Included Accessories
Included Accessories
Along with the hardware components, Alphacool includes all accessories necessary to get the cooling system up and running, including fans, mounting hardware, tubing, coolant, and thermal paste. The only item necessary not included with the kit were LEDs for illuminating the reservoir.
Alphacool does a very good job with the information and detail in the included kit's manual. They go into detail for kit setup, installation, and maintenance, go so far as to illustrate recommend case airflow patterns and kit liquid flow patterns. The instructions included with the block is a simple fold-out guide with a good illustration for block mounting on a LGA115X style socket. The kit's manual has better installation instructions for the block, surprisingly enough.
For mounting the CPU block, Alphacool included mounting hardware for all current AMD and Intel-based sockets. For Intel LGA115X and LGA2011 boards, the backplate is not required. The backplate is used for mounting to AMD-based boards. For AMD and Intel LGA115X boards, you thread the long hex screws through the boards back with it held in place by a wash and nut on the top of the board. For the LGA2011 boards, you use the included double-threaded poles by simply screwing in the smaller threaded portions directly to the CPU socket.
The LGA115X mounting mechanism consists of the hex-headed screws that go through the board back with or without the backplate. The is a clear washer that sits in between the screw head and the board back as well as in between the nut and the front surface of the board. A nut is used to secure the screw for mounting the block with the included mounting hardware.
The hold down hardware consists of a washer, a spring, and a thumbscrew that go on after threading the four uprights through the mounting bracket on the CPU block. The washer protects the surface of the mounting bracket from scratches and binding with the retention spring with the thumbscrew holding the hole assembly in place. All parts are powder coated black to help blend with most board aesthetics.
Bundled in with the CPU block is a tube of Alphacool's XPX-1 thermal paste with enough included for two or more uses. For mounting the radiator to the case, Alphacool included eight steel screws to affix the radiator directly to the case as well as two sets of 12 longer hex-headed screws for mounting the three included fans to the radiator. The 30mm screws are used to attach fans directly to the radiator while the 35mm screws are used for attaching the fans to the radiator through a case wall. Also included is an allen wrench for the fan screws as well as five metal caps for sealing the unused radiator ports. The included 24-pin power connector can be used to power on the PSU outside the system to leak test the constructed loop in a safe location (away from your motherboard and electronics).
For connecting the components of the kit, six black-chromed 3/8" x 1/2" (10mm x 13mm) compression barbs are included with the kit. The outer compression ring is knurled for easy grip and stamped in the center smooth portion with the Alphacool corporate logo.
To cool the liquid flowing through the radiator, Alphacool included three NB-eLoop 1200rpm – Bionic Lüfter 120mm fans. The fans are 6-finned units rated to run at 12V and 0.07 amps (based on the rated power of 0.85 watts at 12V). The fans are rated to run at 1200 RPM (revolutions per minutes), pushing air at a rate of up to 44.8 CFM (cubic feet per minute) (based on its rating of 76.2 m3/h) with a force of 0.893 mm-H2O (mm of water) or 8.76 Pa (Pascals).
For connecting the radiator, reservoir, and CPU water block, Alphacool bundled in three meters of their clear, high-flex tubing. The provided tubing has an inner diameter of 3/8" (10mm) and an outer diameter of 1/2" (13mm).
Alphacool also included 1L of its Cape Kelvin Catcher clear coolant for use in the loop. The fluid has corrosion inhibitors and anti-fungal properties to protect your loop from breakdown or flow issues. I found that the included fluid was not sufficient to fill the loop when using the UT60 radiator and Repack dual-bay reservoir. I had to supplement the included fluid with distilled water to fill the cooling loop.
Talk about not understanding
Talk about not understanding your market. A 2×5.25″ bay reservoir is a little bit passe these days no?
