Lowbudget water cooling kits roundup

Cooling/Water Cooling by DUR0N @ 2003-04-16

Thanks to Colorcase.be we were able to put head 2 head 3 different out-of-the-box and ready-to-go water cooling kits. We threw a highend aircooling solution in the mix to present you with this lowbudget water chilled roundup!

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The Poseidon kit

The Poseidon kit

Madshrimps (c)


This kit was one of the first full water-cooling kits available on the market. Back then it was quite good, but with all those new kits it might get some serious competition. One advantage is sure: its price of €/$ 120. But let’s do the testing first and then make final conclusions :-).

The box.

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It’s just a cardboard box, if you need to lower the costs, why not start with the packaging. After all, people will throw them away and having flashy figures and stats printed on a box that lies in the garbage is quite useless... ;-)

Water block

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This is one of the worst water blocks I’ve ever seen. It's made out of low quality aluminium and it's not even lapped very well. It can be fit on an AMD or an Intel system because of the plastic pieces which come with the kit. You'll need the default retention clips from standard Intel cooler, but that's no big problem, as almost all Intel CPU's come boxed with a cooler.

The pump

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Officially, you should get a standard pump with the kit. But the ones sold at Colorcase are with another pump, because they decided that the standard pump was not good enough and above all, it was not Q.C. certified. So the pump which came with this kit is actually a standalone version. 600L/H and a max height difference of 60cm don’t make this pump a real winner, but it's enough for a basic water-cooling setup.

The reservoir

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This is one of the better components in this kit. It has three connectors for hoses and a cap. The three connectors are for the in & out line of the reservoir, and the last one is for the wire of the pump. All are sealed easily with clips or screws.
You can add water without having to shut down your system because there is a cap, open it and you can fill up your reservoir. I think it can contain about 750ml of water, which is not much but enough to keep using fresh water at all times.

The radiator

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It's a small aluminium radiator with black sockets around it, so you can mount a fan on it. You can even mount it in your case by squeezing it between a fan and your case. Such small radiators don't have a big capacity, so you don't even have to try to cool everything that makes heat in your case with just one silly aluminium radiator. But yet again, your CPU should be cooled down enough.

Some clips & tubing

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Some clips to seal everything off as tight as possible. If you don't move around with your case, these aren't even necessary :)
Yes, you even get some silicon tubing with the kit (duh, it's a kit remember :) ) The tubing is very easy to install, and is quite flexible. Almost too flexible, because you can bend-seal it without noticing it.

A colourful fan

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Some crappy standard fan, should be removed immediately, Enermax to the rescue!

Several stickers

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Some stickers to keep the condensation away or protect your motherboard from damage (I think). And a very “funny”: “WARNING! water-cooling system, turn on pump before system' sticker” :-)
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