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Gigabyte 3D Galaxy Water
Cooler
It is
highly highly advisable to do some sort of leak check with the water cooler
assembled outside the enclosure. It's best to catch a mistake or faulty
component in a place where it won't cause catastrophic damage to the more
expensive parts of your PC. Once the leak check was completed, The 3D
Aurora was put into its new home and the power applied. The 3D Galaxy enclosure
was accented with blue LED fans to begin and the 3D Aurora added more. The
MOSFET fan, the radiator fan and even the reservoir are all decorated with LEDs.
This gives the water tubes a glow like effect themselves that I think looks
pretty sharp. Note that I used an excessive amount of tubing between the pump
and the reservoir/water block connections. The supplied bottle of coolant proved
to be the exact amount needed to charge the entire system.
The only
issue I have with the whole system is the size of the reservoir and pump unit.
The two are molded together and from the arrangement of the filler cap and
pipe fittings, the way it can be mounted into a case is limited. Going into the
bottom of the enclosure makes the most sense and in the 3D Aurora, it's location
has been pre-determined. This will have the same effect no matter which case you
use, the pump/reservoir unit will block access to the lower PCI slots. This was
fit checked with the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal and the Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe.
Neither motherboard had enough room to install a second video card to utilize
the SLI feature. On both motherboards at least one PCI slot is totally
accessible on each board, you can use a full size PCI card with no worries. But
the pump unit will force you to use low profile cards in the remaining PCI
slots. Since most motherboards come with Gigabit LAN and very capable onboard
sound, there won't be a need to populate each and every PCI slot anyway. This
space issue is something the user definitely needs to consider.
Performance Test
It's finally time to test the cooling
ability of the 3D Galaxy has been Installed, primed, and allowed to run for 24
hours to ensure there are no air bubbles.
| Motherboard: |
Asus P5ND2-SLI Deluxe |
| Processor: |
Intel Pentium 4 560 - 3.6GHz |
Testing
was conducted in a room with an ambient temperature of 23.8 °C +/- 1°C.
Temperatures were taken after the system had been running in the indicated
state for two hours. All enclosure fans were running and the side panels
were installed. As labeled on the chart, the fan speed on the 3D Galaxy's
radiator was tested at its fastest (FULL) speed and its slowest (LOW) speed.
This gives an estimate of the coolers performance at both ends of its
operating spectrum.
Conclusion...
The
assembly of the Gigabyte 3D Galaxy was by far the most simplistic I've ever
accomplished. In all fairness, some of this is attributed to the enclosure
that Gigabyte has also prepared just for this unit. That is not to say that
only enclosure the 3D Galaxy can be used with is the 3D Aurora.
However, the Aurora does have specially tapped holes in floor which align
with the holes in the base of the pump/reservoir unit. Lets not forget those
are on the back of the enclosure to allow the water lines to be passed to
the external radiator. To use the 3D Galaxy in another enclosure would only
slightly modify the installation procedures.
The
expansion cover with the fan speed knob has the necessary holes to act as
the pass through point for the water hoses. Mounting the reservoir/pump unit
might be a different story though. The manual does not cover installing the
pump/reservoir unit into the enclosure. It only mentions that Gigabyte will
secure the unit with the two screws if the water cooler ships with the
enclosure. So, when it comes to mounting the pump assembly, you are on your
own. It's large enough that it can stand up on its own without being
permanently mounted. However, if you frequently go to LAN parties with the
rig you intend to use this with, you'll need to be a little inventive in
your mounting methods, because you don't want the pump just sliding around
inside your enclosure.
The
performance of the whole unit is outstanding. There really isn't anymore
that can be said in that department. It's simply a very capable water
cooler. Easy to install, but the pump unit is very bulky. When sitting in
the bottom of the enclosure, you will lose a couple of the motherboards
expansion slots, unless you use small form factor cards.
|
Club
Overclocker Rating |
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Innovation: |
9.5
out of 10 |
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Performance: |
10 out of 10 |
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Quality: |
9.5
out of 10 |
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Stability: |
N/A |
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Overclocking: |
N/A |
|
Software/Drivers Pack: |
N/A |
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Value: |
9.0 out of 10 |
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Overall Rating
9.5 |
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 |
 |
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Skill Level |
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Project Skill Level
(10 being hardest) |
5
out of 10 |
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