The pump is rated at 40,000 hours, giving the average consumer a long lifetime for this high performance product. The block and the radiator are both made of copper, to allow for optimal heat absorption and dissipation. To increase heat dissipation further, there is a switch for the fan that allows the user to choose one of two settings: the first is 2000 RPM and produces 18 dB(A) of noise, while the faster speed is 2500 RPM and results in a level of 26 dB(A). This is a much quieter solution than the standard cooler, which has that very familiar - and annoying - initial high speed noise before it slows down to operating speed.
We initially felt that the hoses were a little rigid; this is neither good nor bad, just not what we were expecting. The hoses are long enough to allow the card to be placed in the first PCIe x16 slot on an SLI or CrossFire motherboard, and the cooler to be placed into the furthest open slot (as was our experience on the Asus A8N32-SLI). Overall, the hoses seem durable enough to handle many rearrangements, which should accommodate tweakers and modders who like to fiddle with their hardware frequently.
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