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Once the pump reservoir combo is fitted in position in the Thermaltake chassis, I’ve opted to fit the radiator again in the same layout as the previously tested Thermaltake kit & XSPC kits. This is so I can make a comparative test for each kit or at least as close as possible. The EK KIT X240 water block fitted well onto the test motherboard & with the White LED lighting supplied it does look quite nice on the CPU water block, however no white 5mm LED’s were supplied for the DDC pump top, kind of strange? Although I did fit 1x 5mm white LED into the pump top for matching affect. Testing the thermal properties - The important part of the review! Using exactly the same hardware as per the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 & XSPC kits tested previously carried out & the ambient temperature at almost the same, I set prime95 running & periodically took screen shots of the test rig temperatures below. One point to note is that the supplied Vardar 120mm fans were noisy compared to Thermaltake’s & XSPC’s supplied fans! The CPU temperatures were also an eye opener , I tested the EK KIT-X240 several times, even reseating the CPU block & cleaning both the CPU & water block surfaces to be sure that my results were not in any way misleading. The EK kit did not hold the same CPU temperatures as the Thermaltake & XSPC offerings. Even after increasing the Vardar 120mm fans to maximum the EK KIT-X240 could not compete with the other two kits tested!!!!..... Idle Temp:- 27c-30c Full Load Temp:- 51c – 53c

Lastly I’m going to test the EK-KIT X240 against the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 vs XSPC Raystorm DDC Photon RX240 V3. Again EK have been a long term water cooling manufacturer & their popularity in the market place is very strong. Personally I’ve always found their products to be of high quality & the technical understanding of thermal properties being very good indeed. This offering from EK comes in at £277.15 including VAT which is pretty expensive, so I hope it lives up to the high price tag? The kit includes, Universal CPU water block: EK-Supremacy EVO Clean CSQ (incl. LED diode, mounting- & thermal material) • Radiator: EK-CoolStream RAD XTX 240 (Double) • Radiator fan: EK-FAN Silent 120-1600 RPM (2pcs) • Water pump: EK-DDC 3.2 PWM Elite Edition (incl. pump holders) • Reservoir: EK-RES X3 150 • Tubing: PrimoChill PrimoFlexâ„¢ Advanced LRTâ„¢ 13/10mm (2 meters) • Compression fittings: EK-CSQ Fitting 13/10mm - G1/4 Nickel (8 pcs) • Coolant concentrate: EK-Ekoolant EVO Clear (100mL; for 1L of coolant) • Y-cable splitter: EK-Cable Y-Splitter 2-Fan PWM (10cm) • ATX bridging plug ] I’m taking a brief look at each of the EK Water cooling kit components, before assembly into the test rig chassis. CPU Water block – The EK-Supremacy EVO is well constructed using a copper base & well CNC’d fin arrangement, the clear Acetal top is nicely finished & the block comes with all the necessary fitting brackets to cover all known sockets. Pump & reservoir - The EK Kit uses a DDC pump & separate reservoir, it’s nice to see a DDC pump used + it also has a pump cooler fitted to the underside which is a nice little touch & with the anti-vibration mounting which will certainly reduce any unwanted pump noise. The only thing I wish EK would have done is braided the wiring from the pump, a shame for the sake of minimal cost involved. The little EK150 reservoir is well made covering all the options you would expect to see, horizontal as well as vertical mounting ports. My only reservation would be using the so called “Anti-Vortex†foam, I’ve had this foam break down into pieces before in many an EK cooling system & that using their own fluid or personally I’d steer clear of using it. Apart from that the EK150 reservoir is faultless in its construction & quality of material used in the manufacturer. Radiator – Another “fat†or wide 240mm radiator from EK. It looks fairly good in appearance & much the same construction as most other radiators on the market. I’m not really interested in the manufacturing process to be honest, only really how it will compare to the Thermaltake & the XSPC radiator’s previously tested. Cooling Fans – The two supplied EK Vardar 120mm fans are set to run at a maximum speed of 1850 R.P.M. Unfortunately from a personal opinion these look absolutely awful in appearance. How they perform in the test firstly from an exhausting point of view via the radiator & then secondly from a noise aspect may change my personal view, but the look of these for an expensive kit, Black bodied & Grey bladed fan looks cheap! Fittings & Hose – The fittings are reasonable in quality, but I have reservations regarding the thin walled hose supplied with the kit. Unlike the Thermaltake RL240 kit which uses ½†- ¾†hose & the XSPC kit that uses 3/8†– 5/8â€. The hose supplied with the EK looks somewhat inferior to the other two kits tested. Coolant - EK had at least supplied a concentrate cooling fluid, this was mixed with distilled water as per the instructions, but again in my opinion like the XSPC, both manufactures make premixed water cooling fluid & for the price of their respective kits I feel that they should have supplied the premixed cooling fluid as did Thermaltake with the RL240 kit.

