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LarKooler SkyWater 330 DYI Kit Review

Cooling/Water Cooling by leeghoofd @ 2014-05-19

LarKooler was established in 2009 to manufacture cost-effective PC cooling solutions. MadShrimps reviewed their first entry in to the DYI in the end of 2009; while it was not the most high end or best performing kit out there, the total picture was right on track with LarKooler's main objective: provide good cooling performance at an amazing bang for buck ratio. Since a few years AIO units took over a big part in the cooling business, with the most successful being the Corsair Hydro series. Ease of installation is their main trademark, however as most of these are closed loop, there is no option to integrate extra components in the cooling loop. The latter is the strong point of the DIY kits besides being versatile to add extra components they also provide awesome cooling performance at a low noise ratio. The SkyWater 330 kit today is one of those ready to build kits, however price wise it retails at a similar price as the high end 240/280 AIOs. Million dollar question can it beat those in raw performance figures ?

Temperature and Noise Results

Before continuing with the temperature results a brief word on the MadShrimps testbed which comprises of the following parts:

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard
Intel i7-3960X OC'ed at 4500MHz 1.35Vcore
Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 2666C11
Western Digital 1TB Green Caviar HDD
ASUS GTX780ti video card
Corsair HX1050W Power supply
Corsair Obsidian 750D case
Ambient air temperature is 20°C

Prime95 is our CPU torture test. By selecting the Custom test and setting 12-12K, we force the CPU to go straight flatout. After 60 minutes we verify in RealTemp the maximum load temperature results across the 6 cores. For the idle temperatures we just allow the system to warm up during a period of 15 minutes. Just basic idling at 4500MHz, doing nothing more then just monitoring the temperatures.

The monitoring software we use is RealTemp version 3. And the output results are the average out of three runs.

We compare the LarKooler SkyWater 330 versus the different Corsair, Cooler Master and Enermax AIO models. Secondly versus several air coolers: the single fan Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure, Thermalright True Spirit 120M, Scythe Ashura and the Zalman XPS14. Retesting the older Hydro versions ( read H50/70 ) on the socket 2011 platform might yield inaccurate results, partly due to the aging nature and abuse these AIOs have undergone throughout the years. The full blown do it yourself EK waterblocks L 360 kit is also included in the charts for comparison.

Noise measurement for the fans is done according the Corsairs Air Fan Reviewers' Guide. Thus measuring the generated FAN noise at 1 meter from the FAN's front. Fans were hooked up straight to a PSU via a molex adapter. Noise tests are only conducted at 12V.

Test Results:

At idle the LarKooler SkyWater 330 can directly play with the big boys. Take note that this cooler uses an external radiator versus an internal positioned radiator for the other liquid cooling solutions. The external ambient air is cooler than the one from inside the case.

With the cores pumping at 4500MHz the LarKooler SkyWater 330 positions itself amongst the best AIO's MadShrimps has tested, the Corsair Hydro H105/110 and the Cooler Master Nepton 280L, not a bad showing at all for a 110 euro kit, though again take into consideration that the radiator is using ambient air to cool down versus the hotter case air being used by the competitor's offerings.

The noise tests were conducted and resulted in a 33.7dBA with the fans running at full trust (1800rpm). Not bad at all, LarKooler has found a good compromise here between cooling performance, price and generated noise. Time to wrap it up...

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