How about watercooling ?

As we mentioned on the previous page, the Flex line-up is built from the ground up to provide water-cooling to the memory. While you can run the modules on air-cooling, it would be a shame not to try them for what they are made. In our previous reviews from the first generation of Flex modules, we contemplated the fact that water-cooling out of the box is not provided by OCZ : while we would have liked to demonstrate the water-cooled performance of our PC2-9200 and PC2-6400 modules, we did not have access to the right adapters and tubing to connect the Flex I to our water-cooling setup. In the end we've never tested the water-cooling abilities of the Flex I, time to do better with the Flex II.

And guess what we found in the box of our test sample:



That's right : a full set of water-cooling adapters and tubing to make life a lot easier for the water-cooling enthusiast : everything needed to connect the memory heatspreaders to a 1/2" (primarily US) or 3/8" (10mm in EU) water-cooling setup is provided. OCZ even included a clear printed manual to make sure even the novice will be able to install these without much trouble.


Watercooling gear, printed manual


Installation

Let's get started now. Before we can connect the tubing we have to remove the two black caps on top of each module, which protect and give access to the 2x two water-cooling barbs. Unlike the first generation of Flex modules, the heatspreaders are actually built out of two pieces, on each side of the memory module. Both pieces get their own water-cooling circuit, and thus the water-cooling barbs are a much smaller diameter than on the first Flex modules.



Not to despair however, as I mentioned that OCZ provides everything needed to put the modules into your water-cooling circuit. Make your choice from the provided 1/2" or 3/8" barbs, and connect them to the 4-way adapter. After that cut the provided tubing into 8 equal parts, and connect them to the adapter. After that just connect your tubing to the barbs and you're set.



Ah, but wait a sec. If you're an experienced water-cooling enthusiast, I'm sure you've had your share of "accidents". Only recently, and that's after many years of experience myself, I just managed to escape from a water-cooling disaster with my Asus Blitz Formula SE board : I had connected the tubing to the chipset water block, only to discover that, in the morning, my water reservoir was empty: the tubing had slid off the barbs, spilling all water onto the motherboard and the rest of the case. Luckily, I was still testing the loop and no current was present on any pc part, but still, a narrow escape. What does this lesson learn: never use a barb without a clamp, and unfortunately, OCZ does not provide a clamp for the large barbs, nor for the small ones. The small barbs seem to connect very well to the soft tubing provided in the box; my harder tubing was much harder to connect to the large barbs however. So I used one of my own clamps just so I could sleep well at night, as you can see in the picture above, and I'd advise you to do the same.


Installation : halfway there and... halleluja!

After the preparation, it's just a matter of installing all pieces in the right place, and don't forget to test run your installation for an hour at least before providing any current to the delicate parts ;-)

Let's move on to some testing now >>>