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Poseidon WCL 02 & 03 Cu Kit


Date
: 09/4/04 – 04:09:31 AM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer:
3R System

Price:
NA

To be honest with you, I have never heard of
3R System
prior to this review. However, after taking a look at their website, I quickly familiarized myself with them. They were incorporated in the year 2000 in Seoul, Korea with the goal to provide cutting-edge enclosure and cooling solutions. Today, they have established themselves as a formidable contender in the enthusiast market. Currently, their flagship line of cooling solutions is the Poseidon series. In this review well be taking a look at this family of products and see how they compare to similar offerings from 3Rs rivals.

Page 2 : Package

The packaged arrived in one piece all the way from Korea. It even passed through US Customs without raising our terror alert to red. When I first opened the package, I was surprised to find four separate boxes inside. After examining each box individually, I realized that 3R had actually sent me four different watercooling kits.

Heres a breakdown of each unit:

WCL-03 90Cu
Preassembled watercooling kit w/ 90mm fan

WCL-03 120Cu
– Preassembled watercooling kit w/ 120mm fan

WCL-02 90Cu
Do-it-yourself watercooling kit w/ 90mm fan

WCL-02 120Cu
– Do-it-yourself watercooling kit w/ 120mm fan

Here are the contents of each box:

The WCL-03 series comes with everything preassembled, meaning that the hoses are cut, the reservoir is filled, and the unit is ready to rock-and-roll right out of the box. On the other hand, the WCL-02 series is completely custom; allowing the user to cut their own length of hoses, install as many blocks as they want, and install the radiator in any location they please.

Contents of the WCL-03 series (preassembled kit):
Radiator / Water Tank Unit
120mm Fan for Radiator
Pump + Water Block Unit
Mounting Clips
Fan Controller
Thermal Grease
Fan Screws

Contents of the WCL-02 series (do-it-yourself kit):
Pump + Water Tank
Shock-absorbing Pad
CPU Water Block
Chipset Water Block
VGA Water Block
120mm Radiator
120mm Fan
Fittings
Silicone Tube (2m)
Intel Clips
AMD Clips
VGA & Chipset Clips
Fan Controller
Coolant
Spring Clips
Spanner
Thermal Grease
Fan Screws

Each box contains the same exact instruction sheet, written in both English and Korean. I have to hand it to 3R here because they did a very good job of documenting every step of the installation.

Even more instructions can be found on the backside.

3R has provided the necessary mounting clips for every major CPU type (Athlon XP, Athlon 64, and Pentium 4). In the bottom right hand corner is the fan controller, which has a rheostat to control the speed of the fan attached to the radiator. Being that the fan controller is meant to be installed inline, it would also mean that you can take it out of the equation just as easily, thus giving you full power.

Page 3 : Preliminary Evaluation

This is the pump for the WCL-02 series. 3R states that this pump is capable of 500ml a minute (8 gallons an hour), a far cry from the big daddies like the Eheim 1250 (which outputs at 317 gallons an hour). At the top, you can see that the reservoir is integrated with the pump itself, which conveniently allows for the water to be warmed by the heat of pump. It should be noted that the WCL-03 series has the pump integrated with the waterblock (as you will see below).

The WCL-03 series has the pump is integrated with the waterblock. This will obviously have a noticeable performance impact since the heat of the pump will be transferring to the waterblock underneath it. This is the same reasoning behind having your pump inline instead of submerged inside your reservoir. This particular picture shows the radiator with the 120mm fan. Although the fan is quite noisy at full power, 3R has included an inline rheostat to adjust the voltage. At its lowest speed, the 120mm fan is barely audible (think Antec Sonatas 120mm fan). The 90mm fan produces similar results. Even at the highest speed, the 90mm fan is pleasant to the ears (no rattling, etc). You dont have to worry about it sounding like a Vantec Tornado.

This is the CPU waterblock for the WCL-02 series. Theres nothing really special about this block when you compare it to something like a high-quality Maze3 with a Lucite top that alone can cost as much as $50 or more.

The only redeeming value is that this block has a copper bottom. 3R did a fairly good job polishing this block at the factory, but it wouldnt hurt to clean it off with isopropyl alcohol before you install it just to wipe off the grime.

The waterblock & pump of the WCL-03 series tells a different story. This is what 3R likes to call a highly polished surface. Hmm ok

Additionally, the VGA block of the WCL-02 series is nothing to gawk at. Just a plain, run-of-the-mill block.

Theres certainly nothing copper about this block. The base also looks like it could use a little lapping.

The radiator is relatively large compared to the radiator of the Coolermaster Aquagate, but still not quite as large as the radiator in the Koolance Exos.

And now for the fun part. Because the WCL-02 block didnt have a clear top, I decided to make my own to see what was inside. Two reinforced cutoff wheels later, I realized my efforts were futile since the Dremel simply wasnt powerful enough to cut through without wasting at least five more wheels. Whatever this block is made out of, it sure is a lot harder than the softer copper used on the base.

Page 4 : Installation

To be honest with you, I was hesitant to even install these units in my brand new system. A week earlier I had lost an Asus motherboard and a 2100+ Palomino to a tragic watercooling accident with my Aquagate. But my new Asus A7N8X motherboard had C.O.P (CPU Overheating Protection), which would prevent me from frying another Athlon XP in the event of a bad installation. However, I still had to worry about leaks, and more so in 3Rs systems because the hoses feel relatively cheap compared to the hoses supplied with my Aquagate. For this matter, I tested each system for five hours outside of the case (much more thoroughly than my Aquagate). Much to my chagrin, however, none of them leaked and they all performed flawlessly.

