Two words for you: Most impressive! I am here to tell you that the time and effort spent putting the Asetek WaterChill together was very well worth it to see these kinds of scores. Not that I expected anything less from this fine company, but you never really know until you install it yourself. One of the things that I am most impressed with is how close together the temperatures are. This shows me that there are no "weak points" in the WaterChill's cooling ability. Some cooling solutions will have big spikes on some of the tests showing that they were not able to fully handle that area for whatever reason. Not so here. To my mind, this equates to increased stability for your system. There's not much more you can ask from any cooling solution.
The combination of the Hydor pump, which was practically silent, and the Black Ice Pro radiator and the Sunon fan really kept the water flowing and chilling perfectly. That big nasty Sunon? A very nice surprise there. While I fully expected it to be fairly quiet at 7v, I also expected to run my roommates out of the house at 12v. Again, not so. Indeed at 12v it has some sound to it, but it is nothing serious or detrimental. At 7v I can hear it, but only just. Considering how well it performed at 7v, I really don't see the need to move it to 12v unless your ambient temps are fairly high. That said however, I kept it at 12v and then I increased the overclock as I did in the Kamakaze review. Only this time, I was able to get to 2.25GHz before my system cried mercy. Oh, so very nice! The installation turned out to be a mixed bag with the water blocks being very easy to install, but with the radiator/fan and pump being as large as they are, you will really need to have the time and ability to mod your case, or find a solution like I did. If you have that time and talent, and you also have around $225.00 USD, then I can most definitely recommend this high performance water cooler to you. Be aware that there are a couple of glitches what with needing to possibly make a hardware store run and getting out the magnifying glass to see some of the diagrams, but all that aside, this is a very well made product with high quality parts that will last you a long time with little to no maintenance.
So, just like it's big brother the VapoChill, the WaterChill comes through with excellent temperatures and I am very pleased to give it an Editor's Choice Award! Keep up the amazing work, Asetek!
Till next time, Stay Cool!
Pros:
- Outstanding cooling performance
- Fully adaptable to AMD, AMD64 and Intel systems
- Excellently machined and designed water blocks
- Very powerful adjustable low noise fan at both 7v and 12v
- Great radiator
- Silent and very efficient pump
- Detailed manual
- Push and lock connectors work perfectly
Cons:
- Some faded diagrams in the manual
- No instruction for alternate top plate
- Missing large Allen wrench and Teflon tape
- No fan guard
