Included Accessories
Along with the hardware components, XSPC includes all components necessary with the exception of coolant to get your cooling loop up and running, including fans, mounting hardware, tubing, and LEDs for component back-lighting.
In standard XSPC style, the kit's manual details out setting up all aspects of the system including recommended flow patterns. While the manual covers configurations not in the kit, it is highly detailed and contains more than enough information to get you up and running well.
For mounting the CPU block on an Intel board, XSPC includes kits for LGA115X, LGA1366, and LGA2011 type sockets. The back plate with a "T" shape cut-out is for the LGA115X socket boards, while the "X" patterned back plate is used for the LGA1366 and LGA2011 socket boards. Note that with an LGA2011 socket board, you have the option of using the "X" bracket with the standard pole assemblies or of using the double-threaded poles. The double-threaded poles screw directly into the stock LGA2011 socket plate, negating the need for use of the specialized "X" back plate. For AMD AM3 and AM3+ boards, the stock back plate is used for mounting.
The screw-pole assemblies for block hold-down on LGA115X and AMD boards includes the pole assembly itself, a tapered nut screwed to the top of the pole, a tension spring, and metal and plastic washers. The spring sits in a groove in the metal nut, resting against the metal washer. The plastic washer sits underneath the metal washer, in between the metal washer and the mount plate surface. This protects the aluminum mounting plate surface from unnecessary scratching and wear. The bottom of the screw-pole screws into the back plate. Once tightened down all the way into the back plate, you then unscrew the lower nut to exert additional pressure on the tension spring. This allows for additional mating pressure between the block and CPU surfaces. For an LGA2011 board, the nut is fully removed from the base pole and screwed into the LGA2011-specific double-threaded poles after placing the plastic washer, metal washer, and spring on top of the block mount plate and through the pole.
XSPC includes dual ended 3mm blue LEDs, powered via a MOLEX connector, for CPU block back-lighting and their own branded X2 thermal compound.
For mounting the radiator, XSPC includes eight fan screws and eight short screws to affix the radiator directly to the case, black-colored to fit in with the radiator coloration. Additionally, four mounting brackets, eight rubber o-rings, and eight steel screws are included to custom mount the radiator to the outside of the case. The rubber o-rings are to minimize vibration from the fans when hanging the radiator. For connecting the water channels, six black-chromed 1/2" barbs and six plastic barb clamps are included. The 24-pin power connector can be used to power on the PSU out the system to leak test your loop in a safe location (away from your motherboard and electronics).
For mounting the reservoir to your case, XSPC includes eight black colored mounting screws. A 5mm LED, powered via a wired-in MOLEX connector, is also included to back-light the reservoir via the LED port in the back of the unit.
To cool the liquid flowing through the radiator, XSPC includes two 120mm fans and two black-chromed wire fan grills. The fans are 7-finned units rated to run at 12V and 0.18 amps. The fans are rated to run at 1650 RPM (revolutions per minutes), pushing air at a rate of up to 65.2 CFM (cubic feet per minute) with a force of 3.3 mm-H2O (mm of water) or 32 Pa (Pascals).
For connecting the radiator, reservoir, and CPU water block, XSPC includes 2 meters of their clear, high-flex tubing. The provided tubing has an inner diameter of 7/16" and an outer diameter of 5/8". It is compatible with 1/2" barbs or 7/16" x 5/8" compression fittings.
I love these bundled kits
I love these bundled kits from XSPC, but I’ve had terrible experience with these specific pumps. I had one die after about a year, the replacement was DOA and the replacement replacement makes inordinate amounts of humming noise when it first starts, but then quiets down.
All of their other products have been wonderful though! Waterblock, radiators, fittings, etc. I wouldn’t ever buy another pump from them (although the bay design is very handy!)
Seems better to just get a
Seems better to just get a H100i if all you need to do is cool the CPU. cheaper and more convenient.
With good sealed systems, I will only use a custom setup if I need to watercool multiple items and want to do a setup using multiple radiators (eg cooling the CPU, VRM, chipset, and GPU)
I wish they could make a compound radiator, eg a single 120mm radiator divided into 2 sections (essentially 2 separate radiators that are in a housing that can fit in a 120mm mount) this way I can do a neat setup of a 240mm radiator for the CPU, and 1 half of a single 120mm radiator for the VRM and the other half for the chipset, and finally another 120-140mm radiator for the GPU, and a good pump
One problem you run into with
One problem you run into with compound radiators is cooling ability. In the case of serially-stacked radiators, you get only about 1.5x the performance compared to a single radiator because of pressure drop – serialization doesn't work as well with radiators as it does with water blocks. With parallel radiators, you either need double the fans or fans with higher static pressure so that air can effectively pass through both radiators. In both cases, you are using air that has been heated up passing through the first radiator to get to the second.
