Closed Loop AIO Liquid Coolers: 14-way Mega Roundup Review
by E. Fylladitakis on February 12, 2014 7:00 AM ESTSilverstone
Silverstone is another well-known name amongst advanced users and enthusiasts. The company earned their reputation from their first PSUs and original case designs and soon diversified towards cooling related products. They currently offer just two AIO liquid cooling solutions, the Tundra series. The company shipped both of them to us for this review.
Silverstone Tundra TD02
Silverstone ships the Tundra TD02 inside a large cardboard box with a black/blue theme. The box has plenty of pictures and information about the cooler printed on all of its sides. The company also supplies a fairly standard bundle with the Tundra TD02, which consists of a manual with installation instructions, mounting hardware and a syringe with thermal compound. There also is a 3-pin Y-splitter fan cable included, which can be used to power two fans off a single header. Silverstone supplies two 120mm fans with the TD02. The fans have back frames and curved, notched white blades that supposedly reduce aerodynamic noise, as well as fluid-state bearings for prolonged life. Their speed range is rather narrow, ranging from 1500 to 2500 RPM.
Visually, the Silverstone Tundra TD02 certainly stands out a lot. Although it is somewhat different, the Tundra TD02 could be coming from the same OEM that makes the Enermax Liqtech 120X as well; however, Silverstone did not want to reveal their source. The very large and deep radiator with the grey aluminum frame stands out, the size of which overwhelms any Asetek/CoolIT design. Size is not always a good thing though, as the 45mm thick design could bring serious compatibility issues, especially if the case has been designed with 27-29mm radiators in mind.
The design of the radiator is quite different from that of most other kits. Like the radiator of the Liqtech 120X, instead of wavy aluminum fins between the liquid pass-through channels, this design forms single, "seamless" fins from one side to the other, which are soldered onto the channels. The design of the fins and the overall size of the radiator though is different.
The block-pump assembly of the Tundra TD02 stands out over that of most other kits as well. It is entirely metallic, made of nickel-plated aluminum with a copper base. A badge with Silverstone's logo lies in the middle of the aluminum cap, which also has very subtle blue LEDs surrounding it. There is something unique about this block however; unlike any other assembly, including that of the Liqtech 120X, the copper base of the block is not attached to the assembly with screws, leaving the bottom of the block entirely plain. It has also been machined down to a perfect, smooth finish. The only thing that we could complain about is the use of narrow, stiff, white corrugated tubing, which is beneath the quality of such a product.
Silverstone Tundra TD03
Confusing as this may be, the Tundra TD03 actually is a smaller version of the TD02. It comes in a similarly designed cardboard box with a black/blue color theme, only it's significantly smaller. Despite the change in size however, the cooler remains very well protected within cardboard packaging and inside nylon bags. It also shares exactly the same bundle with the TD02, including the manual with the installation instructions. The two 120mm fans supplies are the same as those of the TD02, with a black frame and curved, notched white blades.
Both visually and practically, the Tundra TD03 is just a shorter version of the TD02. The radiator also shares the same design, and is just as wide and thick as the radiator of the TD02, yet nearly half as long, which means that it essentially has half the heat dissipation surface. Nevertheless, Silverstone still supplies two 120mm fans, to be used in a push-pull configuration. It is interesting to note that this radiator design appears a lot more solid, without any imperfections or bent fins, which appear to be very common on radiators with wavy aluminum fins.
As expected, the fully metallic block-pump assembly of the Tundra TD03 is identical to that of the TD02. The top and frame of the assembly are made out of nickel-plated aluminum, with the base of the block made out of solid copper. Even the mounting braces are made of solid aluminum, with those meant for Intel CPUs preinstalled on the block from the factory. Once again, the copper base is not attached to the aluminum frame with screws, at least not screws visible from the bottom of the assembly, leaving the base of the cooler perfectly clean and smooth.
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faster - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
I want a closed loop system for my video card!My GTX780 is much louder than my CPU fan.
