Watercooling Kit Deconstructed
NexXxos XP3 Light CPU Waterblock
The NexXxos XP3 Light block can be broken down into three individual pieces – the mounting bracket, the plastic top panel, and the copper base plate. The base plate is removed from the top panel by unscrewing the flat-head screws in the base plate.
The block's top panel consists of a slotted cover plate over the inlet port and a rubber grommet in a channel along the outer edge of the collection chamber. The coolant is injected into the center of the base plate through the slotted plate. The cover plate has two "H" slots, one to either side of a center divider plate, acting in the same way a jet impingement plate functions by forcing a shaped stream of coolant through the base plate. In this case, the stream is split so that the coolant spreads evenly through the pins in the baseplate. The coolant than collects on all sides of the base plate channels to exit the block through the outlet port.
Alphacool used a hybrid design with the NexXxos XP3 Light's base plate, combining a pin matrix and a micro-channel type design. The coolant hits the pin matrix in the center of the block and is forced out of the matrix through the micro-channels on all four sides of the block. The use of a pin matrix increases the internal surface area of the block for better heat transfer to the coolant, while the outer micro-channels directs the coolant into the surrounding collection chamber to exit the block through the outlet port.
Repack Dual Bay Reservoir with VPP655 D5 Pump
The Repack Dual Bay reservoir comes apart into several parts – the front aluminum cover plate, the acrylic reservoir, the acrylic back panel, and the VP655 D5 pump. Both the front cover plate and back panel are held in place with hex screws.
The pump is held to the reservoir via a ring that fits over the lip of the pump, an o-ring sealing the pump to the reservoir, and eight hex screws fixing the hold-down ring in place. The hold-down ring is constructed of thick plastic and slides from the rear over the body of the pump. The eight screws are grouped into pairs along each side of the reservoir plate to maximize sealing potential between the pump and the reservoir body.
With the back panel removed from the back of the reservoir, you can more easily see the outlet channel formed between the reservoir body and the backplate. The pump pulled in coolant through the reservoir's outlet port, and expels it through the outlet channel. Notice that the outlet channel and inlet port both have o-rings sitting in pre-cut channels to seal the reservoir to the back plate with threaded screw holes around the outside to seal the panels.
The reservoir's back plate houses the threaded G1/4" inlet and outlet ports as well as the lip to which the pump seals to the back of the reservoir. Aside from the port holes, all of the screw holes are non-threaded pass-through holes for the screws sealing the back plate to the reservoir body. The two holes (to the lower left and lower right of the pump hole) are for 5mm LEDs to illuminate the reservoir and its coolant. Note that Alphacool does not included LEDs with the kit.
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…