Test Report: XSPC RX120

well mine arrived and none of the problems above are evident BUT I have paint chipping and dents all over the rad...so I'm gonna email XSPC for a hopeful RMA, not that they'll even respond to me..

waterlogged raises a subtle hint which I'm interested to see the outcome of.. :p:

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Originally Posted by Exavier

well mine arrived and none of the problems above are evident BUT I have paint chipping and dents all over the rad...so I'm gonna email XSPC for a hopeful RMA, not that they'll even respond to me..

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Just like the RS360 I purchased recently!

Anyway, that's a shame. QC is lacking, regardless of "teething" problems, first production run, etc. etc.

Looking at the pricing of the RX360 today (£71.99 @ watercoolinguk), which I'm sure is 10-15 pounds more than was originally suggested in another thread, and comparing that to the Xchanger 360 (£76.99 @ watercoolinguk). Hmmm. The TFC is overpriced - sure. Less money wasted on packaging and fancy inserts and a lower price would be appreciated. But the package does include 3 silcone fan gaskets. I'm assuming that the XSPC uses their usual "quality" packaging and provides no extras. The RX360 needs to blow the XChanger 360 away on performance being priced that close to it!

<tongue_in_cheek>Are XSPC offering a good value product or jumping on the Feser price gouging bandwagon?</tongue_in_cheek>

if you are in UK, why do you bother with TFC and XSPC? Get TC PA120.3 and call it a day, it's cheaper than the other two :)

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Originally Posted by ProtoTyper

Yes, you are from norway. is there anything to cool the pc with? rofl. :rofl:

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Wrong and Did I offend you? Sorry if I did

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i think you have enough ice to cool your pc. so please dont use water.

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I´m getting water cooling stuff for performance and silence, because TRUE with two yateloons at 600rpm wasnt good enaugh on my Q6600

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and yes i am still a TC fanboy, because their rads were the pioneers.

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Nothing wrong to be fanboy but watching your earlier comments stated that you like very much TFC products. Its good to have premium and price/performance companies cos this will reduce the prices. For me performance and price comes first, but some people like premiun because they usually got better quality.

I cleaned up some posts on this page.

Let's stick to the facts and leave the fanboyism for what it is.
Skinnee did a great test on this rad and I'm sure other members (including me) would like to see results from guys who recently bought (or are planning to buy) one of the RX series rads.

It would be a shame if a good thread like this goes to hell, like so many good threads have in the past.

So, stay on topic, play it nice and keep it civilized.

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by anzial

if you are in UK, why do you bother with TFC and XSPC? Get TC PA120.3 and call it a day, it's cheaper than the other two :)

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You'd think that being made in the UK, you'd be able to buy them in the UK? If only it was that easy. ;-)

I would've bought one a couple of weeks ago instead of another TFC, but for the fact it's never in stock. (Either that, or I'm looking in the wrong places.)

Current (as of 5 mins ago) UK retailer stock levels of PA120.3 ....

Chilled PC - Out of stock
WatercoolingUK - Out of stock
The Cooling Shop - Out of stock
C and C Central - Out of stock
Aqua PC's - Out of stock

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Originally Posted by JackOfAll

You'd think that being made in the UK, you'd be able to buy them in the UK? If only it was that easy. ;-)

I would've bought one a couple of weeks ago instead of another TFC, but for the fact it's never in stock. (Either that, or I'm looking in the wrong places.)

Current (as of 5 mins ago) UK retailer stock levels of PA120.3 ....

Chilled PC - Out of stock
WatercoolingUK - Out of stock
The Cooling Shop - Out of stock
C and C Central - Out of stock
Aqua PC's - Out of stock

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Well, at least you can enjoy lower prices on TC PAs compared to the rest of the world :cool:

That said, I was interested in getting XSPC RX360 but came accross an $80 PA120.3 compared to $99 for RX360... well, I chose PA. I hope won't regret it once performance numbers for RX360 become known :D

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Originally Posted by JackOfAll

You'd think that being made in the UK, you'd be able to buy them in the UK? If only it was that easy. ;-)

I would've bought one a couple of weeks ago instead of another TFC, but for the fact it's never in stock. (Either that, or I'm looking in the wrong places.)

Current (as of 5 mins ago) UK retailer stock levels of PA120.3 ....

