EKWB's 180-mm EK-CoolStream WE Radiators Are Huge

Water cooling is fun, and big water cooling is even more fun. Big radiators have been available for a while, but now EKWB has released its new crop in three different sizes: 180 mm, 360 mm, and a staggering 540 mm. Put the numbers next to 'standard' 120 mm radiators, and you'll realize that for the same number of fans these radiators have 2.25x the surface area. They are known as the EK-Coolstream WE.

The radiators have all-copper fins, which will provide much higher heat dissipation than aluminum fins. They also have brass chambers, a steel housing with a matte black finish and the standard G1/4" fitting threads for maximum compatibility. Do note that due to their size, odds are that these radiators won't fit in your current PC case, so if you want to buy one of these beastly things, you'll likely have to buy a case with them specifically in mind. 

EKWB also introduced a 180 mm fan, and there aren't too many of these are on the market. It is known as the EK-Fan 180 PWM, and as its name implies, it supports PWM signals to adjust its speed, which can range between 500 and 900 RPM, pushing up to 72 CFM with a static pressure of 1.1 mm of water and up to 22 dBA of noise.

Pricing for the radiators ranges from $80.21 to $135.88, and the fan costs $16.78 per unit. All of the products are available immediately through the EKWB webshop and will be rolling out to its partners over the next few weeks.

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Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • DarkSable
    Buy a case? Please. If you're buying these, you're making an external radbox.

    It's _wonderful_ to see some higher-fan size radiators coming to market that actually have good build quality; nothing else that used larger than 140mm fans was particularly well built. Hopefully this will inspire well-made 180mm fans in turn.
    Reply
  • Ian Mahaney
    My Silver Stone TJ08-e case uses a 180mm fan. I'd like to see how the single 180mm would mount in something like my case and how much clearance is left for cables and the like.
    Reply
  • taz-nz
    You can fit a 540 radiator in a Silverstone FT02 with only mirror mods to the case, and it comes with three Silverstone AP181 180x180x32mm fans stock, which can push more than enough air for any radiator. The AP182 fans are better but only come in white.
    Reply
  • Vatharian
    The Silverstone 180mm fans are made specifically with air cooling in mind. They have very good airflow, but very low static pressure, which is crucial for radiator cooling. They won't perform well on any rad. I have a 1080 rad, and I tested whole bunch of 180mm fans, and best came out Phobya fans, along Corsair pressure ones (blue) with adapters 180 to 120mm. Yep, four of these were better than nine classic 120mm.
    Reply
  • RedJaron
    14138345 said:
    The Silverstone 180mm fans are made specifically with air cooling in mind. They have very good airflow, but very low static pressure, which is crucial for radiator cooling. They won't perform well on any rad.
    Perhaps, but you're missing a key point: SS cases are designed to accommodate 180mm fans so mounting a 180mm radiator shouldn't be a problem ( even if you do need to swap out fans for maximum cooling. )
    Reply
  • firefoxx04
    Interesting. I was about to shoot down the idea of a 180mm fan inside of a case but I see where some cases could start supporting this. I know for now that most people will be running an external raid but I would love to see cases start to support this size. The transition from 120 to 140 was pretty significant but I think we could go bigger on cases like the Enthoo Primo and the high end corsair cases (and everything else that is considered to be a full tower)
    Reply
  • f-14
    or buy 2 L brackets and an axial or radial/centrifugal fan to suck air thru the rad and blow the air out thru existing case vents. it's a good project for a 3D printer to make a custom housing for a specialty fan to move high cfm with lower rpm and an external quiet electric motor and gear set up i'm playing with. the fan i've gotten down to 15db starting at 300rpm and winding up to 900rpm. it's the little motors that whine too much like the little motors found in the old stompers cars. i think will have to encase them in a cork or acoustical noise wrap.
    Reply
  • chicofehr
    I wonder how good a car radiator would do for cooling my system? I'm thinking of trying it sometime out of curiosity. I could cool more then 1 computer with it no prob. I feel like an inverter. I hope I don't blow my place up LOL
    Reply
  • rwinches
    ^ Yeah how about a car automatic transmission cooler?!
    Reply
  • Nuckles_56
    I wonder how good a car radiator would do for cooling my system? I'm thinking of trying it sometime out of curiosity. I could cool more then 1 computer with it no prob. I feel like an inverter. I hope I don't blow my place up LOL
    I'd be interested to see how that turns out really
    Reply