Koolance's Response to Hardware Labs "The Copper Radiator Myth"

[Cathar]

Oh, something I wanted to ask to Cathar (I believe he had something to do with the design of the PA series rad) and to Marci.

I was the primary designer & tester of the PA120 radiators in terms of providing guidance on what to change to make them better. I ran competitive performance tests, ran analysis of prototypes, devised theories for the ideal mechanical attributes for the radiators, researched fan power, noise, back-pressure targets, and through a series of iterative prototype analyses provided the design suggestion feedback that determined the path of the product. Marci handled the manufacturing & engineering side of things. Through his team, he was responsible for doing what had to be done to take the set of design guidelines that I was putting forwards, and determine how to best map them into a physical reality using the highest quality components. Some of what I was suggesting wasn't possible, so Marci and I collaborated until we came to a mutual understanding of how to best combine the physical and theoretical realities into a real item.

How would an all aluminium PA series radiator compare - a few adjustments can be granted, but essentially the same product.

In other words, is there anything at all in Koolances statements about aluminium. I'm happy to accept - thanks to the studies done - that a combination of their materials, manufacturing process and design do not produce a superior radiator.

This is NOT an easy question to answer. We must always factor the properties of the coolant into the overall performance aspect. While it may be possible to design a superior aluminium radiator for pure water use (I really don't know - I didn't research that) the reality is that copper/silver makes for the best performing affordable waterblocks, and we simply cannot mix aluminium and copper together in a pure water system without incurring devastating corrosion. There must alway be some amount of anti-corrosion protection added, and this will always negatively impact the overall performance of both the radiator and the waterblocks.

Further, since it cannot be guaranteed that users will always take the required steps to provide corrosion protection for their systems, this then automatically invalidated the choice of aluminium as a potential radiator material, and that is why I never researched it.

Without knowing the amount of corrosion protection required, and the level of performance degradation incurred as a result at the waterblocks, it is impossible to state which is the higher performing item. We may conduct short-term tests using pure water, but the reality is that an all copper system can be run pure-water-only, while a mixed-metal system must be run with coolant. This is then another flaw in any testing methodology that does not account for these requirements. If we're testing aluminium against copper, we should also be running 50:50 coolant/water for the aluminium scenario, and pure-water for the copper scenario, because only THAT will reflect real-world use.

So, you see, the question is not easy to answer, and due to the non foolproof nature of the use of aluminium in a non-pre-packaged product, we didn't even consider it as a realistically viable end-user solution.