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The Heat Seeker


Date
: 12/27/01 – 11:57:51 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: Overclockers Hideout & CPU F/X
Price: $349.99

Introduction

Not so long ago I reviewed the Z4 waterblock, one of the best waterblocks currently available.  But there was still a bridge to cross before the "normal" computer user would install one in his/her box. Why? Because the installation scares many people … "Will it fit in my case?", "How do I get the power cord out of the case without cutting it up?", "How long do I need to make my tubing?" … these kind of questions were asked on a daily base by people who wanted to turn into the watercooling alley, but were afraid of it for various reasons.

The good people at Overclockers Hideout and CPU F/X were aware of these problems and they decided to take care of them. Their solution:
The Heat Seeker
.

In short, The Heat Seeker is an all-in-one solution leaving the end users without questions and hard-to-install hardware. Basically, what they did was take a very good computer case (can you say Lian Li?) and install a very good watercooling setup (goes by the name "Z4") on the inside.

Is "The Heat Seeker" the way to go for watercooling boxes? What do I get for my money and how does it perform? All these questions and more are answered in the review, so let's buckle up and push the pedal to the metal shall we?

Page 2 : Specifications

The Specs

With a name as "Heat Seeker" you expect some military device with a heatseeking nose and built-in radar equipment … the truth is not far from it ;) but there are some differences … let me show you what I mean.

- Black Lian Li PC61 case made entirely out of aluminium
- 4 front USB ports
- Dual 80mm intake fans with rheobus
- 1 80mm fan behind CPU to take out hot air
- Complete Z4 watercoolingkit consisting of:
- Z4 waterblock
- 5"x7" radiator with top blowhole
- 120mm Sunon fan to cool down the radiator
- CNC machined reservoir 100% aluminium
- Clear tubing
- Manual
- CPU shim
- Artic Silver II
- Funnel (to fill the water reservoir)

That's what you get when you buy a "Heat Seeker". Not a bad deal huh? Let's take a closer look at the specs now.

As said, Overclockers Hideout uses a Lian Li case as the base of their watercooling box. Although Lian Li cases are far from cheap, they offer a very high quality level and they look so damn fine :). For the "Heat Seeker", Overclockers Hideout chose a Lian Li PC61, which is a cool looking black case made entirely out of aluminium. Besides that, the case comes with a small USB hub, offering you 4 USB ports! This gadget won't do much good for me, but people who have their box on their desk will use these ports a lot to connect joysticks, game pads or other USB devices.
The entire case can be opened up or closed without tools, as everything is done with thumbscrews. The only part where you'll need a screwdriver is when you install the motherboard, the hard drives and the cd-rom. All the other stuff is tool-less.

Lian Li equiped the PC61 with that handy rheobus, which controls the two 80mm fans bringing cold air in the case. The rheobus has three values: L, M, H or Low, Middle and High. You don't need a nuclear science degree to understand that the "L" setting runs the fans at a low, no noise speed whereas the "H" tab will add some noise to your setup, but also more airflow. The "M" setting sits somewhere in the middle.

Both fans are sitting behind an easy to remove and washable dust filter, making sure no filthy crap can touch that GF3 Ti 500! Enough blabbering about the Lian Li case, for more details look at this review and this one, both reviews of some sweet Lian Li cases.

The most important part of the Z4 watercooling kit, is of course the Z4 waterblock. Although Z4 makes you think of a new BMW roadster, I can reassure you that it is a waterblock :). The finishing is excellent and the performance is very good to say the least, but I'll get back to that later on. For more detail on the Z4 waterblock I suggest that you read the review I made a few weeks ago.

Apart from the waterblock, there are two other important parts of a watercooler: the water reservoir and the radiator. The radiator that is used in the "Heat Seeker" is one I saw before in kits from OCH and CPU F/X. Don't let the age fool you, the performance is still up to date, especially when you look at the size of it. Something to point out about the Z4 radiator is that it does not slow the waterflow down, unlike some other radiators out there. The radiator is located at the top front of the PC61, just above the cd-rom bays. A radiator needs to be cooled in order to perform as planned, so the engineers at OCH installed a blowhole above it. The cut is perfect and with a 120mm Sunon fan preinstalled you can't go wrong. The fan grill is also present, so don't worry about chopping of a finger or two …

There is also a bad side on the placement of the radiator: you loose one cd-rom bay. There was no other way to install the radiator and still get sufficient cooling to it, so I guess we'll just have to learn to live with it. Besides, the only way you won't loose a cd-rom bay, is by getting a very large case or put the radiator on the exterior of the case. None of these options were available as it would make the "Heat Seeker" a lot less mobile, scaring of people who often go to LAN's.

