Dedicated watercooling components are starting to make their way into South Africa through stores like Titan-Ice.co.za, who provided the below XSPC cooling loop for review.

This offers an alternative to importing your own components from international stores, often at a highly inflated cost thanks to shipping and customs duty.

Below we compare a full XSPC cooling loop with high end components, to a sealed watercooling solution that has been available locally for some time (the Corsair H50) and enjoys widespread adoption.

Setup specifications

The XSPC loop includes the following components:

• XSPC Raystorm CPU block
• XSPC X2O 450 Pump/Reservoir
• XSPC RS240 radiator
• XSPC Black Chrome barbs
• 4 x Zalman 120mm high performance fans

The H50 loop includes the following components:

• Integrated pump/cooling block
• 120mm Corsair radiator
• 2 x Zalman 120mm high performance fans

Installation

Corsair H50: One starts by screwing the backplate and top mounting clip together loosely. Once these are together, you slide the water block into place through the centre of the top mounting clip, and turn the block until the “teeth” on the block lock into place with the “teeth” on the mounting clip. Once the teeth are locked together, you tighten the screws on the mounting clip until the block is held firmly in place.

Once the block is installed, you will need to install the radiator and fans to the PC case. Typically the radiator is installed on the rear fan port of the case thanks to the short tubes used by the H50.

Once the radiator is screwed in, all that is left to be done is plug in the fan’s power as well as the pump power cable, and installation is complete.

XSPC loop: Installing the dedicated XSPC loop is a bit more complicated, so we’ll deal with each component separately.

CPU block: Installing the CPU block requires you to assemble four sets of screws, springs and washers to hold down the block. Once these are assembled, place the backplate behind the motherboard and the block above the CPU after applying CPU gel.

Once these are aligned, insert the four screws and tighten the block against the motherboard. Then tighten two barbs into the provided ports.

Radiator: The radiator is fairly easy to install. Attach the four fans onto the radiator in a push-pull configuration, and then mount the fans and radiator to an install point in your case. This is done by mounting the fans onto two 120mm fan locations next to each other in the case. One in place, install two barbs into the cooling ports of the radiator.

Pump/Reservoir: Easiest of them all, the pump comes with its own double sided Velcro strap. Stick the Velcro strap into place and place the pump/reservoir onto the Velcro. Once this is done, install barbs onto the unit.

Tubing: Once all of the components are in place, cut tubing to the correct lengths, and simple push it against the barbs on the various components until it slips over the lip. This will hold it in place despite looking less than watertight.

Water: Once the tubing is in place, isolate the loop from the rest of the system and power it on.

There is a fill port located on the top of the pump housing to fill up the system. While the pump is running, slowly fill the housing with water and watch as the pump pushes it through the rest of the loop. Keep filling the pump housing until the sound of the pump goes from a harsh “whooshing” sound to a quiet hum. This indicates that your loop has enough water, and you can seal the fill port with the watertight cap.

Leak testing: It’s recommended that you place tissue paper around all of the barbs in the system, and leave the system running for a few hours. This will allow any bubbles in the water to settle, and show off any leaks that may appear due to a poor seal (fixed either by tightening the barb or the tubing that fits around the barb).

Core i7 test results

Idle testing: For idle testing, the machine was booted up and run for 30 minutes to allow both loops to warm up fully, preventing any spikes in the temperature data.

The Corsair H50 returned an idle temperature of 36 degrees after 30 minutes at stock speeds, while the XSPC look sat at 34 degrees.

This low difference in temperature is due to the minimal heat output in the chip, rather than both systems being evenly matched. The real test will be testing under load.

Idle temperature at the overclocked 3.6GHz frequency for the H50 was 40 degrees, while the XSPC loop retuned a value of 37 degrees.

Load Testing: For load testing, we used the synthetic application OCCT to simulate 100 percent load. Here the temperatures are much higher than you would experience during standard load applications such as gaming or Photoshop.

At stock, the final load temperature after an hour of OCCT load at 100 percent for the H50 was 84 degrees. The XSPC loop returned a temperature of 67 degrees.

At the overclocked 3.6GHz frequency, the H50 temperature hit 95 degrees before we ended the test prematurely due to the high heat load. The XSPC loop managed to keep temperatures at 82 degrees throughout the entire time.

In terms of noise, the XSPC loop was significantly louder than the H50, as the loop was installed with four high performance fans in a push-pull configuration on the 240mm radiator, as opposed to two high performance fans in a push-pull configuration on the H50s 120mm radiator.

If you’re not willing to sacrifice silence for cooling power, I would suggest using a dedicated fan controller to keep noise under control.

Conclusion

From the test results we can see that the XSPC kit has a clear advantage over the Corsair H50. The temperature difference under load shows just how much more efficient a dedicated component system is.

There is however one issue with the XSPC components on review – the price.

The cost of the above loop excluding water and tubing is R1,824, nearly twice the price of an H50 unit. Whether this cost is justified or not is up to the buyer, but if you’re into running a permanently overclocked system and want to squeeze out more performance, or you just prefer your components running cooler, a dedicated cooling loop is worthy of your consideration.

XSPC components are available from Titan Ice, who provided the components for review. Pricing on each component is found below:

• XSPC Raystorm CPU block: R699.00 inc VAT
• XSPC X2O 450 Pump/Reservoir: R459.00 inc VAT
• XSPC RS240 Radiator: R549.00 inc VAT
• XSPC Black Chrome barbs: R39 per pair inc VAT (three pairs used in review)

Forum discussion