Corsair Hydro X: Water Cooling by Former EK Engineers | Computex 2019
Corsair Hydro X: Water Cooling by Former EK Engineers | Computex 2019
2019-05-28
Cerreta Corsair suite at Computex 2019
and we finally have a look at the hydra
x line course there's been teasing this
for over a year now probably like
eighteen months there's CPU blocks gb
blocks at pump res combo and then tubes
fittings all that stuff so we have
prices we have some interesting specs
specifications on the fin pitch for
example that we'll be going through
today along with material choice and the
resistance to coolants so that's our
topic for today before that this video
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updated our DV illumination learn more
at the link below so behind me is the
Corsair hydraulic series in full we have
a lot of b-roll of this stuff that will
will cut to but it's pretty simple
Corsair is targeting I guess we've we've
heard two different stories on what
audience is being targeted and one of
them is going for the the user who is a
bit more scared of getting into open
loop and not offering you a million SKUs
that could potentially make it difficult
to choose the parts you need for your
build so that's that's audience number
one audience number two I guess will
we're still trying to figure out there's
it's not like there's a lack of
performance focus but to be fair there's
also not a lot you can do in performance
with water cooling it's just like don't
don't corrode stuff and don't leak
that's kind of the main goals and beyond
that you're talking single-digit degree
differences which are often within my
margin of error but let's go through the
the product name prices then we'll get
into the interesting specs that we got
here at the show so CB blocks there's a
XE 7 and the XC 9 there are five dollars
apart at $75 or $80 to the XC 9 vaccine
9 is reserved for a EDT parts like
thread ripper or the Intel HD T CPUs XC
7 for everything else the 9 has an
aluminum pump cap and the 7 has a
plastic pump cap there are 16 RGB LEDs
on the underside of the pump that point
down at the motherboard so you got a bit
of an under glow kind of like the car
neons approach there's paste pre-applied
it's done in a hexagonal pattern which I
guess
looks cool I'm told that it's for maybe
performance but frankly it just it looks
cool and that's about it so it's custom
silkscreen for that they pre apply the
pace the GPU side of things it's XG 7
for the block there's no extra nine
present leave actually 7 is $150 to the
block and it always has a backplate so
this is where Corsairs trying to do as I
said a simpler approach for customers
who've never actually done water cooling
and might be a bit intimidated by it so
the idea is all the stuffs included now
that doesn't mean you pay a bit more
than if you cut some of those features
so kind of tea whether you want that or
not but the back plates there it's got
pre-cut pads pre-installed on the GPU
which is around the GPU block so you
have all the pads pre-installed there
are some pads missing from the efi cold
plate or the block for example now
whether or not those really will become
relevant you'd have to look at in
testing so it doesn't have every single
pad that nvidia uses on the efi card so
it's not a one-to-one match which does
mean that you you know as a customer you
might be kind of looking at it like well
where's the rest of the pads for the
components and video eskalene but we'll
look at that later for the most part
they are cooling the MOSFETs on the core
the core and vmm so you're you're
hitting the most the really important
stuff we'll just have to look beyond
that for everything else so XG 7 pick up
patch be installed pump res has a temp
monitor in an end cap fitting it is a
thermistor this is something we've seen
in pretty much every end cap fitting for
the four it's it's not an inline temp
monitor which do I really want to see
because most the ones out there suck and
of course air with the focus on not
leaking would be a a good candidate for
making one of those there's a flow
indicator on the GPU it's not a flow
monitor but or measurement but an
indicator and then the main price is I
think I went through a few of them the
xd5 pump press combo is $155 actually
seven $350 plus or minus bit depending
on which card you're cooling like the
Strix for example there's Fe and then
the radiators are well plenty you can
see behind me there's skinny one 20s up
to four 20s they're soft 2d tubing is
you've got 14 and 12 for outer for hard
or four hard-line then for soft you have
12 and 10 for the diameters
there's ASC let's talk about the specs
that I got in a side room here so the
GPU Finn pitch 0.25 millimeters and this
is done by skiving we have shots of
skiving machines from our factory tours
previously actually had a Coolermaster
factory skiving it's a really slow
process but it's still faster than CN
seen and I was skiving you can do
something like a cold plate sorry six of
them at the time that you'd see on C a
cold plate but the fin pitch is a big
big impact or to how long that takes so
it's really loud in here 0.25 millimeter
fin pitch low for reference EK is about
0.6 a lot of the CLC's start getting to
area where they're so dense on the fin
pitch that like 0.2 0.1 for something
like that that you actually end up
having a bit of impedance on the pump
and for the flow rate you're looking at
something in the range of 35 to 60
litres per minute average for a
closed-loop liquid cooler at the high
end 60 for a max rpm and for the GPU on
the Corsair unit today it's about 50
litres per minute so it's it's it's fine
it's in there we do need to do some
testing obviously but we have been told
and haven't validated but we've been
told by some pretty good engineers
formerly from ek who now work at Corsair
that the temperature difference is in
the range of about two degrees versus
GPU blocks from ek or about 1.5 two
degrees for the CPU blocks so it's
really small differences and then the
approach here is high quantity lower
price and semi modular so the cold plate
can be lifted out we have shot to that
as well of the GPU that makes it more
modular so can you place into other gb
of locks the co blade doesn't presently
cover the entirety one or two die which
is a shortcoming but should be good
enough in theory at least what we're
told and we'll look more into that later
but micro fins can be pulled out and
then just placed into any GP block
depending on the demand which is
actually really clever approach to
reducing the the total I guess the
issues with production runs on water
coin parts because you can just target
whatever's popular at the time there are
two different approaches to nickel
plating on these there's chemical nickel
plating on the cold plate for a thinner
plating so it doesn't have quite as much
thickness once you actually apply the
nickel plate to the copper so that
doesn't create a bunch of impedance
issues by effectively increasing the
thickness of the fins and I think that
covers mo
the basics now there's some more
information to on coolant and what we're
told is and need to validate this we
have the ability to though and I've
collected enough information but what
we're told is that apparently the main
concern from Corsair whether it's a
manufactured concern or a legitimate one
we'll look into is that the coolant on
the market a lot of it will slowly like
crack the acrylic and blocks and so
Corsairs using a different material it's
like a transparent nylon I guess instead
of just a straight acrylic so how much
that matters not sure today but it's an
interesting marketing point and one that
we'll until when we get home I think
that covers it for the Corsair open-loop
components thank you for watching as
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show sorry about the noise here I'll see
you all next time
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