After leak testing, it was now time to install it inside my system. Setup was more difficult that what I anticipated. Even with the instructions provided, I found it difficult to install the WCL-03 series block without having two sets of hands to keep the brackets from popping off while I attached the other side. Eventually I got each one installed, but not without a few worries (see below).

If you click the picture above you will see how the mounting bracket doesnt exactly line up with the clips on the ZIF socket. Instead, part of the bracket falls flush with the clips, which is very bad. If you were to ever take this thing on a plane, there is no doubt in my mind that the entire waterblock & pump assembly would fall off and cause catastrophic damage inside.

Here you can see a close-up of exactly what I am talking about. There is too much tension on the other side to bring this side closer in. The best way to solve this problem in my opinion is to simply make the entire unit a fraction of an inch smaller.

This is the WCL-03 series installed and working. On either side of the waterblock & pump assembly you can see the mounting brackets that have been causing the problem. The pressure is kept down on the ZIF socket by a wing nut and washer. Underneath that is the piece of plastic that holds together the top of the pump assembly to the mounting bracket. In my opinion, it would be better if this piece was a bit wider to allow a firmer grip on the edge of the pump. Even with all the pressure from the wing nut, it is still possible for the entire unit to sway back and fourth. With a wider piece holding together the two entities, the opportunity for movement is lessened.

Here is the WCL-03 120mm installed. The waterblock & pump assembly is exactly the same as the WCL-03 90mm. The only thing different is the fan size and radiator size. Having a larger fan allows the radiator to dissipate more heat from the fins, which in turn cools the water faster. The radiators themselves actually end up having the same surface area, because the WCL-03 90Cu is narrower but longer and the WCL-03 120Cu is wider but shorter.

Page 5 : Testing

Now it may seem like I have talked a lot of trash about the 3R Poseidon systems, but now its time to see how they really perform. For these tests, the ambient temperature was at a constant 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The loads were achieved by looping a Counter-Strike demo for 30 minutes and then immediately checking the CPU temperature. The test system is as follows:

AMD Athlon 2200+ XP Thoroughbred
Asustek A7N8X NForce2 Motherboard (w/ passive northbridge cooling)
768MB PC-2700 DDR SDRAM
Radeon 8500 64MB (my spare video card incase the system leaked)
Custom-made briefcase enclosure (w/ lid open during all tests)
FSB @ 266MHz, Multiplier @ 13.5, Vcore @ 1.66 volts (stock settings)

The cooling units I will be benching against are the Thermalright SLK-800A and the Coolermaster Aquagate Liquid Cooling System. The 80mm fan on the Thermalright was running at 3,600 RPM. The heater cores on all four Poseidon units end up being identical, with the only difference being that two have a 90mm fan and two have a 120mm fan. For that matter, each heater core will dissipate the same amount of heat in their own respective category.

On idle, we can see the 120mm radiator come in three degrees after the SLK-800A heatsink, and with the 90mm radiator coming in three degrees after its big brother. Still, it has beaten the Coolermaster Aquagate, much in part to the larger radiator size.

Here are the results in Celsius for our readers outside the US.

During load, the results speak for themselves. I really have to hand it to 3R here. Their 120mm radiator beats out the air cooled SLK-800A. And the 90mm radiator is still pretty respectable.

In Celsius.

Page 6 : Conclusion

Well youve seen the results. Now for my final thoughts on it. 3R is a relatively new company (only four years old) and they still have a lot to learn. 3R has already phased out their older WCL-03/02 series and with it they made a lot of changes. They listened to the people that reviewed their products and made certain changes like integrating the reservoir with the radiator and putting a copper base on the CPU waterblock. According to 3Rs website, the WCL-04 and WCL-05 are already in the works and we can expect even more changes to the Poseidon series.

If I could make some suggestions, I would first say that 3R should change the way the brackets hook onto the waterblock & pump assembly. The grip on the plastic retention clip should be made wider and the cooling unit itself should be made a fraction of an inch smaller to allow the brackets to hook onto the ZIF socket more securely. Also, the hose going from the radiator to the reservoir should be a straight connection. There is no reason for it to be so long since the reservoir is not moving away from the radiator. Having a shorter hose will improve performance. While on the topic of hoses, the current plastic yellow hose feels like a toy. Its too thin and way too flexible for it to give me any level of comfort knowing that the system wont ever leak. It also wouldnt hurt to use clear tubing instead so the user can see what is pumping through their pipes. In addition, 3R should also paint the pseudo-fan shroud black to match the fan. Having the fan shroud purple just makes the system look like a toy in my opinion.

Now, you may be asking yourself who would buy such a system. Well, the preassembled WCL-03 is great for a Shuttle barebones system. In fact, its the only integrated watercooling system on the market that will fit inside a Shuttle without any modification. In a normal desktop environment, the Poseidon units will provide nominal overclocking headroom, but nothing earth shattering. On the other hand, the WCL-02 series (build-it-yourself) I really cant recommend to anyone in any situation. If you are looking to build your own watercooling system, its better to spend an extra $50 and buy all the parts you need from individual manufacturers. You will get a better quality waterblock (solid copper if you want), a better quality pump (an Eheim 1250 pushes 17 times more water than the Poseidon pump), and you will also get better quality hose (Tygon, Clearflex, etc). For all the aforementioned reasons, I simply cannot give the Poseidon series any accolades at this time. However, with the WCL-04/05 on the horizon, 3R may breathe new life into the Poseidon series and perhaps set new precedents in desktop watercooling. Well just have to wait and see.

Advantages:

Small footprint
Respectable cooling results
WCL-02 series comes preassembled and prefilled

Disadvantages:

Low-quality parts used (waterblock, hose, pump)
Unsafe mounting bracket for Socket A installations
Pump doesnt push enough water
Hose is too thin
Relatively high-price for the quality you are getting

Thanks to 3R System for making this review possible.