Self-Contained Water Coolers: Xigmatek AIO vs. Evercool Silver Knight
by Wesley Fink on July 10, 2007 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Conclusion
The concept of self-contained water coolers is certainly engaging. The idea is to shrink the superior water cooling system down to heatpipe tower size. Integrate the pump, reservoir, fan, and tubing all into that heatpipe tower form factor. Package the unit completely assembled, sealed, leak-proof, and with installation at least as easy as a standard heatsink. Then sell the package at a price that is competitive with the best air cooled heatsinks.
All of this sounds like heaven to computer enthusiasts. The only missing part is whether these self-contained water cooling systems perform as well as the air coolers they compete with. Unfortunately the Evercool Silver Knight and Xigmatek AIO do not perform as well as the top air coolers. That makes them much less exciting than they might otherwise be. Neither cooler is particularly efficient at cooling at stock speeds, under idle or stress conditions. The Xigmatek overclocks the standard CPU to 3.83 GHz and no higher, while the Evercool manages an even poorer 3.81 GHz. The same CPU reaches 3.90 to 3.94 GHz on the same test bed with the best air coolers.
Water cooling is also famous for its silence, and even here these self-contained water coolers do not stand out. The small Xigmatek is mostly below our system noise floor regardless of speed and should be considered a noise success - particularly considering it is cooling 80mm radiators with a high RPM 80mm fan. The Silver Knight, on the other hand, is just too loud at the high speed needed for best cooling. Even at high speed it isn't a great cooler, and at low speed it is worse, though noise at low-speed is OK. There are still many other air coolers that best these results, however, often at lower prices.
So this great concept of self-contained water coolers falls short in the all important performance and noise areas - at least with these two coolers. We have heard rumblings of other exciting new self-contained water coolers and we are hopeful those will fare much better when they are finally introduced.
We would also be remiss if we didn't point out that despite the performance not being chart-topping, the Xigmatek should still be considered a successful design. This cooler is small, quiet, and a remarkable performer considering it is based on 80mm parts. It appears Xigmatek has a good idea in the design of this cooler, but we don't know what cooling task they had in mind when they designed it. The cooler could certainly serve as a quiet workhorse in most systems, but overclocking, at least with the capabilities of today's Core 2 Duo and Quad parts, requires a lot more muscle than the Xigmatek can deliver. Our suggestion to Xigmatek is to build future coolers around 120mm (and possibly 92mm) parts in a similar design. We suspect those coolers might finally deliver on the promise of the self-contained water cooler.
It appears that you can indeed integrate water cooling in a heatsink system about the size of a heatpipe tower. However, physics is physics, and until these designs can deliver greater water volume, larger radiator area and improved water flows they can't compete with the best air coolers. Those who want compact water cooling can select either of these designs, with the Xigmatek the more succesful design. But for high perfromance water cooling they should select a larger, more traditional water system. Those who want best performance in a heatpipe tower size cooler will find that in top air coolers like the Thermalright Ultra-120, Tuniq Tower 120, or push-pull Scythe Infinity. Perhaps that will change in the near future with newer, even more advanced all-in-one water cooling.
The concept of self-contained water coolers is certainly engaging. The idea is to shrink the superior water cooling system down to heatpipe tower size. Integrate the pump, reservoir, fan, and tubing all into that heatpipe tower form factor. Package the unit completely assembled, sealed, leak-proof, and with installation at least as easy as a standard heatsink. Then sell the package at a price that is competitive with the best air cooled heatsinks.
All of this sounds like heaven to computer enthusiasts. The only missing part is whether these self-contained water cooling systems perform as well as the air coolers they compete with. Unfortunately the Evercool Silver Knight and Xigmatek AIO do not perform as well as the top air coolers. That makes them much less exciting than they might otherwise be. Neither cooler is particularly efficient at cooling at stock speeds, under idle or stress conditions. The Xigmatek overclocks the standard CPU to 3.83 GHz and no higher, while the Evercool manages an even poorer 3.81 GHz. The same CPU reaches 3.90 to 3.94 GHz on the same test bed with the best air coolers.
Water cooling is also famous for its silence, and even here these self-contained water coolers do not stand out. The small Xigmatek is mostly below our system noise floor regardless of speed and should be considered a noise success - particularly considering it is cooling 80mm radiators with a high RPM 80mm fan. The Silver Knight, on the other hand, is just too loud at the high speed needed for best cooling. Even at high speed it isn't a great cooler, and at low speed it is worse, though noise at low-speed is OK. There are still many other air coolers that best these results, however, often at lower prices.
So this great concept of self-contained water coolers falls short in the all important performance and noise areas - at least with these two coolers. We have heard rumblings of other exciting new self-contained water coolers and we are hopeful those will fare much better when they are finally introduced.
