X-bit labs

Four Liquid-Cooling Systems for the Masses (page 16)

Category: Coolers

by Vasily Melnik

[ 10/14/2005 | 03:30 PM ]

The Gigabyte engineers were at their best when they worked on the pump:

It is a really clever idea to put an external pump and a large and capacious reservoir with a handy plug on a single large base which is going to keep the whole arrangement steady on the floor of the system case. Quite importantly, this all looks pretty, too. The pump also features a system of control over the level of the liquid which automatically turns the computer off in case of a leakage.

The 3D Galaxy kit includes a special low-speed MOSFET cooling fan . It is to be mounted on the water-block to cool the MOSFETs of the CPU power circuit and the chipset’s heatsink.

The engineers got it right: one of the biggest problems with any liquid-cooling system is that the CPU-related power elements and the chipset’s heatsink (if it doesn’t have its own fan on) cease to receive any air cooling. Most manufacturers – but not Gigabyte – left it to the user to solve this problem.

The system’s radiator has a blue metal casing that carries a logotype and an exhaust fan:

It looks nice, but the designers have overdone it a little:

I don’t know why they put in the wire grid – its functionality is fully copied by the opening in the radiator’s casing. People who are into improving everything may like this solution, though, since they can cut a normal opening and leave only the wire grill to reduce the noise from the fan.