Gadgetory

DK's fluid gaming kid has the company's attempt at bringing open-loop cooling to market at closed-loop prices this fits it into an odd market segmentation where the desire to go open-loop is present but the funds aren't as such the company's fluid gaming series resorts to using aluminum for all parts much like CLC's do and position zk to battle some of its own a previous marketing language that's how did copper over aluminum marketing challenges aside the company has successfully managed to bring open loop solutions to markets at sub $200 starting points making it possible for enthusiasts to attempt their first custom loops with relatively low investment for today's review we're focusing on just the EK fluid gaming 240 kit which only includes the cpu cooling solution radiator and coolant mixture and nothing for GPU blocks before that this coverage is brought to you by the core G 21 enclosure from thermal take a $70 case with 2 4 millimeter thick tempered glass side panels and a power supply shroud with top mounted SSDs LEDs learn more at the link in the description below so for today's review we're focusing on whether the e K fluid gaming kit in the 240 variety makes sense as an alternative to a CLC this is looking only at the kit cooling just the CPU so no GPU kool-aid no monoblock none of the elements of an open-loop cooler that make it an open-loop cooler because the ek ultimately does sell this kit as I stand alone at 240 cooler that you can buy in stick on just the CPU the advantage being you can expand it later on like 90% of the CLC's on the market so because of that advantage obviously you've got options of getting into aluminum GPU blocks or mono blocks or other cooling solutions that ek provides except in the fluid gaming series so it's got to be all aluminum that way there's no galvanic corrosion or anything like that when mixing metals and this paints ek into an interesting market segment where there's really no competition in terms of being a cheap open-loop cooler that is made by a brand backing it that has a good reputation so we're focusing just on the 240s performance including its fans versus all the CLC's pretty much on the market that are mainstream Coursera's ndx tees all the others and then perhaps later at some indeterminate point in the future we'll look into expanding the loop into open loop testing properly open loop testing for example against other wealth even just just with GPU blocks basically is what we'd be looking at at that point so yeah focusing on this one thing today with the idea is that you can expand later but you can still buy it standalone the 240 kit only is a $160 cost so that's just the 240 radiator the pump which is over here the block and the tubing required to make it work but it's a complete kit it's good to go out of box now normally we don't speak too much about experienced personal experiences or preferences or anything like that in these types of reviews this one I think it's a little necessary because this kit is billed toward filling a first time customer builder market and unlike a lot of the other reviewers I don't really focus on open loops so I entered this with very little experience with open loops hopefully that means I can provide you a different perspective my perspective obviously we have the data driven elements which we'll get to in a moment but my perspective what the building process was that this was pretty easy to work with we actually did it on streem for the most part half the build was done off stream but it is fairly easy to work with the instructions are okay what they don't they don't elaborate in the first version anyway a couple of things like you should keep pouring with pump cap off as it's filling the loop for example that wasn't really explicitly detailed there but it should have been over although it's not hard to get into but you will need more than just the instruction manual to really make sure you get it right if you're if you're going to be a little neurotic about it you probably want to look around for other tutorials because eks doesn't cover a whole lot of the process beyond the very basics of what can be covered in five steps on five pages that are this size so more instruction would be good what I on that front EK if you're listening I would recommend making your own video and then just uploading it and putting a QR code in there or a link and then people can get some more detail that way but it went together pretty easily it's easy to expand it is a soft tubing so it's not gonna look as good as a lot of the open loops you've seen out there but if you're a first time builder for an open loop it's not a bad entry-level product in terms of price performance is a different question we'll get into that now to quickly go over prices first the 240 unit were reviewing today costs 160 dollars again that's basically just a CPU cooler except you can expand it if you want the single 120-millimeter option is 150 dollars and really not at all worth it it's $10 more to get something a lot better the GTX 10 series block included with the 240 kit cost $240 and that's a pretty cheap open-loop solution that covers two core components or to give some perspective the corsair h 100 ib to a 240 millimeter closed-loop cooler is available at 110 dollars with the kraken X 52 somewhere in the 140 to 150 range depending on which vendor you're buying from for testing methods and the platform use as always check the article linked in the description below it's get additional information on what was done here let's start with CPU torture testing and then move into noise normalized tests at 40 DB a fixed noise output the first round of tests is conducted with out of box settings and fans using Mac's pump and fan speeds the ek fluid gamer 240 millimeter kit cooling only the CPU performs at 37.4 6 degrees Celsius over ambient that's a delta T value again versus ambient which positions the 1700 rpm ek kit effectively tied with the NZXT kraken X 52 at 2100 rpm for perspective the ek kit produces about 41 to 40 DBA worth of noise in this configuration whereas the X 52 CLC produces about 50 DBA in this configuration we have a noise floor of 26 in this scenario that's definitely a advantage for the ek fans which is something we can show by swapping fans off the ek kit and trading them for CLC fans if momentarily but other tests positioned the ek fluid gaming kit about 2 degrees Celsius cooler than low rpm LZ 280 coolers where we ran the competitively priced 130 EVGA units with a 1050 rpm fan setup resulting in a 37 point 1 DBA output this makes EVGA CLC 280 effectively as cool as the EK fluid gaming CPU only cooler when noise matched but with slightly lower noise levels and a lower price that said EVGA s kit is only usable for one component whereas eks offers a separate pump and open-loop capabilities for expansion into GPU or mono block cooling but in favor of EVGA you can ramp the fans up a lot faster and get more single components cooling potential out of that stock unit than with ek so there are trade-offs either way you go the major bonus for ek is argument of course is that you can expand it into open-loop and you should if you're buying one of these anyway if you're just trying to cool one component and we're wondering if ek is pump and rad solution would do a better job than a CLC the answer is generally no and that's because with the CLC's they