Once the pump reservoir combo is fitted in position in the Thermaltake chassis, I’ve opted to fit the radiator again in the same layout as the Thermaltake kit. This is so I can make a comparative test for each kit or at least as close as possible. The Raystorm water block fitted very well onto the test motherboard & with the LED lighting supplied it does look pretty trick, if you like that sort of thing. After purchasing some cooling fluid that was not supplied in the kit, I’ve used XSPC’s own EC6 Non Conductive Coolant - UV Blue. The system was filled & soon bled without issue after a few times of turning the pump on & off. Testing the thermal properties - The important part of the review! Using exactly the same hardware as per the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 test previously carried out & the ambient temperature at almost the same, I set prime95 running & periodically took screen shots of the test rig temperatures below, The XSPC Raystorm DDC Photon RX240 V3 does not perform as well against the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 water cooling kit, although nothing to really split hairs over to be honest. The ambient temperature was slightly lower 1-2c than when the Thermaltake kit was tested. Next I am going to be testing an EK KIT-X240 & I think that there is not going to be much difference in performance between all three 240mm kits I’m testing, it is going to come down to cost, looks & manufacturer. Once the last report is finished, I shall make a brief conclusion to all three kits tested, performance, looks, ease of fitment & value for money.

Pump reservoir combo – is again well constructed & the pump is Laing D5 just like the Thermaltake unit. Again the speed is set to No:- 2 of the Laing D5 Vario pump which insures that the pump operation is very quiet. Radiator – The RX240 V3 Dual radiator (240 mm). I’ve used many of these in the past in water cooling systems, from the old RS radiators right up to the new RX range with no problems whatsoever. The RX240radiator uses a copper & brass core & is more than efficient in the modern water cooling world. Fittings & Hose – The fittings have come a long way since the early years of XSPC compression fitting. The Black Chrome 3/8†fittings supplied have a good finish with no blemishes during the chroming process & have a well manufactured thread making these easy to tighten. The hose supplied is 3/8†I.D & 5/8†O.D. It not Tygon by any means but is supple enough to obtain a good radius bend. Cooling Fans – The fans are of reasonable quality running at a full speed of 1650 R.P.M & XSPC offer 2x fan guards which is a good idea if you don’t want your fingers hit by the fans, but also add a slight restriction to the air flow. Using the same test rig / chassis as used for the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 test, only 4x 4.5mm holes were required to be drilled into the Thermaltake F51 chassis to mount the XSPC Pump / reservoir combo.

XSPC Raystorm DDC Photon RX240 Comparison Test. Following my review of the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 water cooling kit, I thought it about time that Thermaltake Pacific RL240 was tested against the competitors in market place. First I’m going to look at the XSPC Raystorm DDC Photon RX240 V3. The XSPX Raystorm kit again includes everything ­­­­that you will require to complete your water cooling loop. However one thing that was apparent straight away was that there was no premixed coolant supplied & for the price of this kit coming in at around £244.80 it’s a shame that £10 worth of premixed coolant has not been included. The XSPC kit once taken out of the plain brown box is of high quality, a long way from the early XSPC water cooling components. The kit includes, Raystorm CPU cooler - Acetal Photon reservoir 170 incl. Pump RX240 V3 Dual radiator (240 mm) 6x fittings G1 / 4 inch to 1/2 inch - Black Chrome 2x 120 mm fan (1,650 U / min) 2x fan grill - black Installation material for Intel and AMD 2x 3-mm blue LED (4-pin Molex connector) 1x blue 5mm LED (4-pin Molex connector) 2 m of transparent tube (inner diameter: 11 mm) 24-pin ATX Power Jumper K2 Thermal Compound compatibility: Intel LGA 775, 1150, 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011 2011 V3 AMD Socket AM2, AM2 +, AM3, AM3 +, FM1, FM2, FM2 + I’m taking a brief look at each of the XSPC Water cooling kit components, before assembly into the chassis. CPU Water block – The Raystorm is well constructed using a copper base & well CNC’d fin arrangement, the Acetal top is nicely finished & the block comes with all the necessary fitting brackets to cover all known sockets.

