razar

I'm half tempted to get one of these things to hack up and modify for use with a real cpu waterblock & VGA block......Has anyone done that yet?

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Tufelhunden

You said you’re open to critiques so I will give mine. Politely of course.

First, the testing done with air used sub par heat sinks, in my opinion. The Scythe Copper Ninja and Thermalright Ultima 90 are both adequate heat sinks. However, neither one is near the top in air cooling at this time. If you had included a Thermalright Ultra, Thermalright 120, Xigmatek S-1283, OCZ Vendetta 2 or even a Tuniq Tower the air results would be more representative of what air cooling can achieve.

Second, both water kits used were sub par. Both are single 120mm fan kits and neither is a kit which would or should be recommended for cooling an overclocked quad core. At a minimum you should have used the Swiftech 220 kit as it is overall a solid kit with much better thermal dissipation.

When I look at this review, it appears to me, the CoolIt Elite was matched against sub par components to ensure it came out on top, as far as the cooling aspect.

The author then talks about how it beat water cooling and the air heat sinks, again knowing in my opinion both control groups are sub par. Overall the review appears to be biased and the testing setup in such a manner as to assure the CoolIt produced the best cooling. This may not be the case, but that is the appearance.

So there you have it my review of your review. YMMV

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Robilar

Well said Tufelhunden.

I am of a similar opinion as well.

Comparing the Freezone product to mid range cooling products seems almost contrived.

Irrespective of where they hail from (again this is debatable), they are the only internet review I could find that provides such findings. The others were nowhere near as positive.

The fact that one of the reviewers came on here to politely attempt to discredit my points seems a bit silly given I provided numerous links to other well established sites' reviews. It wasn't my subjective opinion but rather a conscensus of reviews of which hardware canucks was pretty much the lone dissenter.


Their "qualified" results and subsequent rebuttal still doesn't dismiss the fact that a $50 air cooler like the TRUE for example can match or beat the Elite's results.

SKYMTL

I completely agree but what this but as with any review site, we review with what we have on-hand. Unfortunately, all of those coolers you have mentioned were not available at the time. While granted, this may be no excuse, I would draw your attention to the fact that it is the Freezone ELITE review which was linked to and NOT the standard Freezone Pure. For that review you would have to go here:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...er-review.html

As you will see there, out findings were much in line with what the review community achieved.

The issue with reviewing the Elite is that there is simply nothing on the market to compare it to since it is the only consumer-oriented all-in-one system which provides TEC cooling.


As I said above, if we could have we would have. But then again, there is zero to compare it to...apples to apples. Many people mention standard water cooling loops but there are plenty of people out there who won't touch pieced-together systems with a 10 foot pole. It is not these people this system is geared towards in the first place anyways.

Robilar

And yet the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and OCZ Vendetta II are both easily available in Canada.

Not meaning to challenge your tests mate because as far as I am concerned, all reviews are worth a look but there are probably over 1000 TRUE owners on this site for good reason. The elite is silly expensive given its limited capabilities.

I agree that it is easier to set up compared to a water cooling solution but nothing justifies its price to performance ratio. Even my Thermalright SI-128 SE can provide similar results (I also have a pair of TRUE's as well) at only $40 cost.

Unless you are comparing the Elite to the "best" air cooling products it is difficult to give the review credibility.

SKYMTL

Robilar, I completely agree with you about the high-end air cooling. We did the best with what was on hand and since we have a number of high-end heatsinks on their way (INCLUDING the OCZ Vendetta 2, TRUE Black and Xigmateks) we intend to revisit the Elite. As you probably know, both the TRUE and the Vendetta 2 have been in and out of stock quite frequently at the major etailers in Canada and when we went looking to buy the TRUE, it wasn't available at the three shops we usually buy from. We did however sub in the ASTEK and Swiftech units which we could get our hands on.

It should be noted that since all of our cooler reviews are done in a climate-controlled room, you can easily take the numbers achieved by the Elite and compare them to upcoming high-end air cooler reviews. The numbers should match up quite well.

The issue I have with all of this is that the Elite is a very versitile unit which can be controlled through numerous parameters in the software. I think we illustrated this quite well with testing both Default and 100% speeds. At default, the performance of the Elite is not that great at all but at 100% it is quite impressive...except for the price of course. However, what I feel gives this product its allure is its potential for full control over the temperatures. That might not mean much but it goes to show how two or more reviews can have drastically different results.

This is the kind of debate I love having since in the end it helps us improve our reviews. In the end, that is what I want. If the community gets involved then great. I just want to avoid finger pointing like was done in your first post about Hardware Canucks which was rife with false information.

Robilar

I'll look forward to future reviews on your site then. Its nice to have some canadian content.

SKYMTL

Thanks. I appreciate your critique. In the end we learn more from harsh critique than from praise.

One way or another, I apologize for bringing this thread down a completely different road.

Tufelhunden

The problem with the "we didn't have it" reasoning is people do use your site and sites like yours to make purchase decisions. You gave an incomplete picture and people without proper knowledge will not know to question it. Particularly people that may not have knowledge about high performance computers.

Case in point I have seen multiple threads here where people extol the virtues of the BigWater kits from Thermal Take. When they do they invariably point to a review site which did not discuss the mixing of metals the poor workmanship and general lack of quality control in the kits. Nor do these sites do real world testing. They use a Core2Duo with no real voltage or overclock to show how "good" it is.

As far as the normal CoolIt I would never recommend that kit for a quad. I may pick up the used one from this thread, and use it on old E6300, so it's not like I am against the products I just understand their limitations.

Sorry but that is hogwash. The Swiftech 120 is right there and the 220 would have beaten it. No it's not an apples to apples as there is no TEC with the 220, but you can console yourself with the extra $100 saved.

I understand not everyone want to put together a cooling loop like I have, heck if I had purchased a Q6600 instead of the QX6700 I wouldn't have considered a water loop like I have. However, the 220 would have beat the Elite on the quad at full load. It is an easy loop and costs less than $200 and is as close to the CoolIt as possible.

I'm not saying you intentionally misled people. However, I look at your testing and know there are two to four aircoolers which will match the Elite at load and save people $300. I also know the Swiftech 220 will beat it and save $100.

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"Casualties: - many. Percentage dead: - unknown. Combat efficiency: - We are winning." Colonel David M. Shoup, November 20th, 1943, Tarawa Atoll
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Tufelhunden

Just saw this after I posted. I guess I'll leave the original posters thread alone now.

__________________
"Casualties: - many. Percentage dead: - unknown. Combat efficiency: - We are winning." Colonel David M. Shoup, November 20th, 1943, Tarawa Atoll
Please lets all FOLD for each other. Lets Unite. Easy Single Nvidia GPU Folding Guide