Liquid cooling was supposed to be how one obtained high performance quiet computing. Air cooling solutions should not be able to compete with a liquid cooling solution in the same environment, but it seems they do. How is that?
blanarahul - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
"I want a closed loop system for my video card!"This. All the stupid OEMs want to disgruntle consumers. We already have more than enough great CPU coolers, but very few great GPU coolers. All I want is a card that is NOT pre-overclocked (but can be overclocked at my whims ;) ) and comes with a all-in-one liquid cooling solution. Is that too much to ask??
E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Oh, that is coming, soon. Stay tuned, should be online within a couple of weeks. :)Dribble - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
True, for cpu's you don't need that big a cooler - all these lower power Intel cpu's don't pull 200W even overclocked. A big air cooler is sufficient. It'll work as well as a single 120mm fan radiator water cooler but is cheaper and more reliable.However graphics cards are another matter altogether - they pump out huge amounts of heat.
Hence either I WC my graphics card in which case I might as well get a system that can WC my cpu too, or I just stick to air cooling.
BuddhaBum44 - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
You can always get the Kraken X40 and the bracket they make for 780s: https://www.nzxt.com/product/detail/138-kraken-g10...bj_murphy - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Solid review with some good information. I've been waiting for a "compendium" of sorts to link to people, explaining which closed loop coolers are the best. Thanks E. Fylladitakis, looking forward to more great articles!doggghouse - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
What is a realistic load for a CPU? My 4770K has a max TDP of 84W... and I see a 3960X has a max of 130W. Are there actual CPUs that have anything above that, like 200W - 340W? If not, does it make sense to include those loads in the average thermal resistance, since these AIO coolers are going to be applied to a CPU, not to a synthetic load...?E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
It depends on the CPU, of course. An overclocked CPU can easily surpass their max TDP rating. High thermal loads are useful for the extraction of proper thermal resistance ratings, plus they are easily reachable by modern GPUs (and GPUs are relevant, especially with AIO coolers; you'll see why soon enough). Of course, if you know the power requirements of your current CPU (if not overclocked, about 75% of its TDP), you can easily check the graph closest to it.dragosmp - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
Hi,Great review, I like the methodology. It is nice to see all coolers tested with a constant load that is subject to much less randomness than a CPU power output.
I have two questions:
*is it possible to test all coolers at a certain noise level like 40dB +/-0.5dB; 7V testing is not that relevant for a cooler that is silent @10V, why would anyone silence it even further, save electricity?
*could you provide an order of magnitude of what clock speed and voltage a CPU would need to be at to achieve 340W/150W...etc. It would be useful to get our bearings vs the real world. A chart would be nice a bit like this:
.....................150W.................250W
Haswell DC....4.6GHz/1.25V......
Haswell QC....4.2GHz/1.27V......
FX83xx OC....4.1GHz/1.35V......
The reason for the last remark is that buying decisions are made also with cost in mind. One may think: I have max 30°C Tcase, 4.5GHz Haswell, what is the thermal conductivity I would need so the CPU never passes 70°C? Answer ==> review (maybe not the best cooler, maybe not the most expensive...). I have bought windows for my house like that.
E.Fyll - Wednesday, February 12, 2014 - link
40 dB(A) is not really "silent". I would rate <35 dB(A) as silent and still I can notice that in a very quiet room. 40 dB(A) is a slight humming noise, fairly quiet and most people just ignore it, yet it is easily noticeable. It is an interesting idea but that is not really possible when not all products can do at least 40 dB(A) and not practical, as the motherboard does not read the sound level, it just adjusts the voltage. 7 Volts are just high enough to ensure that (almost) every fan will start and about the same voltage as most motherboard will apply in their "quiet" mode. About the CPUs, I cannot do that as that would require me buying and testing every single CPU, which is not possible. Besides, every CPU is unique and the energy consumption also depends on several settings when overclocked, so it could easily bring misleading results. A single different setting can cause a massive change on consumption at the same exact frequency. For instance, a i7-3820 at 4.4 GHz consumes nearly 20% more energy with its voltage upped by 0.1V. It truly is a very interesting idea but a great deal of data and testing is required to create a proper database.