First of all, I think everyone here has seen the stuff Jessfm makes/does and I feel that this thread is getting very close to advertising for OCPC. I will leave it up for now and try to redirect the comments a bit away from advertising for a particular company and towards something more useful.
Regarding the performance of Maze3 or the Neptune vs. other blocks: I am a skeptic and not only that I am very critcal of other people's testing. If you start to consider what is really needed to test water cooling equipment ACCURATELY then things get quite complicated and expensive. One number at one flow rate with extremely inaccurate temperature readers doesn't impress me in all honesty.
One thing that anyone can do (and it greatly improves the usefulness of the results) is to vary the flow rate and record the resulting performance. Now the method you use to vary (and more importantly measure) flow is going to affect the system's overall performance, but it still is at least approaching useful information (you can usually run the tests over a range of 0.5-1.5GPM with a larger magdrive type pump) because you can vary the flow without turning off the computer/pump/reseating the block/replumbing the loop/replacing the fluid and so the relative data may be internally more accurate (fewer variable that affect the resulting temperature) and interesting than comparing different blocks.
Since Jess seems to have a much better feel for the community than many larger manufacturers, I would suggest that OCPC begin to raise the bar by publishing information such as:
1) pressure drop with 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" (where applicable) fittings for radiators and waterblocks
2) Performance vs. flow rate curves for same (don't have to spend $10k on a test setup necessarily but be clear on your methods and equipment)
3) Physical properties of parts: thickness of baseplate, channel height/width. internal volume, surface area of radiator
The community is left by and large with pictures and word of mouth to choose a setup, and what works best is highly dependent on the individual's overall system. For example, fitting size, pump choice, tubing size all affect flow rates and will affect choice of "best" block and rad and the sensitivity to noise will also affect radiator choice as some perform better with low CFM fans than others.
What we need in the community is much less hijacking of catch-phrases for marketing purposes (look no further than turbulence) and less reliance on performance numbers that have appalling error (think 3C is statistically relevent when both your probes for water and core are +/-3C accuracy AT BEST?) and more people willing to come up with an honest and fair testing of their own stuff.
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