Components & Mounting
This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.
Included in its design, the Z4 aqua incorporates an unique mounting clamp that utilizes the 4 holes on the mother board. The results of this design are an extremely secure, simple to use mounting device. Because this clamp uses the four holes on your mobo to mount the block, you must remove the motherboard in order to mount it or to make it easier next time cut a small hole in your mother board tray by the CPU to allow you to remove the water block and change your CPU later..
The heater core dimensions are roughly 6”/6”/2” and it came equipped with half inch fittings which required about 5-7 inches, from the back of the rad ,of clearance to allow for the water lines to be connected properly inside the case. The shroud consists of a milled piece of plastic about 1” thick and fits perfectly over the entire heater-core which in returns allows for the air to be drawn across the entire rad not just the 120 mm area where the fan is .Another benefit of the shroud is that by placing the fan back an inch from the rad the air does not cause a whistling sound like it would if it was placed directly against the rad .Any 120mm fan should work with this shroud so if you feel your rad isn’t doing the job it should with the slower rpm fans, you can easily exchange it for a higher CFM fan .
The Enermax fan [model #uc-12fab-b not shown] comes with a manual adjustment switch to allow for speeds between 1500 rpm and 2300 rpm’s. While this rpm adjustment helps to ensure a quiet running system it should be noted that quietness [due to less rpms] comes at a cost of a few degrees hotter cpu temperatures. This temperature increase happens because there is less air being drawn across the rads fins due to the fans rpms being turned down. [The CFM rating of this fan is 65-80cfm depending on the fans rpm and has a noise level of 35-45dba according to my sources].
Well enough on the equipment looks and design, its time to move onto the testing procedures and results.