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My test rig or raped media centre components used for this review / test are as follows, Motherboard:- Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2-DVI micro ATX CPU:- Intel i3 3240 3.4Ghz - socket 1155 Memory:- 8GB DDR3 Kingston Beast Graphics:- Sapphire R285 Compact PSU:- CoolerMaster M1000 Chassis:- Thermaltake Suppressor F51 Fitting the Thermaltake Pacific RL240 Water Cooling Kit into the Suppressor F51 chassis went very well apart from the radiator mounting problem as mentioned earlier in the review. I was forced into fitting the radiator into the front of the chassis due to my motherboards memory arrangement. There were plenty of mounting points for the radiator in the front of the chassis. Fitting the pump / res combo was also hassle free in the Suppressor F51 as again plenty of mounting holes in the chassis floor were available. Within one hour I had completely hosed the system & was filling it with coolant! After bleeding the cooling system and leak testing for an hour I was confident enough to switch the system on. All booted with no issue & I was happy to be back to where I was 2 hours previously, with a fully working but now water cooled PC.

Coolant:- Well without going into the chemical makeup of the coolant all I can say is there is enough to fill the system once hosed up. The supplied bottle with filler does come in handy as I decided to use the kit only without opting for my own funnel & any water cooling tools / aids.

Hose:- Usually most water cooling kits offer low quality (real crap) hose, this one is different & the hose is flexible (not quite Tygon) but manages a reasonable bend to reach the water cooling components. It reminds me of Clearflex hose to be honest.

Fittings:- These are ok, or reasonable in appearance & functionally. They are made from brass & have been chromed. These are for ½†ID ¾†OD hose, high flow system. I used to be a big fan of the bigger bore hose but now think it looks kind of clumsy in appearance compared to 3/8†ID 5/8†OD hose. However for the single water block setup its completely fine.

Fans:- The fans at full speed are noisy, like most 120mm LED fans around, these are supplied with a knockdown resistor which does help to reduce the noise. The radiator offers a fair amount of resistance & does increase the noise of the fans slightly even with the resistors in the 12 volt line. Apart from that the fans have rubber mounting points to help with vibration.

RL240 Radiator:- Thermaltake have used zinc alloy as a main material. The manufacturing quality is at a high level. An exceptional manufacturing process using high temperature brazing at 1022℉/550℃ sets the Pacific RL Radiators in a class of their own (better than copper). This technique allows for any impurities to be kept out of the brazing process and ensures that the full strength on all the connected areas is achieved. The radiators are baked through a controlled atmosphere brazing line. The materials melt into each other to accomplish optimal thermal transfer from the tubes to the actual fins in order to attain better heat evacuation. Thermaltake is using brazing process to get uniform heat transfer of this radiator. The first thing to note is that it’s “thickâ€, to say the least! I must say that your case choice to mount this radiator in the top will be limited. Also, another point is the choice of motherboard. When I took delivery of the kit I promptly ripped my media centre PC down and decided to use its components for this review / test, Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2-DVI micro ATX, once the motherboard was fitted to the chassis there was no room to fit a fan on the underside of the radiator, as it clashed with the memory slots. Anyway, having said all that the radiator is well constructed offering a variety of different G1/4 ports. The rad is made from a zinc alloy and has a tight fin arrangement. Thermaltake have a very good manufacturing process in place for the range of radiators produced.

PT-40 Pump / Res Combo:- There are plenty of good pump / res combo’s available for the D5 & this one from Thermaltake is pretty good. It offers a couple of mounting options with all the hardware included to fit this. Usual G1/4 ports & a D5 pump, which is nice to see in a water cooling kit. I found the pump set to speed No.2 & have left it at that setting in a hopeful attempt to keep it as quiet as possible?

CPU Water Block:- Firstly the CPU block is made from copper, which comes as a relief to be honest & a good start in my opinion. The contact side of the block is nickel plated & has been polished to a high mirror finish. The supplied fitting kit covers all known current Intel & AMD CPU sockets. The tech spec, the copper fins of the block are also nickel plated & the internal construction has a 0.15mm micro-channel fin, apparently this will help to disperse the heat more efficiently?

I’m going to look at each of the component parts briefly before assembling the Pacific RL240 into a Thermaltake Suppressor F51 chassis. The Thermaltake Pacific RL240 Water Cooling Kit contains 1x Pacific W1 CPU Water Block 1xPacific PT40-D5 w/Silent Kit Reservoir/Pump Combo 1x Pacific RL240 Radiator 2x Luna 12 LED Red Fan 6x Pacific 1/2†ID x 3/4†OD Compression Fittings (Chrome finish) 200cmV-Tubler ID 1/2†3/4"