Good starter kit for Entry Level Watercooling
Pros: Great Price, Performance, Noise-level
Cons: Tubing
The kit is really fun, and easy to assemble, it comes with everything you need to get started water cooling your CPU.
The Rasa CPU block that comes with the kit is pretty good. It is not the best XSPC block out there, and the EK Supreme HF is better, but it's also more expensive. It keeps my CPU about 10-12c cooler than my h50 did.
I like the 5.25" Drivebay Res/Pump combo, it comes with two plates, black, or silver, and a blue LED to illuminate the h20. I don't use the LED personally.
I went with the slimmer RS240, because I have an older mid-tower case that wasn't really designed for watercooling. If I had a larger modern case, I would have probably chosen the RX240 kit at the time. I did end up getting additional 120mm fans to do push/pull on the RS240, but even with the stock push fans, my max temp in prime95 was 75c with my 2500k @ 4.8ghz w/ 1.456v. With the Yate Loon medium fans I have in push/pull it only dropped to 73c max temp.
The barbs that the kit comes with aren't bad, they look nice, and haven't leaked on me. I replaced the stock tubing with some primoflex 7/16" ID black tubing, and it looks nice with these barbs, any color would really. The kit also include some plastic clamps, which I don't use, to put around the tubing once it's fitted onto the barb.
A few cool extras the kit includes are mounting brackets for the radiator, some rubber o-rings to silence rattling fans, or the res/pump.
The tubing that comes with the kit is my only real issue I have with the kit, so I'll knock half a flame off. It's rather cheap clear tubing that gets cloudy after about a month of use. If I wanted to nit pick other cons would be the TIM, and maybe the fans, even though I think they are fine, there are better ones available to use.
It seems the pump/res is hit or miss with people. I haven't had any issues with it, knocks on wood, but other users have reported loud pumps. Generally XSPC has been pretty good with replacing the pump quickly for them from what I have heard though.
The Rasa CPU block that comes with the kit is pretty good. It is not the best XSPC block out there, and the EK Supreme HF is better, but it's also more expensive. It keeps my CPU about 10-12c cooler than my h50 did.
I like the 5.25" Drivebay Res/Pump combo, it comes with two plates, black, or silver, and a blue LED to illuminate the h20. I don't use the LED personally.
I went with the slimmer RS240, because I have an older mid-tower case that wasn't really designed for watercooling. If I had a larger modern case, I would have probably chosen the RX240 kit at the time. I did end up getting additional 120mm fans to do push/pull on the RS240, but even with the stock push fans, my max temp in prime95 was 75c with my 2500k @ 4.8ghz w/ 1.456v. With the Yate Loon medium fans I have in push/pull it only dropped to 73c max temp.
The barbs that the kit comes with aren't bad, they look nice, and haven't leaked on me. I replaced the stock tubing with some primoflex 7/16" ID black tubing, and it looks nice with these barbs, any color would really. The kit also include some plastic clamps, which I don't use, to put around the tubing once it's fitted onto the barb.
A few cool extras the kit includes are mounting brackets for the radiator, some rubber o-rings to silence rattling fans, or the res/pump.
The tubing that comes with the kit is my only real issue I have with the kit, so I'll knock half a flame off. It's rather cheap clear tubing that gets cloudy after about a month of use. If I wanted to nit pick other cons would be the TIM, and maybe the fans, even though I think they are fine, there are better ones available to use.
It seems the pump/res is hit or miss with people. I haven't had any issues with it, knocks on wood, but other users have reported loud pumps. Generally XSPC has been pretty good with replacing the pump quickly for them from what I have heard though.
