Techware Labs - Reviews - 3D Galaxy LCS Cooler

3D Galaxy LCS Cooler

Author:	Jason Jacobs
Date:	2006.04.01
Topic:	Cooling
Provider:	Gigabyte
Manufacturer:	Gigabyte

Gigabyte is a name easily associated with motherboards, heatsinks, and video cards. Recently Gigabyte has broken into the computer case and water cooling markets with offerings that look quite good in both design and price. We will be taking a look at Gigabyte’s water cooling offering the 3D Galaxy LCS Cooler today. Most consumers when purchasing water cooling as a kit are primarily interested in ease of installation and price, with cooling performance as the overall goal. Keep in mind that the water cooling kit market is very competitive with most major OEM’s offering a kit. The result of this is a market saturated with many average and below average performing kits with very few that reach higher performance.
Water cooling can basically be broken down into three categories, high end, middle, and low end cooling in terms of performance. These kits can further be broken down into the radiator design being internal to the case or placed external or outside the case. As you can imagine placing the radiator outside has obvious cooling benefits. Re-circulating the air used to cool the radiator back inside the case will eventually result in less than optimal CPU temperatures. Placing the radiator outside the case results in reduced CPU temps but also raises the problem of placement and mounting. The overall global design elements of a watercooling kit include the:
1. Radiator
2. Pump and reservoir
3. Tubing
4. Water Block
5. Fan

Each of the elements above plays a critical role in the overall performance of the kit as a whole. Manufacturers all make design decisions where they struggle to offer good performance, ease of installation, at a price that will prompt consumers to purchase. We will show you the interesting manner in which Gigabyte has tackled these problems.

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