Installation:

The unit installs almost exactly as the Freezone. First, you must remove the motherboard from within your system, assuming you can not get to the back of your motherboard through the case. Otherwise, remove the motherboard and the CPU mounting brackets attached to it if necessary such as in an AMD or older Intel socket motherboards. You should be looking at a stripped down motherboard at this point.

Manual

Mounting Parts

Wire Close Up

Socket 775

The directions are very clear on how to attach the mounting hardware. It takes four screws with nylon washers to be threaded through the bottom of the motherboard, followed by four hex standoffs. At this point, you can reinstall the motherboard back in the case. If your motherboard tray isn't removable, you should lay the case on its side before installing the cooling block. Next place the Eliminator on the hard drive bays while you attach the CPU cooler.

Next, the cooling block's plastic protector is then removed. The CPU cooler was then centered over the bare, clean processor while attaching one of the two wire loops that hold the processor in place. It's easier to attach one at a time and only slightly tighten the thumb screws in to place. The block should be fairly snug and have very, very little movement.

4 Simple Screws

Clears DIMM

Clears CPU

Complete

Mounting the Eliminator to the case is a breeze. Instead of the fan adapter, four machine screws were threaded through the back of the removable motherboard tray/chassis in to the Eliminator's frame holding it completely stable. All that is left to do is reconnect all your components and peripherals. Make sure all power is connected to your system as well as the Eliminator. It requires only one 4-pin IDE power connector. All the Eliminator's wiring is already connected to the Thermal Module.

Installed on ECS PN2-SLI2 680i

Installed on FOXCONN 975XA7B

Testing:

Test System:

• Processor: Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo (2.4GHz)

• Motherboard: ECS PN2-SLI2 680i

• Memory: OCZ PC2-9200 Flex XLC

• Graphics: NVidia 7900 GT PCIE

• Audio: Bluegears 7.1 Theater

• Storage: Seagate 80GB SATAII

• Power Supply: Thermaltake 700 Watt Toughpower

The Eliminator immediately powered on and was noticeably quieter. The unit speed was set to Low which turns off the Eliminator's fan which leaves only the sound of the pump. When set to Medium, the fan turns on but just matches the sound of the pump. The High setting puts the fan at full speed which wasn't quite as loud as the Freezone.

Temperatures reached a warm 46 C idle and 65 C under load with the unit's power set to Low. Since this is a little too warm for my liking, the unit was set to Medium where the temperatures stabilized at 35 C idle and 42 C under load. The High setting brought about some much, much better results with 27 C idle and 36 C under load.

Now, since this unit should be able to easily replace or perform as good or better than a top of the line water cooling kit, the Eliminator was put under a hard core overclock. Increasing the E6600 2.4GHz Front Side Bus resulted in a 3.5GHz overclock which the unit took in stride. The final results were 36 C idle and 49 C under load. These are actually some very good results considering the size of the unit. The unit just edges past some of the best kits and has very stable temperatures. It really takes time to eventually reach those temperatures which makes the testing process take all the while longer to validate.

The Freezone is absolutely capable of cooling a Core 2 Quad, stock or overclocked. However, I am very curious how well it will do on a Core 2 Quad processor. Some water cooling kits have been reporting temps of 60 C to 80 C during moderate to extreme overclocking on a Core 2 Quad system. Unfortunately, we will not have one in time as they are very scarce among some of our sponsors which puts them in great demand. It should be able to cool a quad, but it's definitely worth a review update and will happen to answer the question.

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Now for the things that can stand a little improving. The pump could stand to be a little quieter. My guess is that this pump needs to keep the liquid moving a bit more due to the size of the TECs and their limited ability to cool quickly. It isn't very loud on the one hand, but it could stand to be a little quieter especially if a audio or video user needs a bit more silence. And another TEC would really help temperatures a bit lower when the unit is on the Low setting.

Conclusion:

   The Eliminator is an excellent liquid cooling system for any type of user, experienced or not. Thanks to the simplified mounting process, manual, and hardware, installation is very simple and easy with the detailed directions and revisions. The revised size and components make it more manageable. Any beginner could easily perform the installation. Most any case with a full sized ATX motherboard and a 90mm or 120mm fan will have no problems.

The temperature results were very good with the E6600 Core 2 Duo dual core processor which produces a decent amount of heat especially when overclocked. Cooling performance is steady, stable and cools better than any non TEC water cooling system. If your objective is better cooling or overclocking, the Eliminator will accomplish the objective. The price tag and performance are very, very good. This is simply the most affordable and best performing budget liquid cooling solution currently available on the market. It's a fantastic cooling alternative to air and water cooling for any user. If you require something that can keep a processor colder than 19 Celsius, then click over and check out the Freezone review.