Triple-Radiator roundup
Aquatuning Germany, the sponsor for this review, graced me with quite a selection of triple-radiators that I got to test.
First, here's an overview of all the radiators I tested:
- Black Ice GT Stealth
- Black Ice GTX
- Magicool Slim Triple
- Magicool Slim Elegant
- Magicool Xtreme Triple
- Swiftech MCR320
- Thermochill PA120.3
- Watercool HTSF 360
- XSPC RX360
And here's a small gallery of all of these rads:
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Testing method
There are two main components to how I tested these radiators:
1. Heaters
The images above show the heart of my test loop. It consists of a MCP355 with an EK X-Res top, two 300W heaters and four thermal probes in the water. There are also three thermal probes measuring ambient temperature.
2. Fans
I tested several fan speeds ranging from 400rpm to 2000rpm. I used Scythe Slip Stream 500s for the low fan speeds, Nanoxias for medium fan speeds and Yate Loons for high fan speeds.
EDIT: More specifically:
Scythe Slip Stream 500 for 400rpm
Nanoxia FX-1250 for 800 and 1200rpm
Yate Loon D12SL-12H for 1600 and 2000rpm
Each test run lasts for 35 minutes and all of the temps from the last ten minutes of a run are averaged out to recieve the relevant data. A test run means the time from activating one or both of the heaters till I switch them off again. Here are the measured wattages of my heaters:
Heater #1: 289.9W
Heater #2: 283.2W
The loads seem to be very consistent.
This means that the actual heatload for my "300W" load was 289.9W and the actual load for my "600W" load was 573.1W.
Results
All the results are shown as the measured temperature difference between water- and ambient temperatures. The lower this difference, the more heat the radiator is dissipating.
289.9W:
573.1W:
As you can see, this type of graph is too chaotic with so many rads, so here is the same data in the form of bar-graphs:
289.9W:
The 400rpm runs couldn't be completed with either one of the Black Ice radiators since I had to shut the heaters off when the water temps went above 52° C. The tubes seem close to melting-point at this temperature and the pump isn't happy either.
573.1W:
With this heat load, none of the runs could be done at 400rpm so I completely omitted those. Again, the Black Ice Radiators simply can't handle this heat load with slow fans, in this case at 800rpm.
Flowrates:
Note: I've been told that the HTSF shouldn't be this restrictive so it will be cleaned and retested later on.
Quick conclusion
I really want to encourage everyone to have a close look at the data and make their own conclusions. Here are some of my thoughts:
The biggest surprise for me was the stellar performance of the Magicool Elegant radiator at low fan speeds. The radiator is half as thick as a Thermochill, RX or GTX but beats these rads hands down at 400rpm. For silent computing, this is one hell of a radiator!
To me, the XSPC RX is the best thick, highend radiator for low to medium fan speeds or any fan speeds for that matter. For more detail on this, see my separate review of the RX.
I was very disappointed with the HWLabs radiators. I really like the Black Ice style and finish, the radiators are gorgeous and solidly manufactured. So I wanted these rads to do well, but they simply didn't. It's clear that they are geared towards high-rpm-fans but even with those, they don't perform especially well. Even at 2000rpm, the Thermochill delivers equal temperatures as the GTX. And at
every other fan speed, the Thermochill and other radiators clearly perform better than the Black Ice rads. More importantly, even at the high heat load and 2000rpm, the GTX beats the much cheaper MCR320 by only 1°.
So, while it's possible that the HWLabs radiators start outperforming the competition at even higher rpms than I tested, I don't see the point in them. Even if you aren't into silent computing, you shouldn't risk your hearing to get optimal temps.
Hope you enjoyed this review.
Cheers,
Shane
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