SUMMARY: Computers aren't getting cooler, and as this is true, we are seeing more and more water cooling products hit the market place as the said style of product slowly gets closer to becoming a mainstream commodity. Today Cameron "Sov" Johnson takes a look at the Koolance EXOS External Water Cooling System. How does the near silent system compare to air cooling? Read on!
As of late, computers and computer components have been getting faster and faster. Market demands more speed per dollar. While companies have been giving us this, it also has resulted in one big problem - heat.
Heat is one of the biggest killers of computer components, along with user miss-use and static discharge. Heat prevents good signal contact between the resistor gates, this means far more missed packets of data being transmitted, components working overtime to restore the lost data and even total system corruption.
While air cooling has been getting a lot better, the choice for overclockers without having to cart a fridge driven system is water. Water is able to remove up to 2x the amount of heat from a component than air alone can do, combined with the right coolant and proper components you can have yourself a cool running computer, pardon the pun. While having the advantage of keeping the system much cooler than an air cooled system, water cooling also allows for a much quieter system, how do you ask? Simple.
In most water cooled systems that have been setup properly, the pump will be submerged and impeller driven, this means the water itself acts as a barrier for the sound, CPU heatsinks have been removed and water blocks are added - this eliminates one fan already. Next you can do the Northbridge chipset and GPU providing you have the right equipment, this is two extra fans gone. Only a simple radiator fan to remove heat from the coolant and the PSU fan are left, resulting in a much quieter system.
We have already looked at one external water cooling system, the Corsair HydroCool system from funnily enough, Corsair, our memory manufacturing friends. Today we take a look at an older but still popular product from the good people at Koolance who have had this baby on the market for a bit now and we have been given the chance to take a look at just how they have come to solve our heat problem using water.