It would seem so, most new
It would seem so, most new enthusiast cases don’t even have 5.25 bays anymore.
maury, would you please
maury, would you please consider doing a review of a unit using quick connect couplings?
they would be the only thing that might, depending on your review, get me back to water cooling, which i gave up five years ago because of the hassle and the noise ironically
i have been using noctua’s since, but really am curious whether it would be relatively easy and hassle free with the quick connects?
i suspect there is a flow problem with them, but maybe some company has sorted out that issue
I use quick connects on my
I use quick connects on my test benched when doing the stand alone block reviews and have found that they do not impact performance. It really depends on which quick connects you use and what fittings / tubing you connect to them. I’ve had really good luck with the Alphacool HF quick connects and the Koolance quick connects as well. They do get pricey though…
maybe you can do a video of
maybe you can do a video of building a water cooling loop with quick connects for novices?
Perhaps passe a bit. However
Perhaps passe a bit. However keep in mind that kit with old blocks and old bay res are very old by now. It belong to the old Alphacool before they basically sack everybody and hired new people with new ideas.
I would agree that old XP3 block is very high restriction block and it can’t compete with top of the line performers like EK Supremacy, BP Summit or WC Heatkiller. But I find absolutely astounding that 1200 rpm e-loops can’t deal with heat on 60mm 9FPI (!)rad. That does not compute. I’m using exclusively Alphacool rads U and X-flows and on one PC I’m running Scythe 500 rpm fans in push only on 60mm 480 with single AC D5 and I have no issues whatsoever. e-Loops are superb fans even at sub 800rpm they are perfect for low FPI rads. I don’t know what’s wrong with the setup but it simply isn’t possible for 1200 rpm bionic fans to fail at removing heat from 9 FPI rad.
Heck I’m using e-Loops in push @750rpms on 16FPI X-Flows and they are perfect in every way. Either pump is crap or its crap. 😀
I think the performance issue
I think the performance issue seen in testing was more with the low flow of the pump in combination with the thickness of the radiator, made for a "perfect storm" of sorts…
Strange, that looks like the
Strange, that looks like the standard D5 VPP655 pump. Did you get a broken pump or something? Looking at your picture of the back of the res and the D5, it sure looks like their standard VPP655, a 1500 l/h pump. It should go to like 4800 rpm at the highest setting.
Datasheet for the D5 VPP655: https://www.alphacool.com/AtsdDataSheet/getDataSheet/articleId/10620
Product page:
https://www.alphacool.com/shop/sets-und-systems/alphacool-nexxxos/16245/alphacool-nexxxos-cool-answer-360-d5/ut-set
Edit: Looks like when I link directly to their English site, it changes to their German one in an incognito window. Needs to set a cookie or something by clicking the UK flag upper right corner.
The odd thing is that their
The odd thing is that their page lists two different max flow rates, depending on which page you look at. The Description page shows a flow of 350 l/h, while the tech spec page lists it at 1400 l/h. In any case, something was severely impacting the performance of the kit.
Found on this page on alphacool site:
https://www.alphacool.com/shop/pumps/alphacool-pumps/10620/alphacool-vpp655-single-edition
The 350 figure must be a typo
The 350 figure must be a typo in the description, they have miss-spelled words too here and there. Also mixing English/German in a chaotic manner? Sheesh, when will they fix their site… Anyway, the “Technische Details” tab say 1500, same in the datasheet.
This datasheet has both the VPP655 and the VPP644:
http://www.aquatuning.de/download/Alphacool-Laing-VPP655%20-%20TPP644-Datasheet.pdf
This one seems to be for the PWM controlled version:
http://www.aquatuning.de/download/Alphacool-Laing-VPP655%20-PWM-Datasheet.pdf
I don’t doubt that, performance was surely sub-par. That 90 degree bend at the back of the res that you mentioned on the podcast probably doesn’t help. And that XP3 block looks like a highly restrictive design, probably needs the pump at max rpm. Might work better with one of those high pressure DDCs like Swiftech MCP35X or MCP50X. I have a MCP35X and it can power through pretty much everything. Drawback is the DDC whine at high RPM, I’d take a D5 over that any day. All DDC pumps I’ve used have had that high pitched whine when over ~3000 RPM. A D5 is heaven in comparison, even at max RPM I can’t hear it outside the case.
Thanks for doing some custom loop stuff reviews, I appreciate it 🙂
Thanks for the additional
Thanks for the additional information Pholostan. I've updated some information in the review to better elaborate on the kit's performance mysteries as well as updating the pump flow rate numbers…