L
et’s face it—today’s heatsink-and-fan combos just don’t cut it for major overclocking. They’re
either too inefficient to maintain a stable temperature, or loud enough to drown out the
footfalls of approaching Combine soldiers. You need water cooling, and you can get it
one of three ways. You can buy an expensive, preconfigured water-cooled PC; you can
purchase a case with a built-in water-cooling system; or you can bag yourself a
water-cooling kit and install it in the PC you already own. This last approach
is the most practical for most folks, but we don’t blame you for being
apprehensive about accepting on faith that whatever kit you pick will
be rugged, reliable, and worth the effort of installation.
And so this month, Maximum PC puts its own PCs at risk, so you
don’t have to. We’ll explain how water cooling works, tell you
what you need to install a water-cooling system, and walk you
through the results of our extensive hands-on evaluation of
four kits. If, after you’ve read the reviews, you decide to
take the plunge, we’ll share 10 pitfalls we encountered
while building these kits—and offer tips on how you
can avoid them. With that, we invite
you to dive in: The water’s fine.MAY 2005 MA XIMUMPC 49
Serious overclocking requires serious cooling.
Maximum PC dips its toes into four do-it-yourself
water-cooling kits that promise to help you squeeze
every last drop of performance from your rig
WATER PUMPRADIATORWATER BLOCK
RESERVOIR WATER COOLING IN ACTION
Water cooling is such an easy concept that
even dogs get it: Run through the sprinkler
on a hot day and you’ll cool off. Of course,
you can’t just hose down your CPU and
call it a day. Water-cooling kits operate by
pumping water through a closed circuit,
wicking away heat from your PC’s vital
components. Here’s how each part in a typical
water-cooling kit contributes to that objective.WATER PUMP The water pump is the engine that
pushes water around the circuit. The pump sucks water
in through one port and pushes it out another, by way of
a motor that spins an impeller. Two primary characteristics
differentiate water pumps: The amount of water they can move
through the system, and the amount of noise they create in the process.
The higher the pump’s flow rate and the wider the diameter of tubing the system
uses, the cooler your system will be. You want a pump that moves the most amount of
water while producing the least amount of sound.WATER BLOCK A water block is a copper heatsink that mounts directly to your CPU, GPU, chipset,
or other heat-generating component. Water enters the block through an inlet port, and the water is then
pushed through small channels that curve around inside the block. This design allows the water to absorb as
much heat as possible before exiting the water block via an outlet port.RESERVOIR Most cooling kits include a reservoir, which is just a small holding tank of distilled water (usually
mixed with additives that promote heat transfer and prevent corrosion). The reservoir is always placed at the
highest point in the cooling circuit, above the pump and water blocks, so gravity and pressure can help its
contents flow down into the circuit, typically directly into the water pump’s inlet port.RADIATOR When the water gets to the radiator, it’s plenty warm and needs to be cooled. The radiator brings
down the temperature by sending the water though a snaking series of interconnected tubes within its fins
(the flat surfaces that spike out of the unit). The radiator’s fins increase the surface area over which heat is
distributed, which helps cool the water inside the tubes more quickly. A large, high-volume fan, meanwhile,
blows cool air through the radiator, wicking away the heat collected in the pipes. Ë