If you have two indendent chambers sitting side by side, you would effectively half your cooling performance in either loop because you have half the amount of space for the water to flow through as well as half the amount of surface area for heat transfer from water to air.
The reason I would like a
The reason I would like a split radiator, is to cool lower heat components e.g., the chipset and the VRM’s.
Mainly trying to make use of 3 top 120-140mm exhaust fans, as well as a rear 120-140mm exhaust fan, with no stacking of radiators, to cool the CPU, and GPU.
Will a powerful pump be able to handle a setup like that?
Should be without issue. In
Should be without issue. In my main system, I have a Swiftech MCP-35X DDC pump running the following with good flow maintained:
XSPC RX360 radiator
Magicool 140 radiator
Koolance CPU-360 CPU water block
XSPC Razor GTX 680 full cover water block
Well, i can not recomment bay
Well, i can not recomment bay res’ at all. It’s alyways a pain in the … to fill them. and my xspc res is just bended from the pressure of my D5. If you want a save costum watercooled system stay with aqua computer, EK and bitspower fittings. I just had way too much trouble with ofer brands.
Well they could. entrga do
Well they could. entrga do here in Brazil … certainly buy one
I’m looking at graph on
I’m looking at graph on Koolance.com stating that at a temperature delta of 15°C their 2x120mm 18-FPI aluminum radiator dissipates anywhere between 400 and 1000 Watts ( depending on the fans and coolant flow rate).
The delta they’re referring to is the one between temperatures of the coolant entering the radiator and ambient air not the CPU and ambient air.
Considering that their radiator should perform roughly similarly to the one being reviewed and considering how high the deltas were for the reviewed processors ( neither of which consume anywhere near 400 Watts ) does that mean that the temperature of the coolant in no point in the loop rises to 5-10°C above that of ambient air ?
The radiator in question : http://koolance.com/radiator-2-fan-120mm-18-fpi-aluminum
The graph is under the ‘specification’ tab.
The koolance graphs measure
The koolance graphs measure coolant temperature only over time which can be used for theoretical radiator performance. It tells you how well the radiator will cool the coolant flowing through the loop, which equates to how effective the coolant can absorb heat (the cooler the coolant, the more heat it can potentially absorb from the waterblocks). However, this does not tell you how the entire system will perform.
The graphs in the review attempt to show you what type of performance you will get with the system against CPUs in various situations – a stock Ivy Bridge, an overclocked Ivy Bridge, and a stock Haswell. The delta is a measure of the actual temp – ambient temp, to give you an idea of what the temperatures would based on your rooms ambient temperature (you simply take the reported numbers in the graphs and add it to you ambient). Its more of an absolute working system temperature for the kit than the numbers that koolance reports.
Make sense?
I don’t see any strengths in
I don’t see any strengths in this xspc wc setup compared to the thermalrights silverarrow except for sound levels.
but does lower snd lvls for xspc equal a plus if the cons are possible:
1. leakage & dmg to components.
2. cost of pump going bad vs fans.
3. $150 xspc vs. $90 thermalright arrow
4. arrow few deg cooler
i’d only give it gold award if it was fools gold
you can use non conductive
you can use non conductive liquid still shit
Any chance of you guys doing
Any chance of you guys doing a review with the Arrow coupled with a fan you consider to be noiseless (or at least near the noise of the xspc) so we can see how good it compares to the others with less noise? It seems like you guys should throw in a reasonable air solution (fan I mean) to show how much difference there is between it and the one that drives you out of the room 🙂 Maybe I missed it if you’ve already done that. But it would be nice to see the great heatsink with a less noisy version in every review. One fan tested for the crazy people or people with headphones and the other less noisy version for the rest of us.
If you only lose a few degrees doing this water seems pointless for most (I own a koolance, so it’s not that I hate water, just curious how noise free fans work with the best heatsinks). I always see reviews with the worst fan, which I’d never buy 🙂 I’d buy the monster heatsink to avoid the need for a noisy fan but get decent results (maybe that’s just me).