Here we are with a radiator that you just don’t see that often. 200mm isn’t necessarily common place. But why shouldn’t it? We’re Modders right? But it’s more than just choosing to go with a non-standard sized radiator. As Modders we have a LOT of components we typically try to pack into tight spaces. With this radiator, you can open up a whole new avenue for water cooling your system.
We’re going to take a good look into this radiator and see what, if any, benefits it has over a standard 120 and 240 radiator. We’re also going to take a look into Phobya’s rather interesting Fan Shrouds along with their 180MM Fans to cool this thing.
First lets look at the radiator. First notice the perfect addition, the drain hole. In my opinion, every radiator should have this.
This is Phobya’s Xtreme 200. Sure, it looks like any other Volkswagen radiator but it’s more than that. It’s the Xtreme line. The entire Xtreme line is relatively square in design. This is to ensure that they cover us Modders and all Water Cooling enthusiasts no matter what size of radiator we need. It consists of brass channels, copper fins and the standard G1/4” connection threads. Despite being thin, Phobya claims that you can indeed run it fanless for small loops. Included in the package is a very nice mounting plate(s) for multiple sized fans.
Them are awfully handy. Made of steel and tapped for 180, 200 and 220mm fans.
This package comes in at around $80 bucks over at Aquatuning, which still, in my experience, has the best prices and unmatched service that I have dealt with.
At this price tag, it’s going to have to be one hell of a performer considering their own 240mm comes in at $65.00. It’s safe to say that non-standard size calls for a premium.
Included in this review is Phobya’s own 180mmFan Shrouds.
Relatively simple design but a must have if you intend to squeeze every inch of performance out of your system. Only an inch thick which has been proven to be the optimal size. Besides the performance increase these provide, they have great aesthetics and only cost around $7.00.
The purpose of Fan shrouds is to eliminate the dead spot in the center of the fan. When you mount a fan directly to the radiator you can see the limited space between the center of the fan and the radiator and obviously there is no air flow in the center. By adding one of these fan shrouds you are able to take advantage of the entire radiator, including the dead center. I don’t think I have to point out the ramifications to this. 100% air flow through radiator sure is better than 80% (or worse). All of this is providing you have the room, but it’s my sincere recommendation that you find the room to use them for any radiator, at least for push configurations.
Lastly we we’re sent Phobya’s line of 180mm fans, for when 140mm just isn’t enough!
We have the G-Silent 18 700rpm red LED fans times two which measure 180x180x32mm. Yeah, they are thick. We also have the G-Silent Slim in white and Black, these are only 25mm thick and reasonably cheaper than the 32mm ones. With our previous review of Phobya’s 120mm fans we knew that these at 700 rpm would be virtually silent. And they ARE. However, the 700 rpm is far lower than I would have liked. I prefer that to be a minimum from a fan with a 1100+ max speed. We need the flexibility of a fan when choosing it’s purpose in our chassis. As you will see in the results below, a higher RPM fan would have significantly given better temperatures with our 200mm radiator.
Thanks to Aquatuning we were able to snatch up a full set of these to make the “Monster”
As you can see, there is no practical way this could fit into the average PC Case without modifications. But to me, this thing looks just flat out bad ass. But in my enthusiasm I didn’t take initial temperature tests without the fan shrouds and 1 fan etc. ugh. So I disassembled it and started over. I’m going to just put up one single chart showing the results of all the configurations. Our test bed was a n i7-920 OC to 3.8 on an open test bench. Ambient’s were right at 20c.
It’s obvious to see that any addition to the radiator is beneficial. But by simply adding an 8 dollar item we can see a significant decrease in temps. I honestly expected better, but I concluded that this is due to the 700 rpm fans. Speaking of the fans. I did not work on single pull tests like I should. There are many reports that pull is better, both with, and without a fan shroud however the difference is minimal at 700 rpm. I will try to revisit this with faster fans in the future. You can tell by the temps that this is very satisfactory temps and the noise level of the fans are lower than the pump, Relatively inaudible.
For us Modders, we’re benefitted from using fan shrouds not only because of performance but they also add a great look. Look at some of these shots in low light.
We pulled the information of Phobya’s 120mm and 240mm radiators from previous tests and wanted to show the results from the same type of radiators, just different sizes. The largest differences as you would expect is going from a single 120mm rad with 1 fan to a 200mm with 1 fan. Jumping to a 240 was a very small margin. It performed as expected. by having more real estate to dissipate heat, it generally performed better.
So by now you should understand that you should always try to use fan shrouds where room permits and that a 200mm radiator is a better alternative to a 120 but what isn’t so obvious is that if you have the room for a 180mm, you may want to consider it instead of a 240. The thermals were not noticeably better going from 200 to 240mm. But when it all comes down to it, we sometimes are forced to decide on what components we use based on price, availability and size constraints. And although I feel that Phobya’s price is a bit high on the 200mm it’s still sufficiently priced for it’s performance.
Phobya has been consistent through out their entire manufacturing process providing us with some of the best quality at an even better price. The 200mm radiator isn’t for everyone as you will need an odd amount of space to place it. But it’s a solid performer and worth every penny. The fan shrouds is simply a must. I admit I never used them before, but after my tests, it proved to me their benefit. I fully intend to purchase many of these and use them whenever possible. Something we did not place in this particular review is; we also received 120mm fan shrouds which we placed on one of Phobya’s 480mm radiators which we will be using in our upcoming mod, so be sure to look for that. The shrouds are cheaper and QUIETER than running 2 fans and performs identical with 1 fan and shroud. The only time I would not recommend them is in a pull configuration only and when the radiator already is created with a nice gap between the radiator and fan, which is becoming pretty standard now days. The fans, well, although I am impressed with their great looks, and low cost, I would still prefer higher performance. 700rpm is in most cases not effective for radiators. However they would be perfect for a side door fan. They came in about 7db quieter than Thermaltake’s 180mm Fans also.
Again we want to thank Aquatuning for providing us this hardware for testing. As always Device Unknown was not paid for this review nor do we sell review samples.
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Posted by Device Unknown on Feb 25 2012. Filed under News, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
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