Chilled PC - Out of stock
WatercoolingUK - Out of stock
The Cooling Shop - Out of stock
C and C Central - Out of stock
Aqua PC's - Out of stock

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You could always try direct or semi-direct :p:

Sigh. Wasn't going to be using my RX360 for a little, but seeing this thread I re-opened the box and put my mic up to the fan holes. 105mm down the length of the rad, no problems. But just over 106mm across... problem. Testing it out on a fan, I can mount a fan on one side of the rad, but not the other without bending the rad or slotting the fan holes. Or I can partially tighten down all four corners, but not so much that there isn't an air gap all around the base of the fan. Definitely something wrong with the first batch. And worst of all, any RMA-ing for me will involve cross-border shipping.

I talked to XSPC about the holes and they said its due to the painting/Baking process, apparently the side plate got warped while baking.. The problem is made worse due to using M4 screws which left no margin for error or warping.

Not all the rads were affected, the 240 and 120 shouldn't be affected by this at all as they are much harder to warp.. Second batch is inbound, guess we'll see what happens, I've been told that all problems have been fixed but I won't be shipping any until I mount fans to one and inspect paint.

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Originally Posted by jab-tech

I talked to XSPC about the holes and they said its due to the painting/Baking process, apparently the side plate got warped while baking.. The problem is made worse due to using M4 screws which left no margin for error or warping.

Not all the rads were affected, the 240 and 120 shouldn't be affected by this at all as they are much harder to warp.. Second batch is inbound, guess we'll see what happens, I've been told that all problems have been fixed but I won't be shipping any until I mount fans to one and inspect paint.

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Good man. :up:

Yep - Again - Thanks John to your commitment to the scene!

90% of my purchases are from Jab-Tech = This is why!

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Originally Posted by Waterlogged

You could always try direct or semi-direct :p:

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Ta. I didn't know TC sold direct!

To get the thread back to the testing that Skinnee has carried out :) Rather than the woes of XSPC's QC and where to buy a TC rad from :D

Skinnee, first great test much appreciated (I can't remember if I posted a thanks before or not so here it is possibly again :)) a couple of questions and potential observations.

1. The Percentage air used calculation how was this value calculated? From the numbers you present I cant work it out to get the same as you, I was taking the difference in air in to water out to be maximum capacity and air out - air in to be the fraction of the air capacity used so for the first set of data 1008rpm,

Air In = 24.01°C, Air Out = 36.10°C and Water Out = 43.37°C

Water Out - Air In = 19.36°C
Air Out - Air In = 12.09°C

So (12.09 / 19.36) x 100 = 62.45%

You report 63.64% so since I guess your table is generated by a spreadsheet you must be doing a different sum care to share? :) My only guess is you use Water In temp for the max instead of Water Out (which incidentally would be what I would do if it was me and I had the data) but that should lower the percentage not increase it...

2. On the subject of Water In temps it would be useful to know what this value was as a check against energy dissipated by the radiator, for example in Martin's test of the MCR220 (http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Swifte...20-Review.html) when using 1000rpm fans the drop in water temperature over the rad is 0.43°C, flowrate was 1.5gpm, and the water temperature was ~40°C (need this for a density calculation).

To calculate the watts dissipated the following equation must be solved,

KiloWatts Dissipated (kJ/s) = Mass Flowrate (kg/s) * Specific Heat (kJ/kg.K) * Temp. Change (K)

So for Martin's scenario,

Mass Flowrate = 1.5 gpm = 5.68 L/m = 0.095 L/s = 0.094 kg/s (Density @ 40°C = 992 kg/m³)
Specific Heat = 4.1813 kJ/kg.K
Temp. Change = 0.43 K

Kilowatts = 0.094*4.1813*0.43 = 0.169 kW = 169W

Martin states that the applied heat load is 302W for that much energy to have been dissipated a temp difference of 0.77 K would be required.

When the fan speed is increased to 3000rpm the temp difference rises to 0.61°C this equates to a heat dissipated of 240W much closer to the applied value of 300W.

I assume that this is an artefact of heat loss from the reservoir, tubing and other equipment in the loop which is amplified as the water temperature in the loop increases, of course what it does mean is that the C/W values are off as the rad is actually not dissipating as much energy as was assumed.

Without Water In temps for your tests I can not compare the different fan speeds to see if your testing follows the same trend, I also have not yet completed my thinking on the ramifications for what it means in terms of calculating C/W we will know how much heat was actually dissipated by the radiator but this is effected by the heat loss in the rest of the loop.

Perhaps insulating all tubing, reservoirs etc would make for a more controlled system in terms of radiator performance.

Anyway good testing hope to see some Water Temp In data so that we can see if the radiator was really dissipating 300W at each fan speed. Or of course a reason why my thinking is flawed.

