View Full Version : XSPC Water Cooling Range
Does anyone know how XSPC match up to Thermochill, Danger Den etc...
I would also like to know how their DC1000 pump matches up to the swiftech 650?
Any ideas/ experience with their products?
I had an XSPC single rad, it performed about 3-5c better than my ex-thermochill. I've also heard people say the triple (I have this) is better than thermo's triple. No experience with stuff like blocks and pumps tho. Plus XSPC's gear looks nice imo.
A.O.D (QW97)
25-05-2005, 21:37
XSPC is a copper rad too, so some say better heat dissapation. Certainly on looks the XSPC has it, I used one on Orgasmatron.
Rchiileea
26-05-2005, 08:52
i havnt looked at any of there stuff yet but the buzz (feedback) i have heard is nothing but praise. Also make the crossflow rads with the inlet on one side and the outlet on another. great for all kinds of setup possibilitys :). i have one of there rather sexy looking resivours on the way to look at :)
I have also only heard that they are some what superior to the competing brands. It would be nice to see some reviews of the products head-2-head in a detailed review.
There is practically no information on the pumps that they have - I'd like to see how they match up to the others on the market.
Rchiileea
27-05-2005, 15:32
oherr res arrived today and its very nice
I have also only heard that they are some what superior to the competing brands. It would be nice to see some reviews of the products head-2-head in a detailed review.
There is practically no information on the pumps that they have - I'd like to see how they match up to the others on the market.
Am sending a selection of XSPC gear over to Cathar to analyse and compare vs current HE series, proposed modified HE Series (PA120.x), and PA160. So far it doesn't look like XSPC or the manufacturers of the rad have done any quantifiable testing on them... Radiical in Australia are happy to quote C/W figures for the rads but won't release which fans or pump combo were used to achieve this rating, so they're beginning to come under question... you can't provide a rating without specifying the conditions under which that rating was achieved, or no enduser can duplicate that rating.
XSPC is a copper rad too
That will also hopefully be established either way as so far there's no way to physically tell... involves desoldering the tubes to find out if they're brass / solder dipped or copper / solder dipped. The actual difference to performance of having copper vs brass tubes should only amount to a fraction of a degree... s'more likely the less dense FPI makes them better with lower CFM fans, whereas if you're whacking Pelts everywhere, the higher FPI of the ThermoChill coupled with topend high CFM screamers should beat the XSPC hands down. So far no review has produced enough heatload to top out either rad to actually find out conclusively which will handle the most heat.
End of the day, HE Series ThermoChills were made for a different purpose back in the day when everone beleived more fins was better.... and TECs were in use more for topend benchmarking, before the phasechange boom. Another of those watercooling myths. Only now are people conclusively discovering this not to be the case and that the same goals can be achieved with lower FPI and lower CFM fans... the PA160 being the only example of this that I know of at the moment... we are currently undergoing modelling based on PA160 results to improve the HE series, altho we won't discontinue the HE series as that invalidates the review that all the models are based on. This modified/updated version should be released as the PA120 range within the next month or two... hence no appearance of a PA160.2 - there'll be a PA120.1 and PA120.2 instead hopefully... with the PA120.2 in theory being able to match or beat the ThermoChill HE120.3
Still crunching numbers and modelling graphs etc at the mo to arrive on final spec, and then several prototypes to test and confirm the models, then they'll be up for full retail production.
The XSPC radiator range is actually made in China and exported OEM Style afaik to XSPC, Alphacool, Radiical (Australian), and a few others, and is just a clone of the Innovatek Dual 120mm InnovaRadi. The crossflow design is the same rad with baffles knocked out and different endtanks. They cloned the ThermoChill HE Series originally, but it never made the market place... they're popular over there for cloning European and USA technology and mass manufacturing it with bowl-of-rice-a-day labour, hence the price is so low... meanwhile slowly creating a nightmare for the European and US manufacturers as they seek to sink us as there's no way any of us can compete with their ridiculously low labour costs.
I would also like to know how their DC1000 pump matches up to the swiftech 650?
No idea on reliability/build quality and the like, but the pressure head generated is much lower and as such you will get far higher block performance out of the Swiftech pump.
Oh, and not a sniff of anything innovative in their product lineup...
T00thBru5h
08-06-2005, 22:01
XSPC products are great quality and their CPU blocks have done well in reviews, beating some DD TDX block of somesort.
Their tubing is also great :cool:
XSPC products are great quality and their CPU blocks have done well in reviews, beating some DD TDX block of somesort.
Their tubing is also great :cool:
Were the reviews done by anyone with the first clue about thermodynamics and testing? To date the only people I have seen who do decent waterblock testing are Bill Adams (who now works only for Swiftech), Phaestus (who hasn't tested anything by XSPC) and Cathar (who hasn't published much by the way of waterblock testing figures meaning you can't really compare his results to those for the other two yet, and in any case has IIRC not tested their waterblock yet either). Everyone else belongs to the school of "plug it into the loop and see what happens" - which given the conditions they work under means that their results are worthless at best and downright misleading at worst. The reviews at Madshrimps are a good example of someone who doesn't have a clue dressing up a review in technical language for the gullible, but the internet is full of such reviews. Until proper testing is done for a variety of flowrates where the water inlet-CPU delta T is measured accurately and repeatably for a variety of reference waterblocks in addition to this one (to account for the varying heat loads of different test beds) we won't be able to know how it performs or even compare it to other waterblocks accurately.
Looking at photos however, my initial impression of the block is the same as for the radiators - designed on the cheap by someone who knows little and cares less about watercooling who found someone else's design to copy. It does not look promising, but I'm rather reluctant to dismiss it without proper test data. First impression is that their products are designed for bling alone. Rather like PolarFlo...
