XSPC RayStorm D5 Photon AX360 WaterCooling Kit Review – This Just May be a Work of Art!

PRODUCT ANALYSIS

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION:

• i7-3770k
• Biostar TZ77XE4
• 8GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3-1600
• Gigabyte Windforce Radeon 7970
• Thermaltake TR2-RX 1000W PSU
• Kingston 96GB SSD (OS)
• WD 160GB Caviar Blue (storage)

The LEDs for both the CPU block and reservoir do a good job of lighting everything up.

The LEDs in the CPU block light up the acrylic edges of the block for a nice looking assembly.

The white LED for the reservoir lights up the internal tube and gives the dye a nice red glow.

Testing methodology:

All tests are run using Arctic Silver Alumina thermal compound for comparison purposes. The CPU and heatsink is cleaned with Arctic Clean and Arctic Silver Alumina is reapplied. Tests are run at stock (3.5GHz [with 3.7GHz Turbo Boost]) and a moderate OC at 4.5GHz (no Turbo Boost). The system is left to idle for 30 minutes and a baseline temperature is recorded using CoreTemp. A Prime 95 blend test is then run for 30 minutes and the temps are recorded again. The recorded temperature is the average of the 4 cores. Since ambient temperatures can affect CPU temperature readings ambient temps are recorded during idle and full load testing. The ambient temperature is then subtracted from the recorded CPU temperatures resulting in a Delta T measurement, (or how many degrees above ambient the CPU cooler keeps the CPU). This levels the field for different ambient temperature tests. The D5 Vario pump was tested on its highest speed setting which is level 5.