Uh-oh... this is why i am typically more reserved. Bill, i assume those numbers were generated by the testing system you developed awhile back. Those numbers apply specifically to that test setup. In "real-world" tests, those tests that use a system with a processor and simply change out the water block, our temps are always lower. So, if your numbers, generated from your bench test, indicate our "lack" performance, why then in a real-world test do we out-perform? Quantifiable data is only as good as the system it is tested in.

"Quantifiable data is only as good as the system it is tested in."

Quite so. That's Bill's point I suspect. If I were to review this wb I would need to mount it on a motherboard that used the insocket thermistor to really see its performance potential?

I just bought a Polarflow video block.
I didn't plan to buy one originally but after my fan died on my video card I needed a block.
So after looking around there was only one block I could find that would mount on the card at a 3oclock position because I have BIXmicro2 resting right against the top of my video card. Polorflow was the solution.
I went to their site. Ordered the block. aprox $45 for the block... not to pricy...
Then check into shipping... $30 flat rate ... for the little box that I got I paid $30US.
I have received boxes 4 times larger from other US based websites and have paid less in shipping. Ok now up to $75 US. Then when the block arrived I had to pay an added $40 CDN for customs (brokerage fees and stuff) so the block cost me aprox $143CDN for a video block.
Well I paid more for the block then I did for the video card.
Polorflow has no control with what customs charges. However, their flat rate international shipping for $30 is terrible. I will not buy from Polarflow again. Not until something is done about shipping methods.

consider again your response Steve, you answered your own question

Let me guess... sent via UPS? If so, Polarflo could have saved you some cash by sending it via USPS or FedEx, as neither has a pricing scheme quite as aggressive as UPS.

You can't really fault Polarflo for the shittiness that is Canadian customs either. There is a $5 fee for assessing the customs fees. Isn't that their job? Also they opened a package Jaydee sent me and arbitrarily revalued it to be just over the legal limit of "no charge gift" so that I could pay them $8 ($5 fee plus $3 charge). It's like a ****ing third world country sometimes.

I will conclude with this:

All of the reviews (SF and non-SF PolarFLO CPU blocks) are posted on our website. You will see a range of systems and a range of performance. To use one test system to measure or indicate overall performance is silly. Rather, look at all the independent results as a general gage to determine performance vs. price vs. quality vs. beauty vs. service.

Respectfully yours,

Steve

from the testing i have seen Bill and pHaestus do.
if you apply a specific amount of heat to the block and pump through a specific amount of water at a specific temperature. you should get accurate data that would be good to compare diffrent blocks from diffrent companies.
unfortunatly from the graph above, polorflow doesn't rate the best, or 2nd best.. or 3rd best...or even 4th best...

AngryAlpaca grab the offer from Polarflow. garenteed way to get a free block... what you would do with it i don't know because it doesn't rate anywhere as good as WW or cascade.
my 2¢

I think it is generally agreed that the quality of the average waterblock review is pretty low - due to a variety of factors, the results are not scientific (read: repeatable). I don't see how looking at individual results is better than seeing how all the blocks compared using the same testbed using laboratory standards.

That is not to say BillA's graph is the be all and end all, since different designs work better on different sized heat sources (some blocks cool a small die like an AMD XP better, whereas some excel on larger heat sources like peltiers or AMD64/P4 heatspreaders) and some designs cool "hot spots" better, allowing for higher stable overclocks. However, I believe it is fair to say that his results are a better gauge of performance than a review where the quasi-reliable insocket thermistor is the only judge.

AngryAlpaca-
I did not say that I thought the PolarFlo was one of the best, I did say that it looks pretty decent.
A c/w of .17 is not one of the best ratings I have ever seen for a block, but it is FAR from the worst I have seen.

A block with a c/w of .17 should do a pretty good job of cooling a hot cpu.
Will it do as well as a block with a c/w of .13? Not likely as long as all other system variables are unchanged....but even then I would have to say it IS possible.

But it will do better than a block with a c/w of .21- and I have seen far more commercial blocks with c/ws that test above .20 than below.

I have used a couple of different water blocks and personally I think that any block with a c/w under .20 is ample. Lower IS better, as a rule but there are often other considerations that must be made when buying components for a water cooled system.

