Not so long ago, we took a look at Asetek’s revised waterchill revision 2 (review here), which features all new radiators and different tubes, performance was as expected excellent, being a couple of degrees better than the previous version. Today we have received their top of the range Antarctica block, which promises even better performance than their already superb CPU cooling block.
Since we already have a Waterchill here, Asetek sent the block by itself in this small box. Unpacking the foam protection reveals the block itself, some extra 10mm tubes (US versions come with ½” tubes instead), the mounting springs and screws, plus a Y splitter.
Looking at the block itself and it immediately becomes apparent why you need the Y splitter. The waterblock actually comes with three inlets, two out and one in. The idea is that the single streams of water come in directly over the centre of the block, forcing turbulence over the ridged central section, then out through either side of the heatsink section. Initially I thought this design would cause quite a lot of pressure drop, but the way Asetek have designed this means that the flow is “focused” only on the relevant part of the block for cooling and then it only has two easy paths out. This in theory should provide cooling significantly better than the half moon design of the previous block.
