Ok. Sounds good. Lets get this show on the road ;)

ok, pHaestus - I'll update that kit I sent you
I think a new wb is all
I'll add the MCW6002, but it is not part of THAT kit

Pug
pHaestus has our std kit, H2O-8600, with 1, or 2, 80mm fan rads, 3/8"ID tubing, MCP600, etc.
- here we get into what you were describing, we sell that kit for 'silent' running (~18dbA@7V, 2 fans @~22dbA) though we do not say so
so right off I know that I will 'lose' the performance title, ah well

if you wish to hold to the spirit of this endeavor, I would suggest your 'silent' kit

I aim for good performance from ~1.0mH2O PD and up. It's a design philosophy which is almost essential to facilitate the thin base-plate approach. 1.0mH2O is a trivial PD to expect from people's pumps. Running thin-bp blocks at low-flow rates is like buying a Ferrari to toodle around in peak-hour traffic.

Where do I see my design philosphies lie with respect to the German/US side of the fence? I don't know. I never really considered it in the quest for the performance. In-between I would guess, but with the option to benefit from US-style pumping power.

A comparison of kits is all fine and good..........so far as it goes.

The EU is most likly to win (I'll be very surprised if they don't) as the low number of offered US kits are all designed for modest cost + ease of use. Performance isn't that great when compared to a DIY kit of equal investment.

Much better to let Pug chose his set up within the $ limit he set (be it DIY or a kit) while the board members here reach a agreed upon set up of DIY parts. If a few other rules regarding the number of fans to have ect. are wanted that would also work. But a test limited to kits will prove nothing as far as which is really the best approach. None of the US kits I know of combine enough high end components to really show what the best DIY 1/2" set ups can do.

$380.00 is ample to build a good strong set up from DIY parts.

rad = heater core 2-342 = $30.00 at Napa
shroud = $10.00 in materials to make it.
120mm fans x 2 or 4 depending on agreed rules. $20 - $40
CPU block = Swiftech's new 6002 = $45.00
5 ft of clear flex = $10.00
fittings = $5.00

Total so far = $140.00 taking the most expensive route on fan costs.
This leaves out of Pug's $380.00 original budget $240.00 still remaining with which to buy a pump.

Iwaki MD20rlzt = $180.00

Still leaves $60.00 that I've no idea how to spend unless it were to add a GPU block.

Some on the board may disagree with one or more of the parts I've named, but not a bad starting point. And Pug there isn't one part named that isn't used by a number of water coolers. Although I'll grant the users of the MD20 are a minority. But then if you want to see which is the better route for water cooling one should use the best parts.

Pug,

Any pics of the inside of the block you depicted as your first choice? It's a nice shiny one for sure.

Best O/C would, along with temp. be another way of testing performance.

Edit: weeded out some overheated remarks.

lol.........Cather loves those car analogies :D (mint)

/...........anyway are we going for the silent approach now or is this a shoot out to see which gives best performance (temps) from a "Watercooling Kit" as i would imagine that this is what most folk would be wanting to know.

this is the Q i personally get asked most frequent

large bore or small bore.........which is better and why!

As a side note from this end of the world, Pug/Coolermeister are in the UK, which I personally perceive as being more on the US-side of the water-cooling market going by the content of the various forums over there.

After much heated debate above it seems that we're probably converging on a test set of kits that revolve around the same essential design philosophy.

The original debate was the "German" vs "US", which somehow mutated into "Europe" vs "US", but the UK stands quite a way out from the fairly hard-line "German" position when it comes to water-cooling.

A "classic German kit" in my mind is basically an Eheim 1046, the Innovatek (or whatever) radiator that is the basically an equivalent to a BI Pro, some 1/4" or 8mm ID tubing, an 80CFM Papst 12cm fan, and one of the German micro-stucture blocks (CF-1, etc).

A interesting perspective Cathar. I didn't know that the UK and German water coolers were that differant.

And what is a CF-1 block? Link?

A comparison between the above spec'd Swiftech kit vs a silent German kit will be of interest for the low noise approach & ease of use provisoins used by the two companys.

As I think was posted earlier in this thread, max performance is a goal that is hard to include with low noise, although it's still possible to have ease of use in such a set up.

CF-2 (enhanced CF-1) can be seen here

Supposedly the best performing block out of Germany according to a couple German tests, and supposedly spanks the Cascade and RBX/TDX by around 3C or so on an 80W testbed.

The CF-2 is the improved version of the CF-1.

Would love for Phaestus to test it.

I probably shipped about 2/3's as many Cascades to the UK as I shipped to the US, and the UK absorbed well over half of the total number of Cascade SS blocks I made - the strong value of the UK Pound in comparison to the Aussie dollar made the Cascade SS look like a relative bargain...

Well it's German and supposedly pretty good, so I think that's a good choice.

I agree with the fact about the UK being more towards the US - most guys I've spoken to seem to want a good balance between silence and power.

P.S. Cathar, so are you shipping Cascades again? Which ones?

No. Am still prototyping the P2/Storm. Actually the machinists rang me not 5 minutes ago to tell me that they have the fixed G1 & G4 sub-design types ready (they delivered a mis-coded G1 & G4 last week).

I'm still supporting the Cascade though which maybe what's confusing you, but my life has been chock-a-block full with my real-job and family and I've had no time to get stuff off (upgrade Cascade tops etc) to people for the last two weeks, with my apologies to all concerned (about 5 people).

Thanks for the link Cathar.

I'd like to see pH have the chance to test this also, I find it unlikly that it can best the Cascade by 3C. It also looks like it would have a very high pressure drop.

