Gadgetory

getting this cooler working was a bit of a struggle it was some parts human error on our end and some parts mechanical error this thing is a $100 cooler from Aliexpress it's the PC cooler all lowercase W 120 and it uses both open-loop cooling liquid and a few air cooling components as well like traditional heat pipes with a fan we had some small leaks during our live stream and after the stream we discovered that the screws securing the inlet manifold were actually loose on the tower causing significant leakage as water filled the pipes after fixing this we were finally able to test this truly unique hybrid water / air cooler to its fullest potential before that this video is brought to you by the new gamers and access blueprint logo shirt which features a Jian logo made in CAD software using accurate angle and length measurements for the drafted lines in the design just for fun this blueprint logo is placed on a heather true royal shirt by Bella in canvas and is 52% heirloom cotton with 48 percent polyester we use tear away labels that are easily removed the print is an opaque ink that pops vibrantly on the shirt and fits with our blueprint theme and the shirts are extremely comfortable thanks to the heather dual blend materials and feel lightweight and well fitted to wear pick one up at store doc gamers nexus net or at the link below first off we're probably doing a teardown as either a live stream or a separate video so you'll want to check that because I know I want to see what's inside of the cooler and how the cold plates design so we'll have a separate video doing a teardown of it make sure you do check back for that other than that though it's a really interesting product it's actually been pretty fun to work with just because it's so unique and weird and you know they never sold any of these things because it was $100 it was launched like or show it seven years ago at Computex at 2018 - seven years so I guess coffee tax 2011 and inside the box when we opened it it's got like yellowing from aged the thermal paints that came with it was completely hardened and basically unusable so it's been sitting on a shelf for a long time at this point probably not the most successful product but a very interesting one and that's why it was fun to test so the PC cooler w 120 hundred bucks it comes with the fan that's actually pretty high CFM but it is a bit noisy and other than that it's got a couple of liquid tubes in the middle of the fin stack that are used for actual water cooling you can hook it up by normal fittings even to standard ek or Thermaltake or whatever other components you want to use so very interesting then you could also use it as a straight air cooler if you want that we haven't tested that yet we do plan to however it's just that at some point it's not really going to be much better than the low end of liquid coolers and you'll see that as we go through the numbers today so aside from our own incompetence during the stream and problems with just setting the cooler up in general the thing did actually have a few problems mainly being the cold plate on the underside the contact side the IHS has a bit of wear on it so it's got some staining or some corrosion and that limits its ability to conduct and then the thermal paste was no good so we did a test with that and then a test with our standardized paste and then also the screws on the top of the manifold for the intake for water or loose which caused it to leak massively and that was kind of figured out and solved easily once it was figured out but now it's time to go through the test so for testing we have one chart we'll go through with just the W 120 results to make it easy but the tests are basically noise normalized as always we have stock thrown paste from them we have our own thermal hay so we've got adding a 360 radiator to it to see if that helps at all and then I always normalize with the radiator as well so let's start off with just the W 120 results and then go from there in full stock configuration including the stock age hardened thermal paste the cooler kept the CPU at about sixty point seven degrees Celsius over ambient which is one of the worst results we've recorded on this bench remember this is without any radiators and just a straight pump to and from the cooler pump and reservoir in this case the stock fan is mounted to the fin stack and pushes across the water pipes and the normal heat pipes replacing that they're all pasted dropped temperatures by six degrees as always with our cooling testing this was conducted with multiple repetitions on an average adults were consistent with a 6-degree reduction against the included paste each time for reference we also have a photo of the cooler with the original paste after removal so you can clearly tell how hard into the paste had become and how it's basically cured to a point of limiting its thermal efficacy of the compound back to the chart a stock test with our standardized thermal paste at us at 54 degrees over ambience adding a thermal take 360 radiator and three high end fans to Corsair ml's and one Noctua a 12 resulted in a reduction over 10 degrees Celsius this is more a testament to the fans and radiator than anything and rising water temperatures required the extra cooling power directed straight at the liquid noise normalized the stock setup operated at 58 degrees with the radiator version at 