Last but not least, there is the Z4 water reservoir. This baby can hold about 1.5 liter/0.25 gallon of water, comes with a 145GPH waterpump available in 120v and 230v edition, anodized fittings, a knurled filler cap with an O-ring seal, a non-leak cord, mounting points for LAN's and to conclude: it is made entirely out of CNC machined aluminium! Filling the unit is done with the included funnel, making it dead easy to fill it up to the top without spilling a drop … ow yeah :). Once you filled it up, turn the filler cap until it sits tight. Thanks to the rubber O-ring no water will escape this way. The reservoir also has a non-leak cord, which basically means that there is a metal cover on the hole where the power cord leaves the reservoir, again equipped with a rubber sealing making sure no water is spilled. Once filled and closed up, you can shake this baby as much as you want, there isn't water coming out of it. This leaves me with a good feeling when travelling to my buddies with my rig … as arriving there with an aquarium of computer hardware sucks big time.

The tubing is preinstalled as well, so you won't have to worry about cutting it too long or too short …

Also note that an Athlon XP/MP shim is included, as well as a tube of Artic Silver II. No more core crushing and the best thermal paste currently available … what more can you ask for.

So you know what you get … let's see how the installation takes place …

Page 3 : Installation

Installation

The "Heat Seeker" has been made in a way that even a watercooling newbie can get the system up and running in no time! OCH includes a very well written manual with pictures, text, explanations, examples, … everything you need to get the job done.

To be honest, they do all the work for you. The only thing you have to do is install the Z4 waterblock onto your motherboard and connect the tubing to it. Once you done that, fill the water reservoir with the supplied funnel and you're all set. That's it :).

I want to point out that the Z4 waterblock comes with a very good mounting system. There are two black, plastic tabs included that fit your motherboard perfectly. You attach both with included plastic bolts through the motherboard. Then you bolt the Z4 to these black tabs with 4 metal screws. What does this mean? It means that the Z4 waterblock is attached to your processor through the motherboard, which is the safest way to mount it! Be careful when you bolt down the block to the processor, because if you bolt them down too much you can kill your motherboard! And the good part is, you don't have to remove your motherboard to remove the block from the CPU! Note that these black tabs are "Overclockers Hideout Exclusive" and you won't find them anywhere else.

To get the power cord out of the case, there is a predrilled hole in one of the slot covers. The power cord comes with connectors so you can disconnect the "head" of it to be able to push the cable through that hole. Good thinking!

The water reservoir is installed in the removable hdd rack that comes with all Lian Li cases. Because of this, you loose some hdd mounts, but don't worry, there are enough left to fulfil the average Joe's needs :).

Page 4 : Testing

Testing

In order to see how good the "Heat Seeker" performs, I installed one of my own rigs in the unit. Here is a short description:

- ABIT KR7A-RAID
- AMD Athlon 1400
- 2x256MB DDR2100 Crucial
- ABIT GeForce 3 Ti 200
- Accton NIC
- Windows 2000 + SP2 + VIA drivers + Detonator drivers

To give the setup a run for its money, I overclocked the processor to 1.6GHz with a core voltage of 1.85v and ran some prime95 and RC5 loving on it :). After 30 minutes temperatures were measured and compared to the same tests with some of the best air cooled heatsinks out there. All aircooled heatsinks were tested at default speed (1.4GHz). The Heat Seeker was tested at default speed (1.4GHz) and overclocked (1.6GHz).

As you can see, the "Heat Seeker" is performing very well, and leaving the competition with nothing but dust in their face. I am sure that the Lian Li case is pulling its weight in the results as well, because an aluminium case will definitely get the heat away faster than a normal steel casing. All in all I am very pleased with the results and I am not ashamed to show them to my friends and colleagues :). Note that all tests were run at a room temperature of approximately 21 degrees celcius. Another advantage of the Heat Seeker is the noise … it is much more quiet than those high RPM fans installed on most aircooled heatsinks :).

Page 5 : Conclusion

Conclusion

The "Heat Seeker" is one great product that makes watercooling accessible for everyone out there. The quality is perfect and the kit comes with everything you need to build yourself a well performing and good looking system. The price seems high, but let me remind you that it contains not only the entire Z4 watercooler setup, it also contains a full featured PC61 Lian Li case and we all know that these beauties don't come cheap! Would I recommend this product? If you can afford it, this is one great buy, so yes I have no problem putting it on my wish list :). Note that Overclockers Hideout gives you the possibility to put your own watercooler together: you can choose your radiator, reservoir, … everything according to your needs and budget. In short, the "Heat Seeker" offers astonishing quality and performance for the right price, and therefore it receives the official Overclockers Online Power Award.

Good

- Quality
- Bundle
- Performance
- Looks

Bad

- Not cheap
- Be careful with the bolts to mount the block to the CPU ;)