Closing the Loop II: New Liquid Coolers from Corsair and Swiftech
by Dustin Sklavos on February 1, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- radiator
- Swiftech
Conclusions, Part 2
The Swiftech H220
Because so many closed loop cooler vendors have been basing their designs off the same basic products from Asetek and CoolIT (and inheriting the quality control problems from CoolIT in some cases), they've been forced to differentiate through features and fans. Corsair's "i" series coolers get to enjoy the Corsair Link ecosystem with sophisticated fan controls, while NZXT's Krakens have decent software-based fan controls of their own.
Swiftech changes things. Since they're already established in the liquid cooling market, the H220 is positioned less as a closed loop cooler to just be marketed to the public and more as an entry into the world of liquid cooling. Swiftech wanted to make the H220 as easy as humanly possible to install while offering enough of a performance reserve that if someone wanted to open the loop and start tinkering, they could. At CES, the H220's pump was demonstrated keeping a pair of GTX 680s and an i7 cool.
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Meanwhile, the radiator itself has a larger reservoir than the competition, is user accessible and serviceable, and is produced from higher quality materials. Instead of just using aluminum, the H220 has copper fins and brass tubing, which theoretically will allow it to both dissipate heat more effectively and last longer. That also means it's much heavier in the hand; when you hold the radiator you can feel the difference in a big way.
Additionally, Swiftech includes a breakout PWM block specifically for controlling up to seven fans via a single PWM channel, addressing a problem that Corsair failed to with the H110. This is a polished product capable of delivering competitive performance and easily superior to the other 240mm coolers I've tested, but it does come at a cost: $139 is the same MSRP as better-performing (but also larger) NZXT's Kraken X60, and much more expensive than the other 240s.
There's also the fact that the H220's pump produces a bit more noise than the others do. That's to be expected: it's a much more powerful pump (that amusingly can be regulated via PWM, unlike the others). In a quiet case it's easy to muffle, and my review unit may simply be noisier than the production models (review will be updated when I have a production model in hand.) It's still worth mentioning, though.
Despite that, and despite the cost, the Swiftech H220 is basically the cooler to get if you're in the market for a 240mm closed loop cooler. It fulfills the promise the H100i inexplicably doesn't, and is basically as good as it's going to get before you get into either 280mm radiators or entirely custom cooling loops.
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glenster - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
The Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme is 27dB--how does it compare?Beenthere - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
Before long they will be using auto sized radiators to try and surpass the excellent and reliable cooling provided by a highend HSF costing 1/2 the price of an inferior closed loop coolers that can and have leaked in the past causing hundreds of dollars in PC hardware damage, lost data, lack of use of the PC for weeks, RMAs, etc. Why people are so gullible as to buy an inferior CPU cooling system is beyond me. I guess when you're technically challenged, you equate water to better cooling even when it's not.Stuka87 - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
"Meanwhile, the radiator itself has a larger reservoir than the competition, is user accessible and serviceable, and is produced from higher quality materials. Instead of just using aluminum, the H220 has copper fins and brass tubing, which theoretically will allow it to both dissipate heat more effectively and last longer. "In the quote above, it is stated that the H220 uses copper and brass instead of aluminum. While copper is great as its the best conductor of heat, brass is significantly worse than copper or aluminum. Kind of seams like a price cutting tactic over the use of aluminum and copper. Unless I am missing something?
Death666Angel - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
My guess would be corrosion.Galcobar - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
Galvanic corrosion -- two dissimilar metals in contact are a problem, particularly with something reactive such as copper. It's why you can't use steel brackets to hold copper piping.Copper and brass (a copper-zinc alloy) are electrochemically similar so galvanic corrosion isn't an issue. Aluminum, however, is much more anodic than copper or brass.
Nickel020 - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link
Brass is what's used in almost all high-end watercooling radiators, Swiftech isn't cutting any corners there. The fins themselves are actually copper, and that's what's most important. There's also different kinds of brass, and the one they're using for the tubing is almost certainly better than aluminum. Otherwise you'd find high-end watercooling radiators made with aluminum tubing, but they all use brass or (a few) copper.Gc - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
The Cinica Eurora article says they claim increased power efficiency in part by running the processors at lower water-cooled temperatures. It could be interesting to see how much power each water-cooling system takes, both for comparing with air-cooled systems, and for comparing with potential processor power savings.Gc - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
[Sorry, "air-cooled" is the wrong term for the contrast. These water-cooling systems carry the heat to an air cooled radiator also, just like the vapor cooled heat pipes in many CPU coolers carry heat to an air cooled radiator.]RaistlinZ - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link
Can fans be mounted on the Swiftech for push/pull config? If so, they've got my money.Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link
Why yes. YES THEY CAN! And in fact their fan control header supports up to seven fans!