Swiftech H20-8500 Water Cooling Kit w/ GPU Block

Reviews: Cooling

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
Swiftech
Sep. 3, 2003

Specifications

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MCR80-F Radiator

The radiator included with this kit is almost identical to the Black Ice Micro radiator. The radiator is painted blue to match the water blocks. The Radiator comes with two 80mm fans already mounted on it. The fan setup allows for a push-pull combination to dissipate heat from the radiator. Due to the small size of the radiator, the only requirement for mounting it in your case is a spare 80mm inlet or exhaust.

The fans each push 29CFM of air at 32dBA. The radiator does not use the quick connect fittings like those found on the water blocks; instead it uses hose clamps to secure the tubing to the 3/8" OD barbs located on the radiator.

I am a little disappointed by the radiator and fans. The size of the radiator makes it easy to mount in just about any case, but it just doesn't look like it will be a good performer. Such a small radiator surely could not be powerful enough to keep up with the water blocks. A larger radiator and fans would most likely improve the performance of the kit. We will look at that more later on during the testing of the kit.

The fans weren't as quiet as I hoped. They are about as loud as the average case fans, if not a bit louder. If a larger radiator is used along with larger but slower moving fans, the noise would be reduced greatly.

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Page 4 of 8

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: MCW5000 CPU Water Block
Page 3: MCW50 GPU Water Block
Page 4: MCR80-F Radiator
Page 5: MCP300 Pump
Page 6: Fill / Bleed Kit & Other Hardware
Page 7: Installation & Performance
Page 8: Conclusion

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7 User Comments

1 - Posted by handrail on September 4, 2003 - 10:12 am

so far i have not been terribly impressed by water cooling. my vantec aeroflow stays around 40 during gaming and below 34 at idle.

i'm sure there are great h20 coolers out there for the big $$$$. but thus far, nothing has convinced me to make the switch.

2 - Posted by MaNiAk21 on September 4, 2003 - 3:28 pm

Well, there's a big difference between the performance of a kit and the performance of your custom system... it does cost more, but if you get the right items, the cooling should be amazing...

3 - Posted by handrail on September 4, 2003 - 9:01 pm

yeah, i understand that if i spend mega bux i can get ultra cool, ultra quiet machine. but, if the cheap ones run ~$200-300 and my cheap old $25 vantec can beat the kit water coolers, why are companies bothering making them.

my guess is because they are hoping to get that "it's cool to have watercooling" (bad pun, groan :cry: ) section of the market. but, most everyone who would use liquid cooling surely knows not to buy a crap kit.

just an observation on the industry. seems like they are wasting time and money...but someone must be buying these things...right???

4 - Posted by MaNiAk21 on September 4, 2003 - 9:15 pm

It's just the quiet issue that comes to play, some are perfectly fine with shelling out cash for ultra-quiet, entry-level cooling. I for one would not, but there are a lot of people out there with cash to burn...

5 - Posted by Hippy on September 5, 2003 - 12:44 pm

i am a little curious about your temp readings.

The difference in degrees C between the kit without the GPU block compaired to with is massive: 5c at idle.

Guessing that these are CPU readings?

That is a bit much... i mean to warm any amount of water by even a single degree takes a load of wattage/heat. I dont know the exact calculation but have read in other forums that the temps shouldn't raise by much, if at all by adding a GPU block. Hmmm (if i can find the thread then i'll link it) just seems wrong, could anything be wrong with the kit?

Cracking review though :)

6 - Posted by T-shirt on September 5, 2003 - 1:40 pm

I just quick scanned the review (no time today, I'll get back to it, I promise)
But I would guess the difference is caused by several factors.
Rad is too small, unable to deal with the extra heat,

addition of the gpu block is slowing the flow below the needed flow for the CPU block

error- in adding the gpu block you changed the CPU block/paste/cpu interface to a slightly less effective combo

7 - Posted by Brian on September 5, 2003 - 5:20 pm

The card that we tested with emits a LOT of heat. It can get in to the 60s ( ~temp read by probe on back of card (opposite of core)).

Since the radiator can't dissipate alot of heat, adding the GPU block caused the temps to increase alot (especially since the GPU gets hotter than the CPU in this case). With the 120mm radiator, you will notice no change in the CPU temp when adding the VGA block to the loop.

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