Installation was a breeze, taking a total of about 45 minutes to an hour all in. The provided will allow even a complete novice to be up and running in less than an hour which is good. One problem I did have, although not a problem more of a concern, is that when filling the system I assumed that the power cable would power the pump up upon it being plugged in. This is not the case as the system has to be powered up to get the pump running.
What this means is that I had to sit there for 10 minutes squeezing the tubing and rocking the case to get the water to move around the system enough so that upon powering up the system it wouldn't have any trapped air or a lack of water. The system should be able to be powered on without the need for the PC to be running. If someone doesn't know what they are doing the results could be disastrous.
As I mentioned before the main unit is designed to mount on the rear of the case, backing the radiator onto the PSU exhaust fan. The system mounts well enough in theory as the power inputs for the PSU are not obstructed, however it has I my case covered up the fan speed switch. Also the design of the main unit, backing up to the PSU exhaust fan seems fundamentally flawed, as I don't know about you folks but I have nothing but hot (hot, not warm, but hot) air coming from the back of my PSU; not a good thing to have passing through your radiator. Anyway, lets move on and look at some numbers.
Testing
Test Rig 1: Barton 2500+ @ 11.5x195 - 1.75v (Supplied by ), Corsair TWINX1024 PC4000, MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR, 80gig WD HDD, Radeon 9700 Pro AIW, Topcooling Topspeed 3.X Watercooling Kit
Test Rig 2: Barton 2500+ @ 11.5x195 - 1.75v (Supplied by ), Corsair TWINX1024 PC4000, MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR, 80gig WD HDD, Radeon 9700 Pro AIW, Wet and Chilly Chips Watercooling Kit
The Topspeed kit is going up against the W&CC kit which has a CPU block, Northbridge block and Graphics block. Both systems were left running for 2 days to allow the thermal paste used (Artic Silver 5) time to bed in and both used the same 97% Distilled water, 3% Antifreeze mix.
As a comparison and to show that mounting the Topspeed kit on the rear of the PSU is not the most efficient placement I've also tested the unit with it resting on a couple of boxes behind the PC but not mounted on the back of the PSU, allowing it to draw cooler air from the case interior via the two 80mm rear exhausts. Load temperatures were accomplished with a looping run of Quake III Arena's timedemo along with Folding@Home run in the background.
Idle temperatures were taken 15 minutes after a freshly booted and idle Windows XP. All temperatures recorded were taken 6 times over a period of 48 hours and averaged out. Lian Li temperature probes (supplied by ) were used to gauge the temperatures. I couldn't get temperatures from the Radeon 9700 Pro AIW in the same manner as the others as the shim on the GPU prevents mounting the probe next to the core so had to settle for getting temperatures from the rear of the card using the probes.
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CPU
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NB
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GFX
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Idle
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Topspeed Mounted
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49C
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48C
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52C
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Topspeed No Mount
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45C
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47C
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50C
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Wet and Chilly Chips
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34C
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46C
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50C
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Load
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Topspeed Mounted
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54C
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53C
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59C
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Topspeed No Mount
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49C
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51C
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54C
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Wet and Chilly Chips
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38C
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44C
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54C
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The Topspeed kit performs well enough to provided the needed cooling but it doesn't go the 'extra mile low' as you would expect from watercooling. The Topspeed is quiet enough, indeed it is very quiet and makes a big difference from a high speed fan on the CPU, active Northbridge cooling and of course the fan on the graphics card. Taking the Main Unit away from it's supply of warm air and letting it draw in cooler air provides quite a big difference in the temperatures, 4C on the CPU, and this progresses through the system reducing the end temperature difference as well.
By the time the warm water gets to the Graphics block, the temperature difference between the mounted and non mounted results decreases from a 7C difference to a 4C difference, providing healthier numbers for the hot running Radeon GPU. The overall cooling efficiency isn't much better than the original HSF's, but it is significantly quieter overall.
Final Words
The Topspeed kit isn't going to win any awards for ultimate cooling but it is overall a very user friendly kit. This sort of kit is ok for those wanting to get into watercooling for the first time or simply looking for some piece and quiet from their PC. Everything you need is included except the water and the instructions will have you up and running in about an hour or less. The overall look is a bit basic but functional although the blocks are polished enough to shave in. There are however few areas that need to be looked at by Topspeed Tech.
Mounting the unit so that the Radiator/Reservoir draws air from the PSU Exhaust is obviously flawed to begin with. Modern PSU's output quite a bit of heat and this is the last thing you want running through your radiator. In my case, the second system I mounted it in (a 1900+ on an ASUS board) has a Chieftec enclosure which has 2 rear exhaust fans. The grills for these protrude from the case and prevent the Topspeed unit from sitting flush with the case.
If it were me, I would redesign it to draw it's air from one of the rear 80mm fan exhausts in a push-pull configuration. Again it would still be drawing air from inside the case but it wouldn't be the hot air from a PSU. You could argue that if this is such a big deal then mount it elsewhere but since all the piping is precut to size you have little room to mount the rear unit elsewhere.
Speaking of the piping, they should supply a one piece length of piping and let users cut the piping. The precut lengths are fine for a mid size system but some folks could possibly find they need longer piping at certain junctures and with certain enclosures.
There also needs to be some way for a novice to start the kit pumping water without having to start the PC up, as it wouldn't surprise me to find someone who is not computer ‘savvy' losing a CPU because the system didn't have enough water in it, especially with an AMD 32bit system. Perhaps some sort of switching unit to plug the fan cable header into? This would also allow users to fit everything together outside of the case and perform a leak test. You never know and it's better safe than sorry.
The overall package is very neat and tidy, and whilst basic, the quality of manufacture is higher than it looks. At time of writing this I don't have any prices but would guess it would be lower than most high performance kits on the market; I'll try to update this later as this will obviously have a big bearing on the value of the kit. Also just after I had finished the majority of the review, Topspeed have now got clear topped waterblocks in the kits which should aid in improving the look of the internal installation.
Pros: Dead easy to use and install, aimed at the novice, complete package, very quiet, complete cooling solution, CPU, NB and GFX, Neat overall package.
Cons: Performance on par with original HSF's, performance improved greatly by mounting away from the PSU, precut piping could pose a length issue for some, system needs PC to start before pumping water making initial leak tests and filling problematic.
Bottom Line: If your looking for extreme cooling then look elsewhere because you won't find it here. What you will find is a nice budget kit than can quiet down your system. Just make sure you now what you're doing. Any questions or comments, feel free to post in our Forums.