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Originally Posted by Webby

To get the thread back to the testing that Skinnee has carried out :) Rather than the woes of XSPC's QC and where to buy a TC rad from :D

Skinnee, first great test much appreciated (I can't remember if I posted a thanks before or not so here it is possibly again :)) a couple of questions and potential observations.

1. The Percentage air used calculation how was this value calculated? From the numbers you present I cant work it out to get the same as you, I was taking the difference in air in to water out to be maximum capacity and air out - air in to be the fraction of the air capacity used so for the first set of data 1008rpm,

Air In = 24.01°C, Air Out = 36.10°C and Water Out = 43.37°C

Water Out - Air In = 19.36°C
Air Out - Air In = 12.09°C

So (12.09 / 19.36) x 100 = 62.45%

You report 63.64% so since I guess your table is generated by a spreadsheet you must be doing a different sum care to share? :) My only guess is you use Water In temp for the max instead of Water Out (which incidentally would be what I would do if it was me and I had the data) but that should lower the percentage not increase it...

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You have the calculation right, and when I go into Excel and work the numbers, you're right. I completely goofed on the calculation, I chose the the cell for Air Out Sensor 1 rather than the average for both Air Out Sensors. :shakes:

Thank you for pointing this out, I will update the calc's and charts as well as my radiator template so I don't make this mistake again.

On this, Excel's rounding makes me :mad:, 62.449 is the raw number calc to three decimals, but since Excel uses the raw numbers from the cells I point it at in the forumla, the result is 62.4697%

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Originally Posted by Webby

2. On the subject of Water In temps it would be useful to know what this value was as a check against energy dissipated by the radiator, for example in Martin's test of the MCR220 (http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Swifte...20-Review.html) when using 1000rpm fans the drop in water temperature over the rad is 0.43°C, flowrate was 1.5gpm, and the water temperature was ~40°C (need this for a density calculation).

To calculate the watts dissipated the following equation must be solved,

KiloWatts Dissipated (kJ/s) = Mass Flowrate (kg/s) * Specific Heat (kJ/kg.K) * Temp. Change (K)

So for Martin's scenario,

Mass Flowrate = 1.5 gpm = 5.68 L/m = 0.095 L/s = 0.094 kg/s (Density @ 40°C = 992 kg/m³)
Specific Heat = 4.1813 kJ/kg.K
Temp. Change = 0.43 K

Kilowatts = 0.094*4.1813*0.43 = 0.169 kW = 169W

Martin states that the applied heat load is 302W for that much energy to have been dissipated a temp difference of 0.77 K would be required.

When the fan speed is increased to 3000rpm the temp difference rises to 0.61°C this equates to a heat dissipated of 240W much closer to the applied value of 300W.

I assume that this is an artefact of heat loss from the reservoir, tubing and other equipment in the loop which is amplified as the water temperature in the loop increases, of course what it does mean is that the C/W values are off as the rad is actually not dissipating as much energy as was assumed.

Without Water In temps for your tests I can not compare the different fan speeds to see if your testing follows the same trend, I also have not yet completed my thinking on the ramifications for what it means in terms of calculating C/W we will know how much heat was actually dissipated by the radiator but this is effected by the heat loss in the rest of the loop.

Perhaps insulating all tubing, reservoirs etc would make for a more controlled system in terms of radiator performance.

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I will add the Water In temps to the standard chart I use when posting the test results. I do want to point out that I only use one sensor for Water In, so we do not get the luxury of sensor averaging for water in, which I feel is needed when using the digital sensors just due to their accuracy. Basically, I need to order more sensors to accurately report Water In.

With that said, here are the Water In temps I captured on Water In Sensor 1and averaged acrossed the entire test period (the same as all other sensors)

1000RPM - 43.99
1400RPM - 39.20
1800RPM - 38.10
2300RPM - 35.39
2800RPM - 33.86

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Originally Posted by Webby

Anyway good testing hope to see some Water Temp In data so that we can see if the radiator was really dissipating 300W at each fan speed. Or of course a reason why my thinking is flawed.

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Thanks...even though I made some mistakes in my calc's and data presentation. But thank you for doing the work to point them out, but I am a bit embarassed that I made that mistake. However, I appreciate you pointing it out so I can fix it and make sure it does not happen again.

I will be updating the charts tonight/tomorrow, the charts will automatically update on the first page since the images are hosted by me and not attachments. I will add a post when I have the charts updated though.