come in cheaper and you can kind of tune the fans as needed though the fans on ek is unit are actually pretty nice the kraken X 62 at 10:50 rpm also produces effectively the same thermal results as the ek fluid gaming 240 kit at thirty seven point one versus thirty seven point five degrees Celsius within our variants X 62 s noise levels at this rpm measure at around 37 DBA also though the X 62 does tend to be expensive it's 157 dollars at the time of writing that's also for a 280 moment your cooler with a ton of RGB to be fair but not everyone wants that just as a standalone CPU cooler there's really no thermal benefit to e case fluid gaming 240 over the alternatives this needs to be used in an open loop to actually offer value there is really no value if you're planning to buy this and use it as a single component cooler like for your CPU and if you want to use it for the GPU you might as well make your own hybrid we ran one test with course there's H 100 Ivy to fans on the e K fluid gaming 240 just to see how good their fans are we measured performance at 36 Celsius Delta t load for the coarser H 100 Ivy - with corsair h100 ib2 max 2500 rpm with the EK fluid gaming kit using Corsairs fans measuring at 35 0.74 degrees Celsius so again 36 degrees versus thirty five point seven four this is under the same load and RPM with the same fan so we're within margin of error for our own measurement equipment and testing so we can declare these as functionally equivalent any advantage that the a 240 has as a standalone cooler is derived from the Vardar fans so that it makes the most sense to noise normalize at 40 DBA and run some more tests normalizing the RPM to fit a 40 DBA output the ek fluid gaming kit ends up running at about 90 percent for each fan or roughly sixteen eighty rpm with our fans and sustaining a temperature of thirty nine point nine degrees Celsius delta T over ambient this positions the ek kit as a better option than the ex 42 with a 40 DB a 1310 rpm fan Mesrine at forty two point four degrees Celsius for the X 42 or a couple degrees warmer than what we're seeing here on ek is unit this is worse than the larger radiator is at 40 DBA as you'd expect like the 280 millimeter H 115 I and the 280 military NZXT crack and X 62 both of which outperform the ek kit technically speaking in terms of noise normalized thermals but the ek kit is 240 as compared more appropriately to the Corsair H 100 IB 2 which is a 240 millimeter radiator like ek fluid gaming kit we can see that the ek stock fans are actually pretty good though again if you swap them they'd be basically the same performance this is where that price difference is between the ek kit may each 100 be - it's primarily in the standalone pump which has it cost the tubes but also in the fans it's not a terrible thermal deficit for Corsair but certainly a measurable one Corsair operates about 2 degrees Celsius warmer on average at around 42 degrees Celsius when running at 40 DBA that's not enough to spend more money for on the ek kit if you're using it only to cool the CPU but enough to say that ek has got better fans included in its solution so if you were wondering if the ek a 240 solution for only the CPU is better than a CLC stand-alone the answer is no not really it's not better in terms of price in most cases it's not better in terms of thermals in most like 90% of cases noise it's okay it's actually got some pretty good fans on the kit but I mean there's no reason to buy this setup stand alone unless you're planning to expand it that's why you buy it so I will I'll speak to the the entry-level open-loop Builder argument for this kit if you want something that's really easy to order the box open it all the parts are there so you don't have to look around for them you're not going to accidentally forget to order something or not know you need something then the box with this will include all those parts it'll include some basic if lacking instructions but you can definitely get through it and you'll be able to build a loop and if it's your first custom loop this is a pretty good starting point that said personally speaking here I do tend to prefer spending more money to buy something once than spending last money to get something that will get me started but I want to replace in a year that's not to say you have to do that this kit is plenty good especially once we start getting into expanding with a GPU for example we're looking into that it's not on the roadmap immediately because we have coffee leak and other things but if you're planning to expand the kit it's got options for you and that's the main reason to buy this over a CLC if you just want to cool the CPU once again don't bother but for expansion there are options for you but the question again becomes once you're spending $240 for the 240 plus the GPU block kit do you want to consider just spending a bit more to start getting into the sort of more customizable the better looking solutions out there because open loops I think for a lot of people are about looks you don't really get looks with this you get looks with the with heart tubing and stuff I it's a lot more difficult to do stuff that takes more time and experience so if you don't have any of that time or experience then it's a good starting point again but if you feel like learning and you can throw away some tubes in the process or you can wait a little bit longer as you work through the early learning periods then I'd say skip this save the money add another 1 to 200 bucks and try and start the next tier higher doesn't need to be crazy but that's just one way to look at it that's the way I would look at it as for a recap here as a standalone CPU only cooling solution don't bother as a an expandable solution starting with the CPU and expanding later into the GPU definitely look into this we'll be looking at the GPU cooling more but we've already done plenty of hybrid tests and obviously it's always just way better than air cooling in terms of thermals and noise and in terms of noise these fans are pretty damn good they're better than most stock fans that are included with CL CS they're not the best fans though but they're again they're pretty damn good so ek has done an interesting thing here where they have a pretty good product but one of the skis actually two of the skis make zero sense except for as expansion options and the rest of its really just not bad it's just they have a major marketing challenge which is partly fighting their own years worth of marketing in favor of their existing copper lines to say that hey actually about that stuff we said about copper and aluminum previously aluminum is actually pretty good so they have to fight that uphill battle but yeah it's it's not a bad product I'm certainly happy to see affordable open-loop parts coming out of a vendor that has some gravitas in the industry so good to see overall but yeah don't buy it for standalone single component cooling is basically the conclusion but definitely look into it for expanding options and for its ease of installation because they make it pretty straightforward for the most part so thank you for watching as always you can go to patreon.com/scishow gamers an accident sells out directly or store it out gamers an XS net to pick my shirt like this one this is the anniversary edition logo with the explosion on it and subscribe for more I'll see you all next time