X-bit labs

Water-Cooling Systems Roundup: 16 Systems Reviewed! (page 27)

Category: Coolers

by Kirill "ALT-F13" Balalin

[ 03/30/2006 | 08:48 AM ]

The accessories are almost the same as you receive with the Bianca, but there are also an additional GPU water-block with fasteners and a thermal sensor here. There are more pipes in this kit (to connect the second water-block).

We were curious to see what was inside the cooling module. We dismantled it to find a reservoir and a pump that we were already familiar with. The radiator is familiar, too, but there are two of them here – at the top and bottom of the module.

Air is driven through the radiators by a centrifugal blower which is hidden under a casing. We haven’t seen a fan of that type in any other water-cooling kit. This fan sucks air in through the top radiator and exhausts it through the bottom one so that the hot air didn’t get inside the PC case. So, this is an interesting and original solution, but we have some doubts about the direction of the air stream. We think it would be logical to take cold air from below and then issue hot air at the top.

We have only one heater in our testbed, so we will only test the CPU water-block which is an exact copy of the one from the Titan TWC-A05 (Bianca) kit.

The system’s display shows the current temperature of the thermal couple, the secondary radiator fan speed, the fan and pump operation status. The external radiator’s fan normally works at the min speed but spins up to its maximum after reaching a specific temperature which you can set up using the buttons. The highlighting around the handle changes depending on the speed – from blue to bright pink. If the fan fails, the highlighting becomes red.

The system quite expectedly performs much better than the previous model. Well, the higher status of this kit is indicated by its every detail. The Nikita beat our reference air cooler quite confidently, and with a very good result. Unfortunately, it is rather noisy even at the minimum speed of the fans. The performance of its pump was 28 liters per hour.

Summary: This system has an average efficiency because its noise cannot be described as comfortable although its performance is high enough – the system can cope with almost any existing CPU. It costs about $140, so it is a good choice, even though it is not the best in its class (we think it is inferior to the Gigabyte 3D Galaxy and Asetek WaterChill KT03-L20 Entry, for example). It will suit you perfectly if you are looking for a water-cooling kit with an original external design.