Since the Koolance water-cooling system is very effective at keeping temperatures down, AMD Athlon processors are ideal overclocking partners for such a system. We tested an Athlon XP 1800+, which comes factory-set at 1533 MHz. Once we had raised the FSB clock speed, thereby substantially overclocking the processor, we had no problems getting the system to run stably.

Sound Level: Very Quiet With Athlon XP 1800+

As far as the noise level is concerned, the new Koolance system is not quite as inconspicuous as the old one. At medium heat levels in the processor core, the three fans can produce quite a racket. Since ergonomic guidelines are likely to be have to met at the workplace, this kind of noise level makes the PC system unfit for use in office environments.

Small Weaknesses In Detail

There are no two ways about it - the new Koolance system offers high cooling performance and a low noise level while serving up high quality at the same time. That being said, however, we have discovered a few kinks in the Koolance armor that ought to be patched up.

Although the fans alter their speed in response to temperature changes, there's no fail-safe mechanism for the entire system.

Test board with a port 80 card.