The Koolance Exos-2

Testing & Overclocking

I have not seen many reviews that look at an entire cooling system like the Exos-2 and Koolance’s line of water blocks, but when a system has the ability to handle 700W, you need to show the full capabilities of the product. I think that someone buying the Exos-2 is the type of person who will be pushing their system to the extreme, and cooling every component possible. I also don’t want you to get the idea that because this system can handle such an enormous load, that your temperatures will be miraculously lower. In fact most testing shows that water cooling in general will only drop your systems temperatures to about 12-15C above ambient system temps. The benefit of an external system such as this is that your case itself is less cramped, and the cooling system itself is able to draw cooler air than it would placed internally.

For testing purposes I used the following system:

• AMD 3500+ Winchester
• DFI NF4 SLI-DR
• 1 GB Corsair XMS 4400 C25PT
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300 GB HDD
• Antec TruePower 2.0 500W PSU
• Antec Performance 1050B case

*All tests were run in a controlled enviromment with an ambient temperature of 78F using Sisoft Sandra’s Burn In Wizard to stress the system at 100% load for 25 cycles. The Koolance fan controller was set to 7. All temperature measurements were acquired using software. For the CPU and Chipset I used DFI’s Smart Guardian program, for the graphics card I used ATITOOL’s temperature sensor, and for the HDD I used Speedfan 4.24. While no program is 100% accurate, I feel that by using the same programs across each testing session allows for a good comparison of actual performance

While the processor used is obviously a cool one, I used it for two reasons. First I have used this system for a variety of reviews and cooling reviews, and second, because the AMD64 mounting hardware was what Koolance sent me. I think the overall setup at stock and overclocked speeds will definitely show what the Exos-2 is capable of.

First, we’ll focus on the CPU temperatures in a variety of configurations and compare them against some cooling systems from our past, the Corsair Cool, which I reviewed her and think extremely highly of, as well as the stock AMD HSF included in all retail packages.

As you can see, the Koolance CPU block registered temperatures very near those of the Corsair Cool. I expect some might look at that and be disappointed given the price of this kit and the components. Please keep two things in mind. First, the temperature of my house was 78F in this test, while the previous tests were run with a temperature of 74F. I need you to understand that I do live in Las Vegas, and it does get warm here in May, and if I had set the thermostat to 74F we would have really tested the durability of the Exos-2 as my wife would have beaten me about the head and neck with it. So for the sake of my health and electric bill, I felt that 78F would be adequate.

Second, I want you to keep in mind that four blocks were used in this test, so the fact that the Exos-2, using three more blocks, could keep pace with a very good Corsair cooling system using one block is impressive. Let’s move on and take a look at how the other blocks compared to stock system cooling, and their affect on system performance and overclocking.