360 Radiator Shootout Begins!..

[Church]

I recall once magicool elegant plexi (those with often cracking plexi ends, that unfortunately ruined product at very least until V2 came) that had some serious gains from being all copper and unpainted too.

[meanmoe]

Results are really tight on the slow speed stuff though, many are well within testing error.

What do you estimate your sampling/testing error to be?

[Martinm210]

I am guessing at least a few watts, maybe five to be conservative. I am getting deltas down to probably .2c or better and heat load within a couple of watts as it does fluctuate a bit even with the variac acting somewhat as a line conditioner. I have done a couple of repeat type tests that are coming in nicely with a few percent, but I need to do a few more to really get a good feel.

[Martinm210]

FYI Added the EK-Coolstream RAD XT into the summary charts. The XTX is up next..

[SkItZo]

Amazing work as always Martin, i dont know how you manage to find the time

[Martinm210]

Added the EK-Coolstream RAD XTX (360)..cheers!
Martin

[Church]

Martin: imho it's worth to make 'big chart' at least doubled resolution, now when all the rads in it start to blend. These days with easy image auto-resize and or zoom in/out of them in browsers even overly big pics shouldn't hurt much. I'd love to see 500-1200 part covering at least whole 1024x768 (so probably x3 or x4 res) +maybe separating rad names/line legend from lines itself to side may help readability (probably placed near temps where lines of most rads "crosses", or in section that was most used by most from that fan rpm poll, or even duplicated legend at two or more "popular" usage points.)
EDIT
Also seeing noted nearing measurements to margin of error - how does watts dissipated relate to heatload/delta? If in linear simply calculateable fashion - how about upping a lot heatload and delta (to eg. 20C range) and put calculated numbers in charts? Imho very big heatload and thus increased deltas should make difference in rad effectiveness bigger and error - relatively smaller, no?

[tiborrr]

Thanks Martin!

[Martinm210]

Martin: imho it's worth to make 'big chart' at least doubled resolution, now when all the rads in it start to blend. These days with easy image auto-resize and or zoom in/out of them in browsers even overly big pics shouldn't hurt much. I'd love to see 500-1200 part covering at least whole 1024x768 (so probably x3 or x4 res) +maybe separating rad names/line legend from lines itself to side may help readability (probably placed near temps where lines of most rads "crosses", or in section that was most used by most from that fan rpm poll, or even duplicated legend at two or more "popular" usage points.)
EDIT
Also seeing noted nearing measurements to margin of error - how does watts dissipated relate to heatload/delta? If in linear simply calculateable fashion - how about upping a lot heatload and delta (to eg. 20C range) and put calculated numbers in charts? Imho very big heatload and thus increased deltas should make difference in rad effectiveness bigger and error - relatively smaller, no?

Well, if you can't see a difference in the line charts, realistically the difference is well within testing error. I've manage to condition my line using the variac and getting better than ever heat load numbers, but there is still a fluctuation of maybe 2 watts. I probably have another 2-3 watts in error from very slightly fluctuating ambients. I have figured out how to dial in my electric heater to nearly hold the ambient perfectly flat which helps a ton and also doing tons of QC work on making sure the data is right before moving on, but on a 100 watt heat load a .2-3C error is still a few watts. In the end I would suggest considering anything within about 5 watts or so statistically insignificant. While I'm not retesting enough to develop standard deviations, I have done a little retesting to know that its better than ever but still not perfect and off a few percent.

With that said, as you can see by the 600RPM bar chart, the top 2/3rds of the radiators are all performing within that 5watt margin, so if I zoom in any more than that all you are looking at is error margins.

Testing at a higher heat load could improve accuracy, but I'm pretty big on keeping things real. If an average system is running 10C deltas, I want to test at about that delta. If I can't separate radiators running 17ea .2C accuracy thermal sensors logging thousands of records over hours of time...perhaps that's enough to say they are the same..no?

This will be all from me for a while...already had the kids buggy out this afternoon getting all muddy. I may have a few more radiators coming in a few weeksn and I may do some of the specialty fan/port stuff as I see fit, but this is a good milestone to take a break for a while.

I hope this has been helpful, it is time for someone else to carry on the community testing torch once again.

I'm off on vacation until (if?) I get more radiators...
Cheers!
Martin

[scamps]

Great work as always!
Enjoy your holidays!

[squick3n]

Thanks a lot Martinm. It has indeed been very helpful.

[aerial]

Differences are really small for the low speed setups. I guess if build quality, and general appearance of the rad is not important 9rad is well hidden for example), going for SR1 isn't really worth the price. Even good old swiftech is doing very well, as expected.

