WC201 Package
WC201 Package
Evercool WC201 Watercooling Kit Review
Date : Friday, 23 April 2004
Author : Wolfman
Provided by : Evercool
Introduction
Water... the mere mention of it to an ignorant PC user would strike fear and that look of ... Sure, water and PC components don't mix but try telling that to the numerous hardcore PC enthusiasts out there! Water has long been used to help cool our CPUs, graphics card, hard drives and even PSUs. Yes, even that device that powers up your PC can be watercooled. In the not so distant past, watercooling remains in the underground and only the select few would dare try it and a lot of the watercooling components were built by the enthusiast themselves. Things have sure changed though with many online stores selling ready to use kits from various companies. Today, more and more users are switching over to watercooling for the superior cooling and the noise advantage it has over conventional aircooling. Some of the kits available are targeted squarely at the beginners/novice like me so they can easily make the transition from the standard aircooling to the more extreme watercooling. Wanting to make that transition myself, I started out with a fairly basic kit and that brings us to the WC201 Kit from Evercool Taiwan.
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WC201 Package |
WC201 Package |
 Neatly Packed |
 The components |
Specifications and Features
The WC201 Kit is actually a second generation watercooling kit from Evercool. Their original offering, the WC101 hits Singapore market about a year or so ago and only includes the CPU waterblock. This time round, Evercool added a GPU block and also a few other improvements. The new WC201 Kit comes with everything a beginner needs to watercool his system and it comes in a large orange/grey box that resembles the box that your motherboard comes in. Inside, all the individual components are neatly packed in clear plastic moulds. Here's what you get with the kit;
 Cooling unit |
 Front |
 Control knob |
 LCD Display |
The first thing that I noticed was the CD-ROM like cooling unit of the WC201. This unit houses the Pump, Radiator and Reservoir, all in a package no larger than your CD-ROM drive and naturally, it fits in any empty 5.25" drive bays of your case. It also has a control unit in front with a fan control and LCD Readout panel to display temperature and also pump status. The single fan controller determines the internal radiator fan speed.
 Level indicator |
 Filler cap |
Filler cap removed
On the extreme left side of the unit, you'll find the reservoir fill cap and a water lever indicator. You can remove the cap with a straight edge screwdriver and start filling the reservoir up. The clear openings on the front with the markings indicates the water level so you can keep a close watch and top up as and when necessary. You'll notice the red rubber seal around the reservoir cap... this helps form a tight seal between the cap and the reservoir opening as to prevent any leakages.
Inside the Cooling Unit
At the rear of the cooling units, you'll find the Inlet and Outlet ports from the cooling unit as well as the external radiator fan connector and the thermal probe connector. The unit gets it's power from a standard 4-pin Molex connector which you can plug into the right side of the unit. On the top of the unit you'll see the cooling fan for the internal radiator and at the bottom, you'll see the copper tubings and fins of the radiator itself. One drawback I see from this setup is that both the bays above and below the cooling unit MUST be clear of any device so that air could be drawn in from the top and be expelled from the bottom. With users having at least two optical drives nowadays, it's hard to see that happening, unless they have a huge full tower case with 6 or 7 5.25" drive bays.
 Inlet/Outlet |
 Power connector |
 Radiator Fan |
 Tubes/Fins of radiator |
To gain access to the innards of the cooling unit, you'll have to remove 6 screws from the top of the unit itself. The top panel can then be removed to reveal the components within. Inside, you find the pump which by the way is installed within the reservoir itself. Behind the pump/reservoir is the radiator. All connections for the WC201 Kit utilizes the screw-on type connectors and the internal radiator is of the single-pass type with tubings and fins made from copper.
 Inside the cooling unit |
 Pump and reservoir |
 Screw-on type connectors |
 Close up on radiator |
 Close up on fan control |
 Internal fan |
Evercool also included a second radiator for its' WC201 Kit. An 80mm fan is included with the radiator and the radiator itself fits into any 80mm fan port. Unlike the internal radiator however, this one has it's copper tubes surrounded with aluminium fins instead of copper. A 50cc bottle of antifreeze liquid is also included with the package. You can also use the bottle to fill up the reservoir with it's "injector".
 Close up on fan control |
 Internal fan |
 Close up on fan control |
 Internal fan |
Waterblocks and Accessories
The kit comes with two waterblock, one for your CPU and another for your GPU. The GPU block supports application on both NVidia and ATI chips. It comes with retention mechanism for both the chips as well. The CPU block supports Intel P4 478, AMD 462 and the new Athlon 64 CPUs, all with the help of 3 different retention mechanisms. The bottom of the waterblocks are polished to a mirror finish to ensure proper contact with the CPU and GPU die.
 VGA Block |
 Ooohh! |
 CPU Block |
 Underneath the block |
 Same mirrored finish.. |
Now I've seen a lot of different flow channel machined into the tons of waterblocks available out there and I was interested to see what kind of pattern was on the Evercool's blocks. Unfortunately, after removing the stainless steel covers of the blocks, I found that the waterblock were soldered top and bottom! Darn it! :O)
 Covers removed |
 Soldered together |
 Same here... |
To direct the flow of water thru the system, 2 x 40cm (16") tubings and 2 x 54cm (17.5") tubings are provided, with an OD of 8mm (5/16") and ID of 5mm (3/16"). The tube length might be longer that what you would personally need so you can cut it to your own needs. A "C" spring or safety connector has to be removed first with the provided tool as it locks the screw type connector in place. Once the spring and hose connector are removed, the tube ends are exposed so you can cut it to your desired length. A silver based thermal grease in also included for use with the CPU and GPU.
