And so… Performance. Before we beginning reviewing the charts, we have to talk about how radiator performance is measured. The cardinal rule of radiator functioning testing is to see how well the radiator cools the coolant. So for us, the well-nigh widespread mode of describing radiator performance is past using W/x°C, or in other words, Watts per 10 Delta T (sometimes K is used instead of ΔT). This relation tells you how many watts the radiator tin can dissipate when the coolant temperature rises 10°C above the ambient temperature. If you are not familiar with the ΔT term, take a look at the previous "What is Delta T" web log. But however, what does all this mean!? To make it easier to sympathize, let's look at an example, a performance chart for an EK-CoolStream XE 240 radiator.

The nautical chart shows that with two Vardar fans in a push setup, spinning at 1800 RPM, the EK-CoolStream XE 240 has a cooling power of 350W/ten°C. This actually means that if the temperature of the liquid circulating in the radiator is 10°C higher than ambient temperature, the radiator can remove 350W of heat at that fan speed and that coolant flow. Therefore, if your room temperature is 25°C, and the liquid temperature is 35°C, the EK-CoolStream XE 240 tin absurd a high-end CPU and a high-finish GPU. By looking at the nautical chart, to cool and overclocked high-finish GPU and CPU, that altogether dissipate around 450W, would crave crazy fan speeds. But the „small" 240mm radiator could still absurd them, and at the same time, you lot would become decent CPU and GPU temperatures. We need to have in mind, that the ΔT is not something that we cull, information technology'due south what we go as a consequence of hardware giving off heat and the cooling adequacy of the radiator. For our testing purposes and, charts a ΔT ten°C is used for representation.

But what would happen if we slow the fans downwards? In that case, the liquid temperature, or the  ΔT, would rise from x°C to, permit's say 15°C. Now here is the twist. If the temperature of the liquid rises within the radiator and the ambient temperature remains the same, the radiator volition have a greater cooling capacity. College liquid temperature means the radiator becomes more efficient and tin remove more heat. At the same fan speed (1800 RPM) with the liquid temperature at 15°C higher than the ambient temperature, the same 240mm XE radiator could remove around 500W of rut. This ways that yous can have less noisy fans and get slightly higher CPU and GPU temperatures.

If yous are having a hard fourth dimension understanding this, imagine that the greater the difference between the ambient temperature and the liquid temperature, the more efficient the radiator gets. For the same reason, a adequately „small" car radiator tin cool the engine, because it has its liquid temperature at 90°C and the ambient temperature is mainly 25°C during the spring. If you are all the same having a difficult time understanding all this, simply know that the bigger the Due west/10°C number is, the ameliorate the cooling capacity of the radiator is.

So finally, let'south compare some radiators. Hither is a performance comparison of the EK-CoolStream SE 240 26mm thick radiator with an FPI of 22, EK-CoolStream PE 38mm thick radiator with an FPI of 19, and the EK-CoolStream XE 60mm thick radiator with an FPI count of 16.

You lot tin can encounter how the three radiators chronicle to 1 another at various fan speeds. Y'all tin can spot that the thicker the radiator is, the better it responds to faster fans, i.e. more airflow. But with a slight change in the fan speed, the XE 240 radiator gains much more cooling power than the Slim 240 model. You can besides spot that, at low fan speeds, all three radiators perform almost the same – within the 50W cooling capacity range. These results are for all EK-CoolStream SE, PE, and XE 240mm radiators but let'due south see what happens when we compare these results to the 360mm models.

The jump in cooling performance from a 240 radiator to a 360mm i is more axiomatic. At a fairly low fan speeds, the SE 360 Slim radiator can absurd 100W more that the 240mm Slim radiator. Once more, we can see that the bigger and thicker the radiator is, the more than it gains from the higher airflow. Hence, on this chart, the EK-CoolStream XE 360 leaves all the other radiators far behind.

When asking the question "Which radiator should I choose?", you take to know what do you expect from information technology. Practice y'all just want something more efficient than air cooling? Do you want silence? Exercise you want to overclock your hardware? Do you desire a silent PC and overclocked stuff at the same time? Because a relatively small-scale EK-CoolStream PE 240 radiator can absurd your hardware far better than any air cooling. Going for a bigger radiator comes down to your personal needs, what components you are cooling, are you overclocking, do you want a silent PC, etc.

Radiators are by far the about demanding water cooling components when it comes to testing and measuring their functioning accurately. For these reasons, nosotros have used radiator test results that were conducted in a controlled test environment. The final results that you, the user, tin get at home might differ from these charts because of variances in the pump flow rate, the type of fans used, the type of case and how well it is ventilated, the choice of water blocks, the quality of the thermal chemical compound, etc. The number of variables is vast and the betoken of these charts is to show you how certain radiator sizes and models relate to each other.

Nosotros would wrap it up hither and get out the remainder for the episode 3. In our next web log post about radiators, nosotros will be talking about surface size over thickness, or which one is improve. Also, we are going to be talking most button, pull and push&pull setups.

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