Another "New guy to watercooling" thread... But I have done my homework... I think.

[SnowRider]

Originally Posted by AntiBling

Snow just a word of caution, you can read all sorts of BS about watercooling products. Procooling (and its helpful posters) have been by far the most accurate and helpful to me personally. Trust what you hear here rather than whats said on another site.

What if I don't trust you?? Hahaha, Just kidding man I'll try to do my best to weed out the junk. Thanks for the warning.

[AntiBling]

What I mean is, sometimes people here do give wrong answers, but there are enough people here who are knowledgeable that they wont let it slip. The way people jump on others here for mistakes can seem a little harsh at times, but its for the best. Makes me think twice before replying to anything, I dont want to get roasted by flaming posts for saying something wrong.

[MadHacker]

Originally Posted by MMZ_TimeLord

snowrider,

I just ordered two of the evercool aluminum fans you speak of... I'll let you know how quiet they really are... specs on those fans are pretty good... ~80CFM and only 31db or less.

I run the evercool fans...
have 2x120mm on my BIX rev2 and 4x80mm on my bixmicro2 al in a push/pull setup

I think they are still loud but i think it is mostly the air going through teh heater core.. not shure...
It is more quite compared to any of the other fans I have played with...

I like them enough that I ordered 4 more 120mm fans for my server.
want to water cool it.

[AngryAlpaca]

Yep, most sites are bullshit. Even overclockers.com has some inaccurate articles.

By that I would have to say that the Polarflo looks pretty decent.
I do NOT have any personal experience with it, but I have found Joe's reviews to be on the money for every single piece of hardware he has reviewed that I DO have.

I'm a tad confused. You're saying that JoeC is accurate, but you're implying that the PolarFLO is good? It has a thermal resistance of 0.17C/W (versus 0.13C/W [lower is better]) and it doesn't exactly have the lowest of pressure drops, and it costs more than most blocks...

[polarflo]

Originally Posted by AngryAlpaca

Yep, most sites are bullshit. Even overclockers.com has some inaccurate articles. I'm a tad confused. You're saying that JoeC is accurate, but you're implying that the PolarFLO is good? It has a thermal resistance of 0.17C/W (versus 0.13C/W [lower is better]) and it doesn't exactly have the lowest of pressure drops, and it costs more than most blocks...

Angry... I'll make you a deal... You buy a PolarFLO SF from our site and test it on your system. If you do not get lower temps at idle, load and overclock, i will refund all your money... including shipping. I do not want to come off the wrong way, but you may want to gather your own quantifiable data. I respect your opinion, but here is an opportunity to change your opinion into fact. Let me know.

Best Regards,

Steve

[SnowRider]

Originally Posted by polarflo

Angry... I'll make you a deal... You buy a PolarFLO SF from our site and test it on your system. If you do not get lower temps at idle, load and overclock, i will refund all your money... including shipping. I do not want to come off the wrong way, but you may want to gather your own quantifiable data. I respect your opinion, but here is an opportunity to change your opinion into fact. Let me know.

Best Regards,

Steve

What about me?!? I want one !!! Wait, how's this sound..... ahem.... I don't think I'll get better temps with your block than I would with the stock Intel HSF *wink*, maybe you should send me a block to find out *wink wink*. LOL..... nice to see you here Steve

[polarflo]

Thank you, Snow. We have some deals on ebay right now. The link in on our homepage. I have to say your setup looks really nice

[pHaestus]

Polarflo:
Is that a money back guarantee that your block is the best on the market? Sure sounds like that's what you said..

[BillA]

Originally Posted by polarflo

Angry... I'll make you a deal... You buy a PolarFLO SF from our site and test it on your system. If you do not get lower temps at idle, load and overclock, i will refund all your money... including shipping. I do not want to come off the wrong way, but you may want to gather your own quantifiable data. I respect your opinion, but here is an opportunity to change your opinion into fact. Let me know.

Best Regards,

Steve

getting items out for field testing is always good
but Steve, if you are concerned about "quantifiable data", then I suggest you, as the mfgr, post the correct numbers

are these numbers bad also ?
EDIT: sorry fellows, the graph was getting attention not desired
(for those who may have made a copy, please do not re-post; Thanks

Steve, by any objective measurement the PolarFLO is not competitive,
despite having a superbly finished bp !

[polarflo]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

Polarflo:
Is that a money back guarantee that your block is the best on the market? Sure sounds like that's what you said..

I am typically more reserved than this... I could tell you that we have the best block on the market, but the "best" means so many different things to everyone. Water cooled systems vary incredibly. In the majority of our reviews where the PolarFLO SF is tested against another block, we have the lower temperatures. I will say this... Our quality is unsurpassed.

[polarflo]

Originally Posted by unregistered

getting items out for field testing is always good
but Steve, if you are concerned about "quantifiable data", then I suggest you, as the mfgr, post the correct numbers

are these numbers bad also ?
Steve, by any objective measurement the PolarFLO is not competitive,
despite having a superbly finished bp !

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.

[pHaestus]

"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?

[MadHacker]

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.

[BillA]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

"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?

consider again your response Steve, you answered your own question

[Skulemate]

Originally Posted by MadHacker

... 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. ...

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.

[pHaestus]

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.

[polarflo]

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

[MadHacker]

Originally Posted by polarflo

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¢

[BalefireX]

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.

[rogerdugans]

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.