Liquid-based cooling has become a real hot topic recently cooling systems of that type have ceased to be exotic. Far from that, they are now quite affordable products targeted at PC hardware enthusiasts.

I guess many users can remember the time when a liquid-cooling system installed in a computer was viewed as a distinguishing feature that emphasized the status of the owner as of an advanced user. Such systems used to be assembled out of various odds and ends. The components had to be ordered separately while the use of car radiators, aquarium pumps and other things not specifically made for PCs called for serious and expensive redesign. This approach to building a water-cooling system is understandable and has a number of followers even today, but it doesn’t suit people who want to buy the whole system at once and install it on the same day.

Well, a high-quality and high-performance CPU water-cooling system still costs a round sum of money even today, just like it did before. The famous precursors of the new era of affordable water-based CPU cooling were the Aucma Cool River and the Poseidon kits. The former was a three-component and relatively compact system that could cool not only the CPU but also the chipset’s North Bridge and the graphics card. The Poseidon in its turn was the first affordable water-cooling kit, priced at below $100. So, these two systems opened a whole new market of such devices which is flourishing nowadays. The fact that low-end consumer systems cannot compete with products from the leaders like Asetek and Swiftech goes beyond doubt, but such systems are much, much cheaper! Moreover, the leaders still stick to their old ways. That is, they don’t offer you a finished product, but ask you to order separate components and you have to clearly realize what you exactly need to make a right choice. Besides that, you don’t get such bonuses as a universal fastening kit – since you buy the components separately, you won’t buy, for example, LGA775 fasteners “just in case”. The release of boxed kits from Asetek like the WaterChill Antarctica KT12A-L30 doesn’t change the overall situation since a single pump from such a kit may cost the same money as a whole entry-level liquid-cooling system. There’s no doubt about the highest quality and efficiency of Asetek’s products, but not all users are ready to shell out the price of a new office PC just for a cooler!

As for entry-level boxed liquid-cooling systems, the user gets a “ready-to-fly”, easy-to-deploy product, usually suitable for any modern computer platform.

Also beyond doubt, the general quality of entry-level liquid-cooling kits has greatly improved since the Aucma Cool River and the Poseidon. The pumps, water-blocks and radiators have become much more reliable and efficient. The manufacturers now pay much attention to the exterior of their products and to the supplied accessories. This market is changing, but even now entry-level water-cooling systems with their price and performance are positioned as a distinguishing feature of the owner. However, the supposed owner today is a person who doesn’t want to bother about sorting out the optimal configuration of the system, but wants to have a finished product right from the box.

For our today’s tests we took four liquid-cooling systems of different design but from the same price category, so they represent the current situation in this market sector quite vividly. Despite the design differences, these cooling systems perform almost identically under similar test conditions and you’ll see in the test section of the review why they do so. But right now let’s take a closer look at each system.