Blizzard Watercooler Kit
Apr 17th, 2001 | By Archive
Blizzard Watercooler Kit
Date
: 04/18/01 – 01:21:47 AM
Author
:
Category
: Cooling
Manfucaturer: Overclockers Hideout
Price: $179
Introduction
At the mere beginning of overclocking, watercooling was the ‘era’ … the best of the best, but also something quite untouchable for most home users.Apart from better cooling options, watercooling is also very popular because it is very quiet! And lets not forget the ‘coolness’ factor here ….
Over the last few months, several watercooling kits became available which means that watercooling is not limited to handy powerusers anymore! One of the most popular manufacturers of watercooling kits is Overclockers Hideout, a company that has a pretty good reputation for delivering quality products @ sharp prices … Today, OCOnline takes a look at the Overclockers Hideout Blizzard socket A kit and checks if this setup is worthy of your hard earned $$$.
Specifications
The Blizzard socket A kit is a fully featured watercooling kit and contains the following hardware:
- 5′x7′ 4-pass radiator with a 120mm low RPM Sunon fan
- Sealed container with a 145GPH/548.8 LPH pre-installed pump
- 3/8′ fittings
- 6 feet of 3/8′ transparant hose line
- Thermal paste
- Copper spacerfor socket A cpu’s (review is here)
- A CPU clamp
- Copper water block
The Blizzard comes with everything you might need to install and use this watercooler the way it should be used.
Like I said, we got the socket A/370 version of the Blizzard, but you can also buy a slot kit or even a bare bone one. All kits use 3/8′ fittings, so all components are perfectly compatible with each other.
The radiator is a pretty small one, but that does not inhibit it from performing well. The water is guided through the radiator no less than 4 times so it is cooled down a lot before it leaves the radiator and enters the water container where it waits to be pumped through the hoses again, into the water block.
Since I mentioned the water container, lets give you some more info on that one. OCH uses a pretty good looking blue, round water container that is sealed all the way so no water can escape if it falls over (i.e. on your way to a LAN). To fill it with water, you have to remove a big thumb screw on top of it (it has a rubber band around it so water can not leak that way) and fill the container with water. OCH includes a little white funnel to help you poure water into the container without getting yourself wet … The total amount of water that you can put in is around 0.25 gallon.
Next in line: the cpu water block. This is the part that will replace the ‘normal’ heatsink+fan that would sit on your hotter than hell cpu. OCH sent me their top of the line copper cpu block. It is also available in blue or purple adonized aluminium, but the copper one will perform several degrees better (but it is more expensive). To install the cpu water block, you have to use the include cpu clamp. This simple but very well working device gets hooked up with the plastic feet on the cpu socket (the ones you use to install a regular heatsink), and then you just turn the bolt down until the rubber head touches the water block. After you screwed the bolt down onto the water block, the water block is secured and ready to cool!
The last part of the Blizzard kit is the pump. The pump is to the Blizzard kit what a heart is to a human being. Instead of blood, the pump pushes water through the lines in order to keep the system up and running. OCH uses a 145GPH pump which is more then enough for our setup! They also give you the ability to install two pumps in the water container! Why? Duallies man! Indeed … That way you have to seperate water flows … one for each cpu. With one pump the cold water goes into the first cpu block, gets hot and then enters the second cpu block. This means that the second cpu will not be cooled as well as the first one, and dual pumps fix this. If needed, you could also get the temp reader installed that gives you the temperature of the water inside the container.
A nice thing about the pump is the fact that there is a molex connector between the wire from the pump and the wire that goes to the outlet. This is very handy when you want to put the container inside your case: the molex power connector can go through a small hole, whereas the outlet connector needs a 60x60mm hole!
Now lets see how you have to install the Blizzard water cooler …
Installation
I pretty much described the installation in the previous paragraph, but I will do it again to make sure it’s clear to all of you :). OCH includes a short but good manual with the Blizzard kit, so noone should have problems setting this up!
First thing you do is decide where you will be putting the reservoir, the radiator, … in order to find out how long you should make the 3/8′ lines.
Once you have made the lines at the desired length, it is time to connect them to the several parts. Connect the outlet of the pump to the cpu water block, then connect the cpu water block to the radiator and after that you have to connect the radiator back to the water reservoir. Easy huh? You have just set up the entire water cooler! The only thing left to do is install the waterblock onto the cpu and you are all set (don’t forget to fill the water container with water ;)).
Before I installed the cpu water block onto the cpu, I installed a copper shim (included in the kit) to make sure that I would not crush my cpu AND also to make sure the water block is sitting perfectly flat on the core! As you probably know, a small gap will cause the cooler to malfunction and that might be the end of your cpu!
Don’t forget to apply some thermal paste between the cpu core and the water block, as it comes with the kit and it improves cooling power a lot!
On to the testing now …
The test
So you came this far and now you are wondering what the Blizzard can do for you and if it is really worth it? Here is the configuration of the test system:
- Abit KT7A RAID
- AMD 1.33GHz TBird cpu
- 384MB PC133 CAS2 Crucial RAM
- Hercules GTS Ultra
- 2xIBM 30GB 7200rpm drives in RAID0 setup
- Creative Soundblaster Live!
- AOpen 52x cd-rom
- Plextor 16/10/40 cd-rewriter
- Windows 2000 + SP1 + VIA 4.29 4-in-1 drivers
- Overclockers Hideout Blizzard Watercooler
I overclocked the cpu to 1450MHz with a core voltage of 1.85v. The cpu can go much higer (wait for the review ;)) but I used this speed because I wanted to compare the results to the results I got with some aircoolers. During the tests, no case fans were used and the room temperature was kept stable at 23 degrees celcius.
As you can see the Blizzard outperforms the GlobalWin WBK38 by 8 degrees celcius! This is pretty good considering that the WBK38 is using a 7000rpm fan (that is VERY loud). The Blizzard can also be equiped with a peltier – TEC (Thermo Electric Cooler) in order to reach very low temperatures (even below zero). I decided against using a peltier because peltiers are not easy to install and condensation will occure for sure.
Conclusion
Overclockers Hideout managed to build a very competitive watercooler that is priced well. The performance is very good too, and if you install a TEC even greater (aka lower) temperatures can be reached! The Blizzard is fully customizable to your needs and comes with everything you could ask for, including a good manual.
Good
- Price
- Performance
- No noise!
- Available with a 220V (Europe) or 110V (USA) pump
Bad
- Watercooling is not totally idiot proof so beware!
- You can not connect the pump to the 12V connectors from your P/S