Self-Contained Water Coolers: Xigmatek AIO vs. Evercool Silver Knight

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.