45 degrees moving on is a comparative data with other coolers the PC cooler W 120 using our controlled standardized paste and no radiator landed between an NZXT m22 120 millimeter closed-loop cooler and EVGA CLC 120 at a lower rpm this place is the W 120 as well below the X 42 the NZXT one with a very low fan speed of 10 50 rpm and also below the 92 $100 courser h 100 IV 2 at low rpms the lower rpms limit the cooling power of these products but it also means that our noise levels are well below the W 120 s noise levels adding a radiator boosted us to H 100 IV to performance with the PC cooler product with the age 100 IB 2 at 1500 rpm at 41 degrees over ambient for each this is still unimpressive for the PC cooler w 120 particularly given the overall quality difference between them favoring Corsair massively the 360 radiator and high on fans we equipped are being outmatched by cheaper coolers and worse fans which means that we're having trouble with cooling the cold blades we'll be opening up the cooler separately to investigate if there are any micro fins at all in the cold blade or if there's anything good in general in there we're bottle knocked out the w1 20s : pipes for sure for our next test we normalized all coolers to 40 DBA of output which ensures that we test on somewhat level footing for noise output most people tune their fan speeds to tolerable noise levels so this allows quieter coolers to spin faster and cool better while louder coolers will be quieted to meet our noise requirement in the middle the result is a test of overall cooling efficiency versus a fixed noise level at 40 DBA the PC cooler W 120 without a radiator at all operated at the bottom of the chart at 58 point 2 degrees Celsius over ambient and this is the worst device we've tested yet at 40 DBA anyway and operates even behind the 120 closed-loop liquid coolers like the EVGA LC 120 and NZXT M 22 which I've rated at 49 degrees and 54 degrees respectively the W 120 is significantly worse for noise normalize testing although its ban pushes a lot of air it's loud and uses cheap bearings in plastic and also proves turbulent through the fin stack this produces a lot of noise that could be avoided with a better design like from one of the more mainstream companies with a 360 millimetre fat Thermaltake radiator attached using two Corsair ml fans and one knock to a 1/12 fan the PC cooler w 128 adapt 45 degrees over ambience at this point the radiator is doing the bulk of the cooling as our water temperature measurements indicated that the cooler doesn't dissipate enough heat to keep liquid temperatures low more on this momentarily with the radiator the W 120 stars costing beyond $200 but it performs about equivalently to a crack and X 40 to 140 millimeter CLC and other $100 coolers like the H 100 Ivy 2 at 40 DB a water temperature measurements were conducted with a k-type thermocouple placed within the pump and reservoir combo unit from thermal take this measured distilled water as it returned into the inlet from the cooler over time we can see that the blue line representing the cooler with no radiator but with our standard paste slowly rises to about 36 degrees the red line representing the three sixty millimeter radiator test only rises to 24 degrees note that ambient temperature was 21 degrees we're not trying delta T values here just straight temperature from the probe we have adjusted with an offset as appropriate and finally the orange line representing the original pace illustrates that we have a clear problem with getting heat into the cold plate and getting rid of it effectively where we rise almost nearly noise levels at max rpm for the w124 at 48.5 DBA equal with the x42 at max rpm and the x42 and other nearby coolers and noise are all superior in thermals making this one a hard sell from any perspective so that's it that's the PC cooler W 120 really interesting product and definitely fun to work with not at all something we can reasonably recommend to you it comes with pretty low end or chiefly made parts anyway doesn't work particularly well does worse than jeepers coolers on the market and it starts really adding up because it's $100 for the cooler but then you supply your own pump and radiator it doesn't come with one your own tubes your own liquid all that stuff if you want a radiator with fans that's on you as well and clearly that has a massive impact here to a point of actually making it a usable product but at that point you really might as well just put a water block on it and be done with it and get rid of the tower cooler although it is certainly unique and interesting leakage a potential concern just go through all the screws and make sure they're tight before you start working on it and then do a leak test and you'll be good to go there so now we wouldn't recommend it it is however very interesting and fun to work with and that's it for the BC cooler W 120 as always you can help us out by subscribing to catch all of our videos go to store dock heroes exes net to pick up our brand new blueprint design shirt which we actually used some CAD software to get the exact measurements of things on the shirt as well so it's it's an accurate to reality nerd version of the GM logo on the store in blue Heather blue for the shirt and store dock heroes x is for that otherwise good patreon.com slash cameras nexus helps out directly and i'll see you all next time