Would I use a Polarflo block? Yes, if I needed a block and found one at a good price.
I've used a Koolance block too- not as bad as reports made out either, when put into a decent system. :)

If I were to test it, I could probably guarantee that I'd get better temperatures. I use a Maze 4 at the moment (learned SO much since then...). Also, my temperature reading, and my setup, is very inaccurate like the majority of reviewers'. If you want to prove that your block can outperform most blocks on the market, send one to pHaestus. He uses an actual system, and he tests well. It IS true that your block is high quality, probably the highest quality of any block, but it seems to be designed poorly.

rogerdugans: Looks are EVER so important! :p Your last post reeks of the "good enough" attitude.

quite agree in part Steve, all products have a 'feature set' - and the relative importance of each feature (to the consumer) is presumably what guides buying decisions
- all is fine

BUT when the adjective "best" is used, EXPECT QUESTIONS

and I quite disagree with your appraisal of testing
from bench to bench, the values may change but the relationships will not (if the procedure is consistent)
are you suggesting that consistent results from 'scientific testers' is offset by a 'review site' ?
-> not here, and not ever 'till they learn what they are doing

BalefireX
yes, but the sensitivity to different sized heat sources is quite related to the bp thickness,
in this regard the PolarFLO is quite similar to the AquaJoe, MCW5000, MCW6000, and others

rogerdugans
I think you just slammed your d*ck in the dirt
"A block with a c/w of .17 should do a pretty good job of cooling a hot cpu.
Will it do as well as a block with a c/w of .13? Not likely as long as all other system variables are unchanged....but even then I would have to say it IS possible."

please explain . . . .

This is a warning, guys. I know this can get ugly as people are starting to question the truthfullness of each other. So, please remeber the rules: state your opinion and leave off the attacks. If the facts make someone look good or bad, that's the way it should be.

As an example (Bill, you're not the only one, but your post is the current newest post in the thread), please stop with the "slammed your d*ck in the dirt" kind of stuff. Flame wars are really not productive.

Wait isn't that a compliment? As in "When he whipped it out, there was a cloud of dust that arose from it hitting the ground"?

When someone looks up thread hijacking, they now see a picture of pHaestus. :D

LMAO @ pHaestus. What's the matter with saying that someone is a jackass for saying something that contradicts itself on so many levels? If all the variables remain the same, so must the performance. If the flow or die size change, then perhaps the performance can change.

Brians256
I know rogerdugans (and am friendly with him I guess I have to add), and I believe he will understand how to take my rude comment

I am awaiting his response, I suspect he will concur that he did indeed 'slam his d*ck in the dirt' with that statement

Wow.... I leave my thread for a few hours and come back and it's on fire!!! Flames everywhere!!! lol..... quick someone put it out! :evilaugh:
_________________________________________
But how did it perform??? What setup are you running? Just wondering.
___________________________________
Sounds like you're backtracking now.....lol jk man. Go for it, you're not gonna get an offer like that very often.

rofl :)
I have been slammed in the past and always learned something from it.
Sometimes it has been proven to ven ME that I am wrong.
Other times I have only had my beliefs reinforced. ;)

I made that statement for two reasons:
1) my own belief that a lower c/w will result in better cooling
2) reports that I have seen showing that a low-flow optimized block with a worse c/w can perform better than a high-flow optimized block WHEN BOTH ARE USED IN A SYSTEM WITH LOW FLOW.

I have NOT personally tested this...or anything else with great accuracy. I have neither the equipment, education or money to test all the things I would like.

What I do know are two things:
I have some knowledge of water cooling, but I know far from everything. I am a hobbyist, not a scientist.
This thread is now digressing from its original intent.

Call me what you will, but please start a new thread rather than thread-jacking this one. :)

lol-->Nope, I don't concur...exactly. ;)
I will admit that I left myself open to those who want to slam my anatomy though. :D

Bill and I have gone rounds before and he has taught me quite a bit.
One of the things he himself taught me about water cooling is to not assume that I know everything just because I can put together a system that performs well.

No offense taken- much harder to offend me than that! :D
[/end threadjack]

Now that you are talking about a different flow, it's entirely different. The fact that we don't know how the block does at different flow rates is the reason that JoeC's reviews aren't the greatest, but, on the other hand, if you don't know what flow you'll get (like in pHaestus'), then the curve is useless. The fact that Bill Adams' reviews show pressure drop and performance at different flow rates is what makes his testing the best.

faith is one thing, reason quite another

"Will it do as well as a block with a c/w of .13? Not likely as long as all other system variables are unchanged....but even then I would have to say it IS possible."

rogerdugans
can you address what you said above ?
not some 'other' situation, explain how you concluded the above

I too wish to visit the world where worse can be better

I apologize for the digression from the original thread topic that I seem to have inadvertently started.

