Asetek WaterChill 03-L-5012 Grange-over-Sands

Asetek won the Best Cooling Hardware Award in 2004 and it's easy to see why - the company makes highly efficient, well-designed cooling systems.

This particular model is a mid-range water-cooling kit, comprising a CPU waterblock, pump, reservoir and a radiator fitted with a variable-speed 120mm fan, all connected by 10mm ID tubing. Only Athlon 64 processors are supported as standard, but you can buy the 03-L-7503 kit, which makes the waterblock compatible with LGA775 CPUs, for an additional £14.04. Hopefully, in the near future, Asetek will sell a system with a 03-L-7503 pre-installed so you don't have to spend extra cash to water cool an LGA775 CPU. The system is powered by a mains AC pass-through cable, while the WaterChill control unit controls the pump and fan controller. This sets the fan's input voltage to 7V or 12V by changing a jumper on the controller. Filling and bleeding the system is very easy, thanks to the separate reservoir.

The Asetek is brilliant at cooling Athlon 64s; even at the whisper-quiet 7V setting, it cooled the CPU to 14ûC below the reference AMD HSF. At 12V, the fan is much more audible but the CPU was 19ûC cooler, a temperature matched only by the noisier Koolance Exos and Exos-2 kits. With the waterblock fitted with the 03-L-7503, the Asetek cooled our Pentium 4e to 15ûC below the reference Intel HSF at 7V, and to 19ûC below at 12V.

For a Pentium 4e, the Asetek is one of the most effective water-cooling kits, shunting the much more expensive and bulky Koolance Exos and Exos-2 systems into the shade. Ironically, the only kit that's significantly more powerful is also made by Asetek - the triple 120mm-fan radiator-equipped 03-L-5712. However, for cooling Athlon 64s, the Swiftech kit has the edge, thanks to its better cooling ability, flexible radiator mounting mechanism and integrated pump/reservoir.

Author: James Gorbold

Asetek WaterChill 03-L-5012