Installation
Installation is for the most part the same as any other water-cooling setup, but I will go through it step by step. The first thing I did was mount the radiator in the case. asetek recommends that you set the radiator up so that cool external air is sucked through the radiator by the included 120mm fan.

Next thing to mount was the pump and reservoir. This area was one that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was going to do. To put it frankly, I really don't like the design of the reservoir included in this kit. The fact that the ports are 90 degrees apart from each other makes it difficult to cable. asetek includes a bracket and recommends that you connect the reservoir directly to the pump. This method was just not going to work for me. If I positioned the reservoir pointing one way, I would have to loop the water tube up and over top of the reservoir, making closing the case side panel nearly impossible. Then if I route it the other way, the cable would run directly into the SATA connectors on my motherboard. So I ended up splitting the pump and reservoir apart, mounting the reservoir in the space where the 3.5” bays turn into 5.25” bays. The pump was mounted at the bottom using the included suction cups. The suction cups are an effective way of mounting the pump down, in my experience though, some of them tend to lift up a bit. The suction cup should help prevent any vibrations from the pump that would cause a good deal of noise.

The water block is the next piece to mount. This water block design uses the four mounting holes that go through your motherboard around your socket. This method is a bit better than the tradition socket clips, as it will provide equal pressure, and also adds a bit of stability to the mix. One thing I did not like about the design of this mounting mechanism was the thumbscrews which are to be used to secure the block down. They thumbscrews have a plastic head on them, so when you try and tighten the screw down onto the spring, the spring starts to dig into the thumbscrew and start taking off pieces of plastic. An all metal thumbscrew would have been a better choice.

Once the water block is mounted I started to cable the system. asetek mentions in the instruction manual that the recommended setup is to have the water to go from the pump to the radiator, then to the CPU, then the reservoir and eventually back to the pump. So that is exactly how I hooked it up. One problem that I ran into while running the water-cooling kit outside of my case was that the water block was leaking a very small amount around the quick connect fittings. It is apparently crucial that you have a perfectly straight cut, and that you really push the tube into the fitting. Once I fixed up the ends the leaks stopped. You may be wondering how you hook up the two outputs on the water block back into the system. asetek includes a Y-Splitter which handles this for you.

The final step is to do the electrical wiring. asetek includes a power cable pass-through which connects to your power supplies power cable and runs into the case using the included expansion bracket and too the pump. The pump is also hooked up to asetek's control unit which gets connected to a small Molex power connector (to signal when to turn the pump on) and also has a connector for the 120mm fan from the radiator. Plenty of cable is included to this module, so you can really mount it anywhere you want in your case. The module also has a jumper on it which allows you to select running your fan at 7v or 12v. For testing both choices were used.

Once you finish all wiring you can fill up the reservoir with water and turn on the pump. asetek includes a small piece of wire to jumper the power supply on, so you can prime the system without having your components inside the case. Once you get the power turned on the system will start to pump the air out, which is when you will need to add more water. asetek says this should only take a couple of minutes to get most of the air out of the system, well for me in the 4 times I primed the system it took me at least a half hour each time. It all depends on where you have your components mounted. I am sure if I had the pump at the very bottom of the system with all other water-cooling components above it, things would have gone by a lot faster.

Shown below are a couple of pictures on how everything was setup in my case. Your setup will probably be different, but that is part of the fun of water-cooling. You get to route the tubes where you want them. If I were to change anything, I would definitely change the lengths of the cables. I ended up having a bit extra on all of the tubing, so it makes it look sloppier than it was supposed to.

Test Setup
AMD Athlon 1700+ @ 12.5x166 & @ 12x200
ASUS A7N8X-Deluxe
512MB Corsair PC4000
HIS Radeon 9600 Dual DVI
Seagate 200GB SATA
Z-Alien case
Arctic Silver 5

All load results were acquired by running Folding@Home on the system for at least 1 hour, as well as having a DVD movie playing. All load results were acquired by leaving the system idle for at least 1 hour. All temperatures are in degrees Celsius Motherboard Monitor 5 was used to read the onboard temperature sensors.

Results

 

Conclusion
asetek have released yet another excellent water-cooling kit. Build quality on this kit was excellent. The base of the processor was machined to a mirror-like finish, which was shown in testing. All of the other components that were not made by asetek are all top of the line water-cooling pieces. The Black Ice reservoir's finish could have been better, as it flaked off quite easily. This is a minor thing though, which the rest of the kits quality overshadows.

Installation was fairly easy as well. You do really have to watch how you cut your tubing though. As tested I had a couple of leaks around the water block of all places until I cut the tubing to an exactly flat edge. The only other real issue I ran into was the reservoir. Personally I favor the 5.25” bay reservoir design, but asetek decided to use a cylindrical reservoir with water inlets/outlets 90 degrees apart. This made of a bit more of a difficult cabling, but with some creativity I was able to mount it so that it worked out all right. All other components slide into place by following the guidelines in the well written (although not well printed) manual.

Temperature wise this water-cooling kit was amazing. In most of the tests, the CPU temperature was the same as the case temperature, which is excellent for any cooler. I credit this to the well designed water block. By using two water outlets, and placing the water inlet directly above the processor core, cooling was as effective as it could be. The ½ inch tubing also helps a lot. Most kits seem to use 3/8 inch tubing, which will not provide as much water flow as the ½ tubing. All in all this is an excellent product.

Pros: Awesome cooling performance, top of the line components, effective designed water block, well written instructions, extremely quite

Cons: 90 degree reservoir, plastic heads on processor thumbscrews, large kit (hard to fit in most cases)

Overall
asetek have designed a wining cooling solution. Redesigning the water block was an excellent move for this kit, giving it even better cooling performance. The rest of the components are all top-of-the-line and it shows in the performance numbers. There are a few items that could be improved, but these are overshadowed by the definite positives of this kit.

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