Again, thanks Webby! I appreciate the additional work you did to check over the data. You're helping me immensly to better the presentation and accuracy of information! :up:

Skinnee,

Only to happy to help I can't do testing of my own, no space or money for it at the moment but I can happily spend time looking through things and trying to make sense of them if I find something which doesn't make sense to me or I cant work something out then I will ask questions that is just the way I am :)

Just pushed the numbers through my spreadsheet for calculating watts dissipated,

Fanspeed - Water Temp Difference - Watts Dissipated
1000rpm - 0.62°C - 243W
1400rpm - 0.76°C - 298W
1800rpm - 0.81°C - 318W
2300rpm - 0.80°C - 315W
2800rpm - 0.81°C - 319W

Watts dissipated alters slightly with the same temperature difference due to the slight change in density.

Anyway we can see that as you expected a single temperature sensor reading is not enough to achieve the accuracy we need for this calculation, with the error for the sensors that you are using +- 0.2°C measuring the differences we are looking at here in water temps is quite difficult obviously having more sensors will improve the confidence in the readings.

With the actual numbers aside what I can take away from the test is that at low fan speeds <1400rpm the system could probably do with being insulated although your not loosing nearly as much as Martin did through your res and tubing, perhaps with a lower power source 150W for a single rad this would not be an issue as much guess we will have to wait and see what your 360mm rad tests show ;) at the higher speeds it would be fairly safe to assume that the majority of the heat is removed via the radiator.

Oh final point you are using straight distilled water for these tests, yes? This will obviously effect specific heat but guessing you would have mentioned if you were using something else.

Original post updated with proper Air Capacity Used calculations (thanks Webby!) and Pressure Drop info and charts.

So would it be a bad idea for me to try and purchase and use a XSPC RX360 RAD. or is the paint problem just making it look not pretty, but they still perform well? is there any QC problems with them other than the paint thing. I'm trying to hurry and upgrade from my PA120.2 to either a RX360, or a TFC 360. as the PA's don't line up with my soon to be delivered HAF case, it has pre-drilled RAD holes up top for a triple rad, but the PA wont fit them. and the others will. So I either can use what I have now, and drill the case. or I can upgrade to a TFC 360.

So are these RX360's a no go for now?

personally i like the xspc rx360 better then the thermochill pa 120.3
even though i am new hear the xspc rx360 is easier to mount

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Originally Posted by jetroho

This is really sad . Thanks for the heads up on the fan mount , mcoffey . I would not have thought to check the fan mountings for trueness .
I have a rx120 and a rx240 and had planned to get rid of my feser 360 and replace it with the rx360 . I've been water cooling for 6 years and have been wanting
a rad with this open fin design ,fitting size and price point forever . These rad's look to be a perfect replacement for the TC's with their fitting and shroud issues .
Plus the TC's and shrouds are getting to be a drag to find .
The rx120 fan mount is .25mm out of square and .25mm to wide on both sides of the rad . With a little extra effort you can mount a fan . No big deal .
The rx240 on the other hand is off the wall . The fan mount is square enough . Butt the width is 1.4mm to wide......1.4mm . Without slotting out the fan and case mount holes
at least 1.4mm there is no way to mount this rad...............truely sad .
Both of these rad's have the marred paint prob's too . Although not as bad as mcoffey's .
j

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Sorry for the late update .
Jab-Tech has without a doubt the best customer support I've ever encountered :up: John is just super to work with :up::up:

The RX 120 and 240 I got back from RMA are assymbled properly , the fans fit perfectly . At the same time as I RMA'd the 120 and 240 I bought a RX360 .The fans fit properly as well and it is also nicely put together . All three of the rad's have very , very minor paint scuffs . Not any big deal .

John had advised me that the batch of replacement rad's had paint problems . I actually from his description thought they would be fairly ugly . But the rad's I got are not bad . He also personally checked each rad for proper fan fit before sending them out and putting the rest up for sale . If you are looking for a 120 , 240 or 360 high perf rad and do not mind having to possibly paint them . I would head over to Jab-Tech and check out these rad's . They are on sale super cheap :clap::shocked:

I wish I could post some results from these rad's , but it's going be a while before I can get back to my build . A family medical problem is taking all the time I can spare.............
J

I have the numbers for the RX360...the PA is 90% with the MCR320 starting late next week. My sample of the RX360 has minor paint issues, but rubbed right out. Fans aligned and mounted without a problem. When setting up the PA for testing...that damn neoprene gasket, curse those blasted things!

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Originally Posted by skinnee

I have the numbers for the RX360...the PA is 90% with the MCR320 starting late next week. My sample of the RX360 has minor paint issues, but rubbed right out. Fans aligned and mounted without a problem. When setting up the PA for testing...that damn neoprene gasket, curse those blasted things!

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:ROTF:
Pain-in-the-arse right there!
They're a right biatch to get on properly.