the whole PC due to a failure of the heatsink.

I didn’t get to use these clips for Socket A:



They also provide a clipping system for the P4... not that it matters now, since I can't test the performance of this unit..

Conclusion

First of all I would like to thank Colorcase for providing me with this product, they gave me the opportunity to find out first hand how hard this unit sucks. Yes - I used the S word. There is no other way to describe it. If you think otherwise please feel free to email me, but I don't even see how this product can be out in stores in it's current state.

It is targeted at the END-user. I may not be the Uber-Hardware guru out there, but I'm far from your average PC user, and if I can't get it to function as it should then the chance is real that a normal end-user will be faced with a dead motherboard/cpu hours after installing his new "gizmo" heatsink.

The product is currently selling solely on its LOOKS. Even the specifications on the box make you realise that it isn't worth your money:

Copper radiator/Aluminium heatsink+water = corrosion. In the end the waterflow will stop and your CPU will fry.

60mm FAN running at +5000rpm speeds. Loud as hell at it is placed so closely to the radiator that it only has effect on the outer ring of the radiator, since the middle of the fan is being occupied by its motor.

The base of the heatsink is in Aluminium! Even a cheap copper heatsink + silent fan will outperform this unit.

no manual: you have to figure out everything by yourself, screw up? Too bad for you!

Leaks! This one is obvious, a faulty product is hard to test on performance.

If anyone wants to send me another sample for testing that isn't faulty and is known to work okay, contact me here.

I never rated products in my reviews and I don't intend to start. But this one is special. On scale from 0 to 10 this Blue Ice scores 0. Enough said.

Hope you liked reading my first negative review on [M]. They can't all be good now can they? :)

If you have any comments / questions you can drop them in this thread @ the forums (no regis. required)