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Hi everybody!
Today, I'm taking some time to do a quick review of Koolance's new waterblock for ATI HD4870 video cards. The product was originally launched in July but at that time demand was so high that Koolance had a hard time keeping up. I received my example of the block by mid-September only. But was I glad I waited when I finally received it! Koolance has surpassed themselves this time and produced one of the nicest looking waterblocks ever made. But is it any good? Let’s take a closer look at it to find out:
Design and construction
The top of the block is made out of a nice sheet of what seems to be stainless steel, although I must admit I did not bring it to the lab for further analysis. It is very nicely machined and the Koolance logo and name are etched in the middle of it. Tightly bolted between the metal cover and the block itself is a piece of acrylic. The plastic is in fact the real cover, holding the liquid inside the block, while letting the color of the coolant show through the Koolance logo on top. This is a clever move on Koolance's part and it makes for a very nice looking block while keeping the weight and costs down.
The base of the block is made out of high density copper for excellent heat transfer capabilities. But instead of leaving it defenseless against corrosion, engineers at Koolance decided to plate it with nickel. Now nickel is not as good a thermal conductor as copper. Copper has a thermal conductivity value of 4.01 W/cm K at 300 K. Nickel on the other hand, has a value of 0.907 W/cm K at the same temperature, which is almost 4.5 times less efficient in conducting heat. But as Nickel is worth much more than poor copper, you can bet that Koolance used the thinnest possible coating to reduce costs. Therefore, heat conductivity shouldn't be affected much but corrosion will still be stopped very efficiently. Thumbs up to Koolance for nickel plating their copper block!
The part of the block that makes contact with the core of the video card is machined directly from the copper slab. Although it is pretty straight, the smoothness is not all that impressive. As a matter of fact, it reminds of some Thermalright coolers. It could be smoother, of course, but if we take example on the former, smoothness is not all and this could just as well do the trick. Where the block makes contact with the memory chips (RAM) and voltage regulators modules (VRMs), the block is designed to accommodate thermal tape. To that purpose, Koolance includes two pieces of thermal tape of different thickness in order to fit a wider range of cards.
Installation
In order to install the VID-487, one has to unscrew and remove the entire stock cooler from the HD4870. This is no big surprise for anybody, but you have to know that this will most likely destroy any hope of getting a replacement under warranty should anything go wrong with your card afterwards. Overclocking your graphics card has the same side effects also.
Koolance includes all necessary hardware, meaning all screws, thermal transfer tape and a small tube of thermal paste. They also include an installation guide and a piece of paper for cutting out the RAM and VRM thermal tape pieces needed to cool those parts of the card. Fittings are not included in the base price of $99.99 so make sure you pick up some. The block accepts all G1/4 fittings and they can be installed on both sides of the block for better compatibility. What I found somewhat annoying is the fact that the pieces of thermal tape are not pre-cut and have to be done by hand. Although Koolance includes a pattern to cut the pieces, I feel like they could have done it prior to shipping the block to the customer. The other small issue I ran into when installing the block is that you really have to guess which thermal tape to use in order for the chips to make contact with the block. As a matter of fact, even though I installed quite a few blocks myself, I ended up choosing the wrong thickness and installed the one that was too thick for my card. This prevented the GPU core from touching the block. Luckily I spotted that issue before firing up the system and avoided the worst. I guess Koolance did this to accommodate all 4870s out there, but from my point of view, I believe there must be a way to take the guess work out of the equation.
Performance
In order to better compare things, let's take a look at some load temps with the stock ATI cooler:
The default fan profile aims at keeping the core at 85 Celcius or less. While doing that, it manages to cool the VRMs at just under 100 Celcius. Although you can boil water at than temperature, it is alright for Metal Oxide Semi-conductors Field-Effect Transistors (also known as MOSFETs). These parts are rated to operate at 120 Celsius. All in all, the stock cooler keeps the temperatures within specs, but nothing more.
Let's see what the VID-487 has to offer:
Now in order to achieve those temperatures, I'm using a home made watercooling loop that is able to dissipate much more heat than a normal PC cooling loop. See this thread for details: The Car Radiator Project
That being said, it is fair to say that the Koolance waterblock does a pretty good job at keeping the GPU cool under load. The core main reading stays at 32 Celcius while the memory I/O reaches 9.5 degrees higher. Everything's fine there. Where I would have like to see more improvement is at the VRMs. These are the values referred to as VDDC Slaves on the GPU-Z screen shot. The MOSFETs are still pretty hot under load, loosing only about 10 Celsius on average. Of course, the load is not exactly the same, but it gives a pretty good idea that the VID-487 is not operating miracles in the VRM departement. Still well within specifications, but not much improvement there. As a matter of fact, would the load have been the same, the temperatures would have been very close to the ones achieved by the stock cooler.
Conclusion
The HD4870 is a monster that refuses to be tamed. It is no secret to anyone now that it runs very hot. Designing a block that will cool this inferno without breaking the bank is a daunting challenge. In despite of some minor issues and drawbacks, I firmly believe that Koolance and their VID-487 achieved honest performances, and in great style at the same time! Kudos to Koolance for this product!
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