I must say that I am impressed with the new spir@l block. After upgrading from a maze2, my temps are on average 2-3C lower according to my KX7's socket probe (touching the back of the chip). The drop in temps is even more spectacular concidering that I also replaced the last half of my tubing with 3/8"ID where before I had 1/2"ID for half of my system. My chip is an XP1600+ currently running at stock speed. After a half-hour of toast, my chip leveled off at about 38C. After playing Counter-Strike, the core temp is at 37C. With my maze2, Counter-Strike brought the temps up to 39-40C. Hopefully my temps will drop even more when the AS3 settles.
The build quality is great. There were no cracks in the top anywhere, even with UPS ground shipping, lol. I really like the mounting hardware compared to dangerden's. D-Tek's mounting hardware seems to put more presure on the chip and is easier on the hands to install since they give nice thumbscrew-type nuts.
Before ordering, I was wondering whether the spir@l would give me much benefit since my flowrate is very modest: 3 90-degree bends on a 230GPH pump. But, I did see an improvement, and the spir@l looks great! And one more thing is that the spir@l seems to respond faster than my maze2. In other words, once my system goes from load to idle, my temps drop much quicker now. It almost seemed like once the maze2 heated up, it had trouble cooling down. Maybe it was the copper top that held more heat, or just a difference in design???
Short Version: great block, especially if upgrading from older-generation
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