Over the past few years, as the speed and heat from CPU's have increased, more aggressive cooling solutions have been brought to market to cope. What was once a passive cooler can nowadays be a large lump of copper with a large fan and of course large noise to go with it.
In the last year or so their has been a marked move towards a more quiet cooling solution, usually accomplished with varying designs and quieter and larger fans on a heatsink. Of course the other and more extreme solution is watercooling. Thing is though, watercooling was at one time considered extreme cooling but again, time moves on and it's not uncommon to see watercooling now, with various all in one kits aimed at the complete novice through to the performance enthusiast. Today we have a new kit from aimed at the novice. The kit is designed for ease of install and includes everything bar the water.
| Features |
Easy Installation; High OC performance; Low Operating Noise; Long Operating life; Double leakage protection; No Electrolyses Corrosion; Synchronized with PC; Complete cooling solution
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| Specifications |
P/N Topspeed - 3.X Compatibility For Intel P4,AMD K7
Surface Material ABS
Dimension D100*W92*H245 mm
Net Weight 2.2 kg
Color Silver
System Power consumption ~11 W
System Power Input separate power cord
Cooling Power For 150W thermal design power
Cooling System 8025Fan
Fan Dimension:80x80x25 mm
Heat sink Dimension: 161x85x45 mm
Fan Speed:2000
Noise:<30 dBA at 2000 RPM
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| CPU Waterblock |
Material:copper
Dimension:60x60x30mm
weight:350g
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TubeMaterial: silicon
Length:1500 mm
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| Power cable Length:1800 mm |
The box for the Topspeed -3.X is packaged rather well, although some extra flashy graphics on the exterior wouldn't hurt. Inside the kit is packaged very neatly, with the main unit and 3 blocks on display as the first thing you see.
Taking it all out, underneath you can find all the extras including a box of mounting goodies. Topcooling even include a squeezy bottle (empty) to fill the system with. In the extras box we have some thermal paste (Stars) various nut, bolt and springs, some foam shims (just in case, can be used on the Northbridge), an AMD 3 lug mounting clip, 2 P4 Mounting clips and a PCI plate pass through for the piping. There are 2 extra 8mm OD pipes included along with the already attached main piping from the unit. These 2 extra's are already precut to size and are to be used between the CPU block, Northbridge block and Graphics block. I would have liked to have seen these as 1 piece of piping of about half again in size, just to make sure this kit will cater for everyone; but for ease of use having them precut means everything is done for you. You can't see it in the pictures too well, but the piping is tinted, some red, some blue to indicate hot and cold piping.
The Main Unit
The main unit houses the Radiator and pump assembly, is finished in silver plastic and hides everything internally. The radiator is small, of about the 80mm size and is designed to back onto the PSU fan's output. Yes you read that right, it draws air from the PSU through the radiator and exhausts out the back and below (more later).
On top is the filling cap, which simply unscrews allowing you to fill up with the supplied bottle, although you will need to go buy some distilled water. Also on top are 2 LED's, one to indicate power and the other to indicate if the system is running, red and yellow respectively. Below we can see the input and output water pipes, the plug cable and the 3 pin fan header wire to turn the system on and off with your PC.
Inside and to the rear, we have a low speed blue fan, used to draw air from the unit. The radiator itself doubles up as the reservoir from what I can tell, as the water inlet is directly above the radiator, and indeed putting the water in you can see the radiator internals.
The Blocks
Each of the blocks follows the same design pattern of a copper base, spiral internals and 2 barbs.
The CPU Block features a highly polished copper bottom and ABS plastic top. Mounting can be achieved in different ways depending on your system providing a universal fitting for today's systems. AMD mounting can use the mounting holes (if you motherboard accommodates this) around the ZIF socket or a 3 lug mounting clip. The P4 system can also be mounted using the motherboard holes or 2 clips are provided to produce pressure with the existing mounting bracket on P4 motherboards. The barbs on the blocks feature screw down nuts to hold the 8mm OD piping in place and so complete the watercooling system.
The Northbridge block, like the CPU block has a mirror polished bottom and plastic top, along with the same screw down barbs. Mounting is provided for both AMD and P4 motherboards, with 2 spring loaded bolts for AMD and 2 tensioned clips to use the 4 hook eye's found on P4 motherboards. I personally had to remove the tensioning clips on the 2 AMD boards I have used this system with as they interfered with mounting but once they were removed everything bolted down fine.
The Graphics block is exactly the same as the Northbridge block without the tension clips. Again we have the polished bottom and again it mounts with 2 spring loaded bolts. All the blocks are protected on the bottom by a blue plastic sticker to ensure the bottom is unmarked before use, so they should arrive to you in perfect condition.
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