Page 1 - A Chill Introduction

Waterchill Antartica WatercoolingCPU/VGA/Chipset (KT12AT-L30)
Kit supplied by: Asetek
MSRP ex VAT : 315 EUR

Roughly three weeks ago the good people over at Asetek contacted Guru3D.com to see if we were interested in doing another watercooling review. Now ever since the first watercooling article that we posted last year things have changed a bit. I went from "ehw" water in a PC towards a situation where 4 of my PC's in the lab are now watercooled. Watercooling is getting really popular these days and it should be; it's silent and highly effective.

See the thing is, PC's these days are getting hotter. And especially if you have a new model Pentium 4 processor based on the Prescott core you pretty much will have a heat issue. I have two of these what I like to call furnaces here in the lab. The first is a Pentium 4 3.6 GHz CPU that runs upwards of 70 Degrees C when fully used and the second a system with a Pentium 4 3.46 GHz Extreme edition with a huge noise making cooler on it. That little ~100 Watt sucking puppy still is reaching 65 Degrees C when heavily used.

So back to that first line, when Asetek offered a new kit for a review I figured, wouldn't a watercooled Extreme Edition Pentium 4 processor be kinda cool!? Literally and figuratively speaking of course. The first kit we reviewed from them was absolutely fantastic.

Watercooling, my friends, is not just for overclocking geeks anymore. The past year or two PC's and their components have faced two growing problems. The first is as stated above heat and with that came the need for bigger more aggressive cooling solutions. The result of that means basically that cooling solutions have gotten bigger and louder. This last part is something what watercooling can solve.

Next to the factor cooling versus silence itself we have another popular thing going on these days, overclocking. One of the most common and fundamental methods of increasing system performance lies in the CPU frequency. Since the speed at which processes can be carried out depends on the clock cycle of the CPU, by overclocking (increasing the clock frequency) considerable performance can be gained. A downside of overclocking however is increased temperatures. Since the users are stepping over the manufacturer's recommended settings, excessive heat is one the major obstacles to overcome. If this little fact is not respected, the extra generated heat can cause major system instabilities, shorter processor life and, in some extreme cases, completely burn out the processor.

So always bare in mind before deciding to overclock, experienced and hardcore overclockers think first about cooling solutions. Proper cooling is indispensable even if the processor is not overclocked because this ensures a longer life for such an expensive investment.

The kit we received from Asetek is pretty much their best kit. It's called the KT12AT-L30/220V/Dual Radiator Socket LGA755 kit, a CPU/VGA/Chipset kit. We opted the version with thick 1/2" tubing for optimal flow. Next to that the kit has the heavy Hydor L30-II included, a pump that can push 1200 liters of water per hour.

Of course We'll show everything that comes with the kit, the installation and the performance. First let's start off with a little 101 on thermodynamics.