RX 240
Next I traded out the H220’s radiator/reservoir combo for an XSPC RX240 and a mini EK tube reservoir. As you can see from the photo the RX 240 is much thicker than the Swiftech, which should allow for more heat the be dispersed at once as there is more surface area for it to pass through. To the front of the RX 240 I attached a pair of Yate Loon 120mm medium speed fans.
The radiator was mounted in a way that allowed the cases front fans to push, while the Yate Loons pulled air.
I found while doing this install and the others after this, getting the pump running and the air out is very difficult. When installing a water cooling loop the only cardinal rule is to have the reservoir above the pump. This means that gravity will pull water into the pump and air bubbles will float up and out. With the pump and the CPU block combined and mounted to the CPU it is at one of the highest points in the case. There is almost no way to mount a reservoir higher. As a result it took a lot of work and time to get the loop running correctly. But once I did it performed quite well.
Results:
Ambient temps: 22.78C/73F
Max overclock: 5.0 ghz/1.488V vCore
IBT temps: 74.25C core average
The RX 240 dropped our average by a full 3 degrees over stock and 4.5 over distilled water and new tubing. More importantly than the average though, it dropped our peak core temp by 6 degrees C!
The reason your temps went up after you replaced the tubing was because you used smaller diameter tubing. Also, I’d be interested to see the results obtained with the full loop (sans second radiator) if you used tubing matching the original dimensional specs. Using smaller inner diameter tubing adds significantly to the flow restriction of the loop, which can (and will) negatively impact cooling performance secondary to degradation of pump pressure. A good article, though. It’s refreshing to see a review site hold a manufacturer to their word. Swiftech’s was that you could add cooling blocks to the H220, and, indeed you can. I’ve been wondering when one of the AIO producers would quit screwing around and switch to copper radiator. Kudos to Swiftech for taking that next (if obvious) step.
strapmonkey
Glad you enjoyed the review!
Actually though we did use the same inner diameter tubing as what came with the cooler. Ours simply had smaller outer diameter. This really should not have any impact on temps or flow at all. It was very interesting that the temps were negatively impacted by the change.