We would also be remiss if we didn't point out that despite the performance not being chart-topping, the Xigmatek should still be considered a successful design. This cooler is small, quiet, and a remarkable performer considering it is based on 80mm parts. It appears Xigmatek has a good idea in the design of this cooler, but we don't know what cooling task they had in mind when they designed it. The cooler could certainly serve as a quiet workhorse in most systems, but overclocking, at least with the capabilities of today's Core 2 Duo and Quad parts, requires a lot more muscle than the Xigmatek can deliver. Our suggestion to Xigmatek is to build future coolers around 120mm (and possibly 92mm) parts in a similar design. We suspect those coolers might finally deliver on the promise of the self-contained water cooler.
It appears that you can indeed integrate water cooling in a heatsink system about the size of a heatpipe tower. However, physics is physics, and until these designs can deliver greater water volume, larger radiator area and improved water flows they can't compete with the best air coolers. Those who want compact water cooling can select either of these designs, with the Xigmatek the more succesful design. But for high perfromance water cooling they should select a larger, more traditional water system. Those who want best performance in a heatpipe tower size cooler will find that in top air coolers like the Thermalright Ultra-120, Tuniq Tower 120, or push-pull Scythe Infinity. Perhaps that will change in the near future with newer, even more advanced all-in-one water cooling.
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razor2025 - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
The whole "self-contained" water cooling HSF is a joke. It's basically the same design as heatpipe HSF, but use water as the thermal conductor. In which case, traditional heat-pipe design will perform far more superior than these things.The whole point of water cooling is allow a radiator MUCH larger than air cooling heatsinks to disperse the heat. Since a typical water cooling radiator have multiples times more surface area than typical air cooling heatsink, you can run a larger fan with lower RPM. With traditional water cooling, you would also have large reservoir that helps in keeping cool water running through the blocks. With "self-contained" units, you have very limited amount of water that is cycled back to the heat source. Thus, these units are nothing but creation of marketing department. It's not surprising that they weren't able to beat the heat pipe designs in term of cooling or noise.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
I'd guess part of the problem with these units is they contain far too little water to be a good thermal reservoir. At this size scale the typical heatpipes probably work better, as they can tailor the fluid to change phase from liquid to gas in the anticipated operating range, and take advantage of all the energy that absorbs.n7 - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Seeing as how a few hybrid style coolers have been reviewed now, are you considering reviewing a Coolit Freezone?I realize its price tag is considerably higher, but it should best all the coolers presently tested, albeit loud at max, & pricey too.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Yes, we have a Coolit Freezone in the lab. However, it will be several weeks before the review.n7 - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Sweet!Based on the results i had with it compared to my Big Typhoon it shouldn't have much trouble dominating at max fan speed.
The reason i didn't keep the Freezone was purely due to noise.
It was nice & quiet with the fan turned down, but then i found performance to be no better than air cooling.
Anyway, i look forward to the results with it!
Thanx.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Several new "self-contained" water coolers have shown up over the past few months. Water cooling is another passive cooling method, like air cooling. The water temperature cannot drop lower than the room temperature, where TEC and phase-change can actually chill below the ambient temperature. This is why they are referred to as active cooling.Actualy active cooling, or active whatever means to use electronics or mechanical means to do something. Passive means to use nothing of the sort (in this case, just a heatsink).
Active cooling includes, but is not limited to; a heatsink with a fan, water cooling, phase change, or anything that uses electronic or mechanical means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling#Pass...">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling#Pass...
Lets get it right guys ;)
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
A better description is ambient and sub-ambient cooling, which we used in describing the Vigor Monsoon II. We will make changes to our description to better describe the cooling method.asliarun - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Sorry in advance for the extremely offtopic message, but I sincerely hope that AT reads this. AT, I can understand you need to make money through advertisements, and I do bear with the extremely flashy, distracting, and bandwidth hogging ads. I do this because I respect your content enough to overlook the distraction (can't it be less distracting though??)However, the popup ads that you have started displaying take the cake! I am referring to the "Vibrant Ad" popups that popup whenever the mouse pointer moves over your double-underlined hyperlinks. It is really irritating because the popup firstly forces me to close the f**king popup, and also forces me to navigate through your page like a minefield! I literally have to zigzag my mouse pointer to avoid these landmines.
Can't you at least make the popup appear only if the user clicks on the hyperlink??
Sorry to say this, but in terms of usability, your site is currently sucking donkey right now.
A loyal reader,
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
You can disable those ads by visiting this link: http://www.anandtech.com/siteinfo.aspx?off=yes">http://www.anandtech.com/siteinfo.aspx?off=yes :)Take care,
Anand
SunAngel - Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - link
Good news! Thanks for the tip. Wouldn't it have been ironic that the very thing that made Anandtech prosper would have also been the same thing that brought it down? I actually like Anandtech and would have hate to see it lose patronage over something as silly as HTML ads. However, I can't say the same for DT. If those guys bit the dust...well, all I can say is, "Pabst Blue Ribbon for the masses." In fact, that is a suggestion. Dump them and find someone else. There are plenty out there to choose from.