Water coolers are great for cooling, allow extremely high overclocking and are even quieter than conventional CPU fans - at least on paper. Installation, however, represents a bottleneck and is relatively complicated compared to air-cooling due to the number of required components. Then there is the weight factor. Those who frequent LAN parties, for example, don't want to lug around the extra pounds of a pump and the water in the reservoir. For this reason many manufacturers also offer external water cooling systems that allow simple and quick installation. These water coolers can also easily be disconnected from the PC for separate transport.

Koolance Exos-Al

Overall Impression

The Exos-Al from Koolance consists of an external unit that contains the pump, reservoir and radiator. The water blocks necessary for cooling the CPU, chipset and graphics card must be acquired separately. The 20.5 cm pump/radiator/reservoir module case offers a precise fit for a Chieftec PC case. The module can thus be mounted firmly on top of the case or secured using the velcro mounting strips included. The Exos-Al can also be attached to a standard PC case.

Fan settings and speeds

Three 80 mm fans are located on top of the Exos for heat exchange, which can run at different voltage levels (5V and 12V). A mode switch on the front of the case controls the different settings. Modes 1 and 2 are identical at temperatures up to 35° C (fan voltage 5V); at temperatures above 35° Cthe fans are adjusted up to a maximum 12V (40° C). In mode 1, fans operate at 12V only from 45° C up, in mode 3 they run constantly at that voltage. At 50° C an acoustic alarm sounds and the PC system shuts itself down at temperatures above 53° C.

Fan settings and speeds