 Accessories |
 Thermal Paste |
 Screw type connector |
 "C" spring removal tool |
 How to use it.. |
Installation
 Test bed |
 Cooling unit installed |
The cooling unit installs like any other 5.25" devices and secured on both sides with screws provided. As you can see from the picture above, only the intake area of the internal radiator was not block by the DigiDoc5+ but the exhaust was blocked by the ASUS CDRW Drive. It's best to have both of them clear from any obstruction but sometimes with all the devices we have, it's just not possible.
 CPU retention kit removed |
 Back of mobo.. |
Waterblock installed.
For the installation of the CPU waterblock on a P4 rig, the plastic retention kit on the mobo must first be removed. Once removed, you then insert the backing plate from underneath the mobo. The align the waterblock to it and use the "H" shaped stainless steel bracket to hold it in place. Finger tighten the screws and you're set.
 HSF removed from vidcard |
 Retention bracket |
 Waterblock installed |
 Looking good... |
Next up is the Vidcard waterblock. Use the correct retention bracket for the vidcard that you have, either an NVidia or an ATI GPU vidcard. Remove your retail heatsink+fan combo and clean off any thermal grease or pads on the GPU. Apply the silver based thermal grease provided and put the waterblock in place. Then use the retention bracket with the spring clip to secure the card and again, finger tighten the provided nut to make sure the block sits correctly and firmly on the GPU.
 Antifreeze and battery water |
 Filling up the reservoir |
 Almost there.. |
 Water level |
Once you have everything installed and all the tubings connected, the next step is to fill up the reservoir. Of course, you'll need to mix the antifreeze solution with de-ionized or battery water first. Then use the antifreeze bottle to fill up the reservoir up to the "H" level. You'll need to circulate the water thru the circuit and bleed off any air bubbles first before turning on the rig. I used power from another system to just turn on the kit and proceed to fill and bleed the entire system. You will notice the water level dropping once you the pump on so keep filling it until it's constantly at the "H" level. Evercool outlined the necessary steps to filling and bleeding the system correctly in the manual and if you followed it, you should be fine. I left the pump on for 24hours to totally fill the system and remove any air bubbles from the circuit.
Water flowing thru the rig..
Testing
The WC201 Kit was installed into my test bed rig which consists of the following components.
 Blue - Low Fan Speed |
 Purple 0 High Fan Speed |
The 2.4C is running rather happily at 3.0GHz but heat was quite a worry for me as it would reach almost 70°C on load with the retail heatsink. The testing was did in two parts. First with the basic kit alone and then adding the second radiator to the circuit to see what kind of improvements would be achieved. The second radiator was added after the CPU block so that heated water from the CPU Block would be cooled down before going to the GPU Block. All tests were done with the radiator fans all FULL speed to get the best possible cooling. CPU temperature was monitored with Motherboard Monitor while the GPU temps were recorded with ATI's own Overdrive Tab in their Catalyst Driver Set. The rig was left idle for 30 minutes and temperatures were taken and for load, Sisoft Sandra Burn-In Wizard was loaded in the background while 3DMark2003 Demo was set to loop until the temperatures stabilize.
PART 1
Reservoir -> Pump -> Internal Radiator -> CPU Block -> GPU Block
-> Reservoir
PART2
Reservoir -> Pump -> Internal
Radiator -> CPU Block -> External Radiator -> GPU Block -> Reservoir
I'm new to watercooling and the WC201 is the first ever watercooling kit I've worked with and I have no other kit to compare it with but as you can see from the graph above, the basic kit of the WC201 does help to further cool the CPU/GPU better than the retail heatsink. It drops temps about 2°C-4°C both during idle and load. It isn't stellar though since it's designed to be a beginners kit. I had placed the CPU block before the GPU block so naturally, the temps drop on the GPU is a little lower since the heated water from the CPU block is sent straight to the GPU before going back to the cooling unit and radiator.
So when adding the second radiator, I decided to place it right after the CPU block to help cool the water down before going thru the GPU block and it definitely helps to further reduces the temperature across the board. Temperatures takes another 3°C-4°C plunge after adding it to the circuit. So if you're gonna be using this kit with your vidcard, I highly recommend you install the second radiator as well. HELL! Even if you're not gonna use the GPU block, slap on the extra radiator for extra performance! It could also help if you have the upper and lower 5.25" bays from the cooling unit free so the internal radiator is free from any obstruction, but I reckon that would be a little hard since most of us have at least 2 5.25" devices installed.
Conclusion
It's obvious that the Evercool WC201 Watercooling Kit is targeted at the newbies or beginners to the watercooling scene. The kit was very easy to install and the 5.25" cooling unit means that users do not have to crack their heads trying to figure out where to install the pump, reservoir and radiator in their case. The cooling unit also added radiator fan control, temperature display and also pump power monitoring with alarm to quickly notify you of any irregularities in the circuit. A second radiator was also added to provided more cooling for the circuit and comes in the standard 80mm fan configuration, which almost all cases have one. There's no hose clamps to deal with as the WC201 Kit utilizes screw-on type connections on their tubings. Support for a wide range of CPUs and NVidia/ATI videocards also means that you wouldn't have to purchase separate parts in case you change your rig's components later on.
If you're a beginner/newbie and wants something easy to install and maintain, then give the Evercool WC201 Watercooling Kit a look see. Retailing in at about $300+ Singapore Dollars, it's way cheaper than the more extreme watercooling solutions currently available down here. But if it's performance that you want, wouldn't mind getting your hands dirty with installation and price is no object, then it's wise to put your money on something better. Thanks to Sharon from Evercool for the review sample and to you all for reading! Enjoy the site!