What sort of flow rate did the German testers use? I recall the one sites testing a while back of your blocks, not a very good one.

Yeah, just read your site again and realised I must have mis-interpretted what ya said (it's late! :)). No problem mate - you're doing a great job and I'm sure everyone understands.

My mum's boyfriend has a CNC machine and he's pretty interested in my water cooling (he built my enclosure which I should be installing within the next two weeks - I'll take pics and post them at my thread ASAP http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...?t=8639&page=7). Hopefully sometime in the near future we'll get to play around with some designs as he's a very clever and skilled guy. Doubt we'll get anything to your level though. Still, will be fun trying :)

How many Cascades have you sold?
 

I'm curious Cathar, how many Cascade blocks have you sold? Which country is your biggest customer?

I've also noticed, in all this international brouhaha we are having, that no one has mentioned the Japanese. Normally performance electronics and weird mod/tweaks on them are pretty common in Japan. Yet the country seems completely absent regarding representation in the water-cooling scene. Ever wonder why? I do, I think its strange.

They didn't quantify. Yes - same site as before with the 3C thing. My best guess is 0.4-0.5GPM flow rates. Coincidentally they also put the RBX on par with the Cascade at those flow rates which certainly doesn't gel with any other reputable test (both public and private) - hence my strong desire to get the "best of the German blocks" over to Phaestus to test.

Heck, I'll even pay for all of it if someone in Europe will order it and send it to Phaestus. The CF-2 block can't be ordered from outside of the Euro nations....

Any takers?

I have an Innovatek XX I could send to pHaestus
wrong shape for a fishing weight

Enough to cover costs for the Cascade development, and to cover my current R&D costs, and that's about it. Unsure of the exact number, but it's totally "small-time" in comparison to the big boys. I did make 39 Cascade SS's though, the level of interest in which surprised the heck out of me.

USA was by far the biggest consumer, probably about 40% of the total. UK about 25%. Australia about 15%. France about 10%. The rest in very small percentages (typically just single blocks) to Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Phillipines.

So for the number of individuals in the US & UK the UK water coolers were buying your blocks by a much larger %. Another interesting point which also greatly supports your earlier post on UK being closer to the US than Germany when it comes to water cooling set ups.

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Storm design you've been working on.

Cathar - I can do some buying for ya if ya like (I'm in Wales, UK). Just let me know what you want, where to send it etc.

Let me guess....you guys are going to want lower than 0.5 GPM flow rates for these tests :)

well that misses the reason why they are expensive here - which is the same reason why Levis etc are - european law lets the manufacturer tightly control the distribution of branded products and prevent "grey market" imports from outside the EU... :mad:

the reason why "Someone could probably make a very healthy profit buying these things in the US and shipping them over Europe" is that they'd be liable to legal action from Dell :(

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/11...ing_what_does/ :mad:

I would think that your .5 gpm starting point should be fine pH.

Then go well up from there as usual............

What possible good is such a set up going to do besides allow companys to rape the consumer........?

How did such a set up come about?

Hmmm, trying to find someone who sells it on-line via Credit Card. The CoolCases site wants you to do a direct deposit into their German bank account...

LMFAO

Anyway............

You know i think this is always going to be a grey area regardless of how strong yours or anybody's particular currency is but (and i mean this without bias what so ever) there is always going to be the person who wants fantastic results for minimal outlay and on the other side of the fence there will be people who see products for what they are and will pay the going rate for them whether it be cars, houses, Sunday dinners even, we seem to have Sunday Dinner wars around our local hostelry's at present ................feed a family of 4 for £9.99 lol

Extreme case sinario.......wasn't there a Picasso painting just sold for like 98 million $'s to an un-named buyer................madness to you or i but this is the point where money becomes irrelevant (or does somebody know something i don't???)

Not that money is irrelevant to me but i will say I am one lucky enough to own one of the SS Cascades and shamelessly in all honesty i haven't got a clue to this day how much it cost (not as much as Picasso i hope lol) but what I can say is, its the best block bar none that i have ever owned............so for that to me its was worth every penny (and i know i'm not alone when i say that and also why it may of supprised you)

At the end of the day nobody likes to be ripped off and who can blame anyone wanting maximum bang for buck irrespective of what it is they are shelling out their £££'s for but its always nice to see which car is faster (Cather analogy) and then at least one can make an adult decision bases on relatively unweighted facts............hopefully!

hmm - just a quick thought while i wait for the second period to start, but it occurs to me that, since the (potential) buyers buy them for a purpose, the best way to ensure a realistic playing field may be to specify the case it is for...
then each "competitor" can select parts/a kit that fit within (whilst allowing sufficient hardware to give a reasonably functional rig...)

i would suggest some reasonably desirable mid-tower (lian maybe?) on the basis that any kit that requires a pc70 or similar huge case is doomed to marginal appeal.....

err - because the EU is not a democratic institution.......

they are even handed though and let EU businesses charge rip-off prices here too :cry:

Let's see I have a Chieftec midtower and an AMS GTower case that I could use. The Chieftec has been cut up a little on the front (to fit a heatercore lol) but I could return it to similar to stock. This case has 4x80mm fan holes (2 front and 2 back). The AMD GTower has 1 120mm exhaust and 1 120mm blowhole on top. It also has an 80mm intake in front (very restrictive though). Other than that I'd have to buy a case.

The G-Tower sounds kinda good.
 

With two 120's it would probably be pretty fair I think. Most people are using a heatercore/BIX that takes a 120mm fan. With the RAD fan blowing in, and an identical fan blowing out, it would keep the case pretty aired out. And its simple.