Coolit Domino Advanced Liquid Cooling System Review :: Setup and Installation

System

• Case: Thermaltake Element S
• PSU Thermaltake ToughPower 850W
• HDDs: 2 WD 74GB Raptor SATA HDDs in RAID 0 Mode
• XFX 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
• 2 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-2000MHz modules
• Intel QX9770 CPU running at 3.2GHz
• ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB video card running Catalyst 9.3 drivers

Test Software

• CPUID Hardware Monitor to monitor temperatures
• Hot CPU Test Pro Lite
• XNote Stopwatch
• 3DMark Vantage

For purposes of this article we used the standard video card test platform with the Domino ALC cooler installed in a Thermaltake Element S case. The QX9770 is one of the hotter running Intel CPUs and it should provide a good measure of how the cooler runs in operation. Note the use of the Thermalright Element S case and ToughPower 850W PSU that were used in that case review.

First thing you need to do before installing the cooler is install the back plate. As most Intel-based motherboards don't have a back plate, the motherboard must be removed from the case before installing the cooler to mount the back plate. Both LGA-1366 and LGA-775 back plates are included so it's a simple matter of choosing which one fits your CPU.

Once the motherboard is back on the case it's a simple matter of mounting the mounting bracket and screwing in the four screws. You can either do it before or after installing the motherboard back on the case. The radiator is mounted on the rear fan area of the case. To hold it into place simply push in the small rubber fan mounts through the holes on the rear 120mm mount. Plug in the power cords and you are done with the cooling system installation.

The CoolIT Domino ALC worked like a charm. With it we were able to take the 3.2GHz QX9770 CPU to 4.4GHz stably, running a full test of 3DMark Vantage with a maximum temperature of 58 Degrees Celsius. As the FSB of the CPU was the only setting modified the test this was a great result. Intermediate steps of 3.6GHz and 4.0GHz were completely stable as well with maximum temperatures of 62 and 58 Celsius recorded.