I've been through all the brands and have just had their 2x12 rad arrive and their reservoir. The quality seems to be quite high, so they must be feeding their workers good rice!
I have not made any performance comparisons yet, but one review found that the XSPC out did the Thermochill under heavier load. Don't quote me on that, as I can't remember where I saw it!
I have not made any performance comparisons yet, but one review found that the XSPC out did the Thermochill under heavier load. Don't quote me on that, as I can't remember where I saw it!
I wouldn't be surprised if one reviewer wrote it - but unless they have a well air-conditioned wind tunnel don't expect me to believe they're right!
I test air and water-cooled pumps (turbomolecular vacuum pumps actually) at work, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get a steady coolant flow temperature (which is absolutely required if you want decent data). Just to get a single data point frequently takes me all morning or even all day (and several thousand quid worth of kit). Even then I put an accuracy limit on it of around +/- 2 degrees simply due to the measurement accuracy of the thermocouples I use. When I see people who take none of these precautions claiming that one radiator is better because they've got a 1 deg C difference (presumably taken from the CPU diode, which is notoriously inaccurate and variable) my reaction is somewhere between laughter and contempt.
There were literally minuscule differences, like you say. Every test will have differences due to the huge number of variables envolved.
You sound like the ideal nominee to test these things! :D Then we'd have something good to go by...
No way! I know just how much work is involved, and only have access to (some) of the kit I would need while at work - where they actually pay me!
Having said that, I could probably get some quite good readings at work if they decided to pay me to do so - they've got the logging kit, air conditioning and power analysers available, but it would take ages and I still wouldn't be able to get P/Q curves for the air and water sides (critical when comparing radiators as part of a system - I could get C/W figures but they are only part of the story).
T00thBru5h
09-06-2005, 00:26
At the end of the day, buy a rad that does pretty much the same job for 40 quid or buy one for 60 quid :confused: The answer is 40 :o
No way! I know just how much work is involved, and only have access to (some) of the kit I would need while at work - where they actually pay me!
Having said that, I could probably get some quite good readings at work if they decided to pay me to do so - they've got the logging kit, air conditioning and power analysers available, but it would take ages and I still wouldn't be able to get P/Q curves for the air and water sides (critical when comparing radiators as part of a system - I could get C/W figures but they are only part of the story).
Which is now the crucial problem... there isn't ANYONE who will undertake PROPER radiator testing now that it has been made known the extent of the work involved to do so. I've been investigating extensively, offering large sums of money (the BillA ThermoChill review did cost us several thousand for his time to do it... proper testing only ever happens at someone's cost...), and no-one will take up the challenge. As such the best we can go off at the moment is deduced C/W ratings which can only be used if a flowrate, airflowrate and fan backpressure are provided, or a specific fan stated... Cathar is handling the majority of this testing on the ThermoChill series of products at the moment and producing good useable results as the testing variables are defined. These figures are in no way comparable however to BillA's original results... BUT, these original results were the figures used for the models used to simulate and predict the performance of various characteristics of a rad that allowed us to come up with the PA160.
There are two crowds in this market... those who care about price, and those that want proper quantifiable performance. Those that seek proper performance know which choice to make... those who only care about price and heresay simply go with the cheapest.
We have no interest in that corner of the market. We'd rather provide watercooling products to those that care about their watercooling enough to base their decision on factual testing, rather than a > b comparisons done with nowhere enough heatload applied for them to be valid. EG: ThermoChill HE120.3 - tested and confirmed at 550w heatload by BillA with quantifiable variables. I haven't seen any review of any other rad where this level of heatload is applied, therefore not testing the rad to it's max capabilities.
Either way, changes are planned for the HE Series to adapt them to conform to what we now conclusively know about required and suitable characteristics for rads for the purpose for which we use them...
End of the day, HE Series was designed strictly for high end users applying SERIOUS heatloads, ie: TECs, with Delta fans. The FPI & core thickness is designed for hi-cfm, so if you buy a thermochill and use a fan weaker than the papst 4312L then your performance is going to be shocking in comparison to a less dense FPI rad with the same fan. Anyone in the know could tell you that... so unless reviews are done with the correct fans that the rad was designed to be used for, then a > b results are pointless. And the XSPC/AlphaCool/Radiical/Chinese-thing was designed with no particular fan in mind, hence they won't provide CFM & flow ratings etc needed to achieve their quoted c/w ratings.
Which is now the crucial problem... there isn't ANYONE who will undertake PROPER radiator testing now that it has been made known the extent of the work involved to do so. I've been investigating extensively, offering large sums of money (the BillA ThermoChill review did cost us several thousand for his time to do it... proper testing only ever happens at someone's cost...), and no-one will take up the challenge. As such the best we can go off at the moment is deduced C/W ratings which can only be used if a flowrate, airflowrate and fan backpressure are provided, or a specific fan stated... Cathar is handling the majority of this testing on the ThermoChill series of products at the moment and producing good useable results as the testing variables are defined. These figures are in no way comparable however to BillA's original results... BUT, these original results were the figures used for the models used to simulate and predict the performance of various characteristics of a rad that allowed us to come up with the PA160.
Marci, I might be able to help out with that in a year or two's time. I've got the theoretical background (MEng in fluid mechanics/thermodynamics) and the testing experience through work, but right now I don't have the space to test in (major obstacle) or the equipment required (less of a problem if Thermochill have an equipment budget). If you're interested email me on pdf27 at f2s dot com and we can discuss what would be required.
This does depend on my having a similar amount of free time to what I have now (definately not a given) but that sort of testing is the sort of thing my twisted mind would find interesting.
vBulletin® v3.7.1, Copyright ©2000-2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.