Experimental review: Influence of D5 pump's flow settings on water cooling loop performance
By Daz, April 21, 2010
Introduction
The purpose of this review is to find out watercooled loop temperature changes dynamics with various speed settings of Swiftech 655-01 (D5 Vario) water pump.
1. Lab system setup
For this review we have used Intel’s Core i5 750 based system overclocked to 4Ghz.
Hardware specs:
- Processor: Intel Core i5 750
- Main board: EVGA P55 LE
- Memory : 2x 2Gb G.Skill DDR3 9-9-9-24 1.5v
- Graphic card: ATI Radeon 4870 512MB
- Hard drive : 1 x 1.5T Seagate 7200rpm
- Power Supply: Seasonic 850W
- Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Overclocking BIOS specs:
- Multiplier @ 20
- Clock @ 200
- VCore @ 1.45v
- VTT @ 1.325v
- PCH @ 1.9v
- C-states: enabled
- RAM @ 1.55, Auto timing
Water cooling specs:
Our water cooling setup is a single CPU loop with externally mounted radiator with fans attached in pull position.
- Radiator: Feser TFC240 High Performance Radiator
- Fans: 2x San Ace 38x120mm 3000 RPM w/ sensor
- CPU block: EK Supreme LT, Acetal Top
- Pump: D5 Vario with EK D5 X-Top Rev.2, Max speed (5)
- Tubing: TFC 3/8”ID hose
- Reservoir: EK Multi-Res 100
- Coolant: Feser One Clear/UV Blue
Sensors and instruments:
In our test for each fixed fans speed we measured CPU cores temperatures, air temperature before entering radiator and after exiting radiator, coolant temperature before entering CPU block and after exiting CPU block. Each speed setting was run for 1 hour starting from 3000rpm speed.
- Koolance TMS-200 Management board
- Koolance Coolant Temperature Sensors (2)
- Koolance Temperature Sensors (2)
- Koolance FM-16 Flow Meter
- CPU Stress Program: OCCT 3.1.0
- CPU-Z 1.54
- Core Temp 0.99.5.27
2. Test Results
CPU Cores Temperature readings. Overclcok 4Ghz, ambient 23C, 100% processor load
Cores average temperature was recorder for each of five speed settings on the Swiftech 655 water pump for three different radiator fans speeds.
3. Final Remarks
The test results come out as a surprise for us. We have expected larger impact then we have got. The difference between setting 5 and 2 is just 1c and it is the only fraction of degree between settings 5 and 4 (which is the difference between vario and fixed speed model). This essentially means for us, that there is no reason to spend more money on variable version of the pump unless silence build is desired.
This is given that we have a low restriction single CPU loop and we will do a follow up test on multi-block system to verify situation in more crowded environment.
But for now, it seems make more sense to invest in better fans-radiator combo or just better fans then in a fancy pump; and those inexpensive EK Compact 2LMP pumps start look much more attractive comparing to Swiftech 655 series with desired X-Top addition.
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