TFC Monsta Pictures and Pressure Drop Testing

[Martinm210]

Just having some fun with the MONSTA...pictures just don't do this radiator justice. It is HUGE!




I think my HWlabs 480GTX and TFC 480 are looking a bit skimpy...lol!

Here are a few other random pics. They really go all out in the packaging.



Kudos on the awesome custom foam packaging, it even houses the accessories neatly into their own pockets.




Still waiting for my testing pump to do thermal stuff, so in the mean time I did the pressure drop testing.

No real surprise here considering the quad thickness 140mm two pass design, but the TFC Monsta is KING OF LOW PRESSURE DROP! It beat every other radiator in this area. It's about half as restrictive as my old MCR320 and about 1/5th as restrictive as the HWlabs 480GTX. This won't amount to huge temperature gains, but it's clearly very very low in restriction and you should not at all be afraid to run multiple radiators in the same loop. It's also comforting to know, your CPU block will have the very highest amount of flow rate you can get.

Very nice!!
First up, here is the fitting I used to test with, a standard 1/2" DD Fatboy Barb.


And for those that like 1/2" Compression fittings, I would recommend these 45 degree fittings. They have a much larger ID at the opening than most barbs and there's plenty of clearance room. Regular 3/4" OD compression fittings won't fit without extensions.




And this is the actual test in progress. I used household water pressure to feed the test and controlled flow with a standard sink valve. For flow rate I used my King Instruments flow rate meter. For pressure drop I used my Dwyer 477 Digital manometer. I tested pressure drop points right next to the inlet and outlet to eliminate any restriction from tubing, etc. This is the same format I've used for all my pressure drop testing.


Here are the detailed results testing at .5GPM increments up to 4.5GPM and using an excel second order poly to produce the trendline.


And here is the comparison chart....
The TFC Monsta is KING OF LOW RADIATOR PRESSURE DROP!

[eRazorzEDGE]

great stuff as always, martin.

i'm really curious to see how this 420/360 "quad" thick rad does in comparison to say a 480 "double" thick rad... temp wise.

[dsumanik]

Wont be long and we will all know, this comparision is inevitable..thanks for the preview Martin I got two of these badboys just waiting to cool my rig...

[Garrett]

I thought you had retired from testing Martin... but great work as usual
It's a monster rad indeed

[Martinm210]

I thought you had retired from testing Martin... but great work as usual
It's a monster rad indeed

I did...but I couldn't resist a little playing with the new toys while I was down waiting for parts on the other hobbies(yamaha banshee rebuild)..

I will do a little thermal testing, but I'm not sure what fans I'll use yet. I have a pump on order and the triebwerk fans I can use, but I don't have any 140mm fans yet or other spare fans I can use.

Thinking I'll mount this beast to the top of my torture rack somehow..it'll go nicely with the two 480s..

[NaeKuh]

martin can u stand one up next to a 480 for a size comparison?

im still debating if its possible to stuff one of these badboys in a pedistool.

[Martinm210]

martin can u stand one up next to a 480 for a size comparison?

im still debating if its possible to stuff one of these badboys in a pedistool.

Sure, here is a few standing next to my TFC 480.

[NaeKuh]

thanks martin... yea its too big for the pedistol indeed.

[Martinm210]

thanks martin... yea its too big for the pedistol indeed.

Time to send Ben a sketch of your new custom case you want him to build for ya...

[DarthBeavis]

DD has one of their towers with a monsta installed and signed at their facility

[eva2000]

wow very nice...HUGE ASS RAD!

i use TFC 480 now but a monster looks good

[02wrxgt30r]

Man that is one big and darn good looking RAD and good to see the great flow characteristics

[*|T2D|*PopovS]

Thank you for review Martin! This is great info.

[skinnee]

Its good to finally see some true testing results, thanks Martin!

[bluehaze]

I love this rad lol The price is crazy but it looks so awesome in person! I swapped out my Magicool Elegant 360 with a Monsta and temps dropped 5c. non scientific test of course just using prime to load cpu for a few hours at max oc highest temp with magicool was 80 highest with Monsta was 75. Going to add a 295 GTX to the loop monday and see what happens.

[Shlomo]

So, who wants to be the first person to stack one of these?

[cx-ray]

Thanks for testing!

I think there might be a small error in the PA120.3 pressure drop graph though. Provided the two tests are comparable it looks like in this test you used the results from the PA with EK G3/8 barbs instead of the better performing FatBoy G1/4?

http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Thermo..._3-Review.html

According to the above the PA has a slightly lower pressure than the Monsta.

[HESmelaugh]

Nice! That rad is really unrestrictive.

[G-UNIT91]

martinm FTW!!!

[gOtVoltage]

OMG Monsta makes a CYNDER BLOCK look small...

[ibm390s]

nice work martin. the rad looks pretty cool.

[Martinm210]

Thanks for testing!

I think there might be a small error in the PA120.3 pressure drop graph though. Provided the two tests are comparable it looks like in this test you used the results from the PA with EK G3/8 barbs instead of the better performing FatBoy G1/4?

http://martin.skinneelabs.com/Thermo..._3-Review.html

I used the native threading 1/2" barb for the curves for each radiator with the exception of the Swiftech rad which I used 5/8" barbs. That's probably closer to what the new G1/4" design will be anyhow. More than anything, just note that these rads are very low in pressure drop, so low that minor things like barb selection can make measureable PD differences.

[Martinm210]

I had some questions about the tubes and flow path, hopefully this helps give you a sense:



A typical 120mm double thickness radiator has 12 columns of tubes two rows deep (except the RX series which has three rows).

# Tubes

Typical Slim 120mm radiator = 12 each
Typical Double thickness 120mm radiator = 24 each
Monsta 120/140 Quad thickness = 56 each

This is the main reason it has very low restriction, it has over twice the number of tubes to flow through as a normal double thickness design. These extra tubes are needed both for the 140mm width and also the quad thickness.

[defect9]

holy. freaking. crap.

that's a lotta tubes

[dpokrajac0]

That rad is monster.