But I will make an attempt to explain the statement you quoted in its entirety:

"Will it do as well as a block with a c/w of .13? Not likely as long as all other system variables are unchanged"
Given what I have learned about water cooling, I would expect a waterblock that performs well at medium to high flow rates and has a c/w of .13 to provide lower cpu temps than a block that has a c/w of .17 when used in a system that maintains medium to high flow rates.

I don't think that is the portion of the statement that anybody has a problem with, however...although I could be wrong. ;)
Qualifier to the above portion of the statement:
"....but even then I would have to say it IS possible."

I have read reports from users of small ID tube systems that work quite well with low flow water blocks and pumps that increasing flow rate made no difference or worsened temps. I also recall that some of the blocks mentioned in those posts by users have been tested/rated and have c/w ratings in the area of .25 or more.
And that some of those systems had been tested with blocks with lower c/w and still not gotten better results.
(I will have to see if I can find some of the old posts/reports.....it's been a while.)

I have NOT tested these results myself, and questioned them at the time: however, as I am NOT a scientist, nor a "know it all" type, I did NOT then say that they were full of it.
Nor will I now.

I will not say anything is impossible unless I would be willing to bet my life on it- unlikely, yes. Impossible, no.
I would be willing to bet money that a block with a lower c/w WILL perform better than a block with a higher c/w.....I don't see where I gave any other impression, either?

What I DID allow in that statement is the fact that I do NOT know everything.
Never have, never will.

And that, my friends is why I posted that statement.

I will see if I can find some links to the posts of people claiming better results in low-flow systems with low-flow pumps and blocks.

Edit- ate dinner and looked for some linkage- only one I can find so far is HERE.
There are some other links in there that go to German sites- testing was done there as well.

I do not make any claims that there testing is accurate, only that such posts and claims are/were enough to make me believe that many things are possible...no mater if I still find them unlikely. ;)

Thanks for not getting cranky and flame-happy, guys. That's all I wanted to avoid.

hey - that's a new graph on me......
RBX sure comes off well in that comparison.... and what's an MCW5003g?

I would hope to hell its a new graph, lol (or someone can pull stuff from my computer)
the RBX does well ? - perhaps, depends on the pump capacity though (and sys design)
MCW5003g ?? come on now, think a bit . . . .
betcha Cathar can say exactly what it is
but compare it to the MCW6000, why would we mfgr it ?

rogerdugans
ck the graph; the Innovatek XX specifically as it is a low flow wb
does it appear to have superlative low flow performance ?
hardly
I can easily explain the European 'disconnect' re tubing size/flow rate, this is not my question

the burden of reconciling "Not likely as long as all other system variables are unchanged" and "....but even then I would have to say it IS possible." is yours
- let it be if its too difficult to explain, I understand that those 2 assertions cannot both be true for the same system

To tell the truth, I don't think it is that difficult to explain:

The first states what I believe and expect to be true: a lower c/w will give better temps.
The second is an admission that I do not know everything and admit that there may well be factors that I am unaware of that could change this...although I find it to be unlikely.

I also don't believe in ghosts haunting houses, but since I lack evidence to prove that it is impossible, I will merely say that I don't find it likely to happen. ;)

ah ha ! agreement !
my position too regarding religion, er superstition

I agree wholeheartedly and without reservation on that one too, Mr. Unregistered. ;)

But that is a whole different ball of wax and controversy that I think I will leave alone before someone else comes after me, lol!

well it appears to beat everything, even the cascade, from a relatively attainable 0.5M headloss (a little over 1gpm i believe, since that is 16.3" H20 according to joe's test at overclockers) which certainly doesn't require anything exceptional in the pump line.... and certainly isn't what i'd have expected from pHaestus' tests....

think?? i'll try but it is nearly 2am over here.... ;)
presumably it's a further developement of the 5000>5002 line..... i can't think of what the "g" might be for though....
it appears to outperform the 6000 at all headlosses above 0.25M, which would seem to include any system with an mcp600 - so on that basis (not knowing what it is) i presume that the mcw6000 is a lot cheaper to make...

hmm - it just occured to me... you do have the key right on this graph???