[squick3n]

I can see why Alphacool puts so many ports on its rads. Have at least two on mine that are too small. Not going to check for a third (or fourth) as it's going back.

[scamps]

... Have at least two on mine that are too small....

Could you please explain that? Or even better: take a pic?

[squick3n]

Could you please explain that? Or even better: take a pic?

no real way to capture it with a camera. The female ports on the radiator are not threaded wide enough. the fitting gets half way in and then stops. if you try to force it, it just gets stuck

[Martinm210]

no real way to capture it with a camera. The female ports on the radiator are not threaded wide enough. the fitting gets half way in and then stops. if you try to force it, it just gets stuck

Weird, you probably have a case of bad barbs.

You got my curiosity though, so I just did a quick look myself with the following fittings on the UT60:

• XSPC compression
• Swiftech barb
• Monsoon compression
• Koolance compression
• Bitspower compression
• D-Tek barb
• Bitpower Fatboy Barb
• Bitpower Rotary 45
• Danger Den Fatboy Barb
• Bitspower Rotary 90
• Fesser Compression

All passed with flying colors for me.

Only thing I can think of is I have seen a few odd barbs out there with larger than normal G1/4 threading that are extra tight in some blocks. That or you got unlucky with the particular sample. I think since most female threads are cut with a tap, it's more likely the barbs threading is either too big, or the thread undercut too shallow. I have seen a few barbs with the threading undercut being too shallow too where if the countersink isn't deep enough the threading will stop short, but that too is a barb issue.

[squick3n]

Weird, you probably have a case of bad barbs.

You got my curiosity though, so I just did a quick look myself with the following fittings on the UT60:

• XSPC compression
• Swiftech barb
• Monsoon compression
• Koolance compression
• Bitspower compression
• D-Tek barb
• Bitpower Fatboy Barb
• Bitpower Rotary 45
• Danger Den Fatboy Barb
• Bitspower Rotary 90
• Fesser Compression

All passed with flying colors for me.

Only thing I can think of is I have seen a few odd barbs out there with larger than normal G1/4 threading that are extra tight in some blocks. That or you got unlucky with the particular sample. I think since most female threads are cut with a tap, it's more likely the barbs threading is either too big, or the thread undercut too shallow. I have seen a few barbs with the threading undercut being too shallow too where if the countersink isn't deep enough the threading will stop short, but that too is a barb issue.

I purchased a 1x120 rad UT60. Perfect. Flawless. Couldn't be happier.

I also purchased a 3x120 XT45. One of the plenum chambers is ever so slightly crocked. I tried DD fatboys, Koolance Compression fittings, Enzotech barbs, and a few miscellaneous adapters from Bitspower, Koolance, and Enzotech. Nothing fit that one side, on any of the ports. Well, except stop plugs, which don't go as deep.

I really wanted that XT45 to work. I needed it to help bleed and drain my loop from its top mounted position. When I drained my loop last time I had a lot of trouble getting all the water out, and it was quite messy during dis-assembly.

[Martinm210]

I purchased a 1x120 rad UT60. Perfect. Flawless. Couldn't be happier.

I also purchased a 3x120 XT45. One of the plenum chambers is ever so slightly crocked. I tried DD fatboys, Koolance Compression fittings, Enzotech barbs, and a few miscellaneous adapters from Bitspower, Koolance, and Enzotech. Nothing fit that one side, on any of the ports. Well, except stop plugs, which don't go as deep.

I really wanted that XT45 to work. I needed it to help bleed and drain my loop from its top mounted position. When I drained my loop last time I had a lot of trouble getting all the water out, and it was quite messy during dis-assembly.

Ahhh ok,.. I would either RMA, or run a G1/4 tap down there, sounds like maybe it was a tapered tap that didn't go down far enough or something.

[Raul-7]

Hate to bother you like this, but any chance you could squeeze a few Delta runs in before taking a well-deserved vacation?

I'm interested in seeing how the XP, XTX, GTX and UT60 preform with 38mm 3000RPM fans.

[Trox]

Waiting to see EX360, U$S86 solution sound great for me

[Martinm210]

I want I want I want....

Too bad...

This is the only testing I'm doing in the immediate future...


Ok, maybe not. I may have a few straggler rads rolling in...maybe...we will see.

In the mean time..cheers!

[SkItZo]

Thanks Martin. You've more than earned a break :

[squick3n]

You should hire an intern. With these rads so closely placed together, I'm curious now how great an impact individual fans have on heat dissipation at 10T. Does the AP-14 match cheaper 1800RPM fans?

[Martinm210]

Added the Alphacool ST30 in there with some surprising results at the slow speed side of things...

[Church]

Hmm, best in sub 900? I wonder what in it's design might have caused it :/