When we recently took a look at Asetek's Vapochill, pretty much everyone in the OcPrices office agreed that it was the most sophisticated cooling product in the world today. That’s all well and good, but not every overclocker can afford over £400 for their extreme cooling needs. Another problem is the Vapochill’s incompatibility with your existing super-modded case. Sure you can buy a standalone unit, but this still limits your chassis options to something immense, with even the Lian Li PC-70 being a tight fit. The next best thing to phase-change cooling is undoubtedly water-cooling, which can be over 5 times more effective at removing heat than a conventional heat sink and fan. Quality kits exist already from Swiftech and Innovatech, but with the Waterchill™ Asetek are attempting to provide an altogether more sophisticated solution.
The waterchill comes in the usual Asetek brown cardboard box and the bits are as well packed as we have come to expect from the Danish manufacturer. Included in the Waterchill standard box is:
- The radiator with an attached Sunon fan
- Asetek's combined pump/reservoir unit
- The Waterchill control unit
- 100% copper CPU waterblock
- 10mm tubing
- 12mm tubing
- A mounting kit for either Socket A, 478 (P4) or 754 (Athlon64) motherboards
- Anti-algae solution
- A “hermaphrodite” power cord
- Branded stickers and instructions.
That’s pretty much all you could ever need in a water-cooling kit, and the words “just add water” spring instantly to mind. Let’s move on and take a look at the individual components.
