CoolIt Domino ALC

[JK949]

I can't seem to find much in the way of reviews for it so I thought I'd see if anyone
here has used one or knows someone who does. The few reviews I have found were
positive. This " Poor mans water cooler " is very reasonable at $75 to my door so
I'm thinking of buying one if it actually cools as well as air based heatsinks.

I'm also considering a new case without a side window and I am looking at the
CoolerMaster V8 for cooling. Anyone have hands on with it ?

Here's my current setup:
Q9450 @2.9
Asus P5N-D
EVGA 260 Core 216 Superclocked
Antec 900
Artic Silver 5

I'm using a SilverStone N06 with an Antec TriCool fan right now and I ran the
latest Prime95 and within 20 minutes RealTemp and CoreTemp were reporting an average of 75c. One core got as high as 83 before I stopped it.
Ambient room temperature is around 70F on average. Idle is about 42.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: JK949
I can't seem to find much in the way of reviews for it so I thought I'd see if anyone
here has used one or knows someone who does. The few reviews I have found were
positive. This " Poor mans water cooler " is very reasonable at $75 to my door so
I'm thinking of buying one if it actually cools as well as air based heatsinks.

I'm also considering a new case without a side window and I am looking at the
CoolerMaster V8 for cooling. Anyone have hands on with it ?

Here's my current setup:
Q9450 @2.9
Asus P5N-D
EVGA 260 Core 216 Superclocked
Antec 900
Artic Silver 5

I'm using a SilverStone N06 with an Antec TriCool fan right now and I ran the
latest Prime95 and within 20 minutes RealTemp and CoreTemp were reporting an average of 75c. One core got as high as 83 before I stopped it.
Ambient room temperature is around 70F on average. Idle is about 42.

with your current setup, it would do a good job.

however add more heat / overclocking, and it will cry.

 

[Zap]

I've used them. They are definately better than stock coolers and barely better than high-end air coolers. The benefit over an air cooler (besides being a teeny bit better and teeny bit more expensive) is that the radiator exhausts directly outside the case in a typical setup. In most "normal" cases the PSU is the top-most exhaust. Because the ALC exhausts out the back, the PSU ends up with cooler air, meaning it may run quieter (most decent PSUs have temperature controlled fans).

I've also played around with CoolIt GPU coolers as well as a Koolance setup with Danger Den blocks. While aigomorla is secretly laughing at such a setup (I know you're just being nice to me by not scoffing me in PMs ) this represents more of a "real" water setup than a CoolIt sealed system. It seems to me that "real" setups perform the best. However, the CoolIt setups are easy to use and do offer improvements over air-cooled.

It basically comes down to this: Get what you can afford to pay for, and what you have the patience to deal with. If you can afford a couple hundred dollars and have the patience to put together a setup, fill/bleed it, run it overnight for leaks without running the computer, then go for a "real" setup. If you can't afford it or you know you won't have the patience to do all that, then the CoolIt may be acceptable.

So, the CoolIt is not an awesome water cooling setup. However, it is pretty darn good for under $100.

I've used the ALC on an overclocked Core i7 (hitting around 3.8GHz) and it worked fine. Not the most extreme overclock, but no meltdown. Load (Prime) temps are in the 60-70ºC range, which is probably terrible compared to "real" watercooling setups, but definately better than the stock cooler, and again the heat dumps directly outside the case.

BTW, I met Geoff Lyon today. He's the CEO of CoolIt and he's a pretty cool dude, plus has a background in engineering. Just don't ask us about the blonde waitress or the fat stripper.

 

[JK949]

Great info. Hands on is what I was looking for. Money is not an issue but setup and
maintanace and room in my case are. If it will keep an oc'd I7 under 70c at full load it should keep my little 9450 darn near frosty. Thanks.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: JK949
Great info. Hands on is what I was looking for. Money is not an issue but setup and
maintanace and room in my case are. If it will keep an oc'd I7 under 70c at full load it should keep my little 9450 darn near frosty. Thanks.

uhhhh not really...

Depends on how much your overclocking the two.

basically i wanted to tell you get a large class air sink instead.

 

[Tweakin]

Just finished hooking mine up. Dropped temps (Real Temp 3.0) on idle about 5c...although I know this doesn't mean anything on Quads. After running 10 threads on the Intel LinPack, I never exceeded 58c on any core. The stock Heatsink would not let me run 1...TJMax was down to 3 almost instantly.

This is on a UD3R in the open, with a Q9650@3.8Ghz and stock vcore, and using the lowest setting on the ALC. Hope this helps as I'm not yet sure what a Quad should run at under this type of stress.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: JK949
I can't seem to find much in the way of reviews for it so I thought I'd see if anyone
here has used one or knows someone who does. The few reviews I have found were
positive. This " Poor mans water cooler " is very reasonable at $75 to my door so
I'm thinking of buying one if it actually cools as well as air based heatsinks.

I'm also considering a new case without a side window and I am looking at the
CoolerMaster V8 for cooling. Anyone have hands on with it ?

Here's my current setup:
Q9450 @2.9
Asus P5N-D
EVGA 260 Core 216 Superclocked
Antec 900
Artic Silver 5

I'm using a SilverStone N06 with an Antec TriCool fan right now and I ran the
latest Prime95 and within 20 minutes RealTemp and CoreTemp were reporting an average of 75c. One core got as high as 83 before I stopped it.
Ambient room temperature is around 70F on average. Idle is about 42.

I can now say that you will not have a problem with this cooler. I've been priming for the last three days at 3.8 thru 4.2Ghz...and only at 3.6Ghz and below is this thing capable of keeping up with my rig. 3.8 thru 4Ghz and above would just keep getting hotter and hotter over time, even on the highest setting (which is loud).

I would now say that this kit is fine for any c2d or stock c2q, but if you want to stretch your legs...a better RAD, Pump and head will do the trick.

 

[Zapper48]

Don't know about the Domino but the Eliminator I have is back in it's box,replaced by an OCZ Vendetta2.If I ever go beyond air cooling it will be with a true liquid cooling system.I RMA'd the Eliminator once and it is stuck on high speed no matter what setting is selected.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Tweakin


I would now say that this kit is fine for any c2d or stock c2q, but if you want to stretch your legs...a better RAD, Pump and head will do the trick.

actually as you go higher in the quadcore department your gonna hit a upper wall fast.

As sonn as the upper wall is hit, your system will no longer be able to keep up with your heat output.

good thing tho is radiators work better as more heat load is applied.

Change the rad pump, and thats a completely new system also.

You cant really mickey mouse with the domino.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: Tweakin


I would now say that this kit is fine for any c2d or stock c2q, but if you want to stretch your legs...a better RAD, Pump and head will do the trick.

actually as you go higher in the quadcore department your gonna hit a upper wall fast.

As sonn as the upper wall is hit, your system will no longer be able to keep up with your heat output.

good thing tho is radiators work better as more heat load is applied.

Change the rad pump, and thats a completely new system also.

You cant really mickey mouse with the domino.

I know what you mean...I'm stuck at 3.8Ghz due to thermals...I was looking at installing a dual rad and swiftech pump and ditching this thing, but the case is a little small and at 3.8 it works fine...

Time for another project...and I'll start by laying out the case for a triple or quad rad and try to go really silent...I just got approval from my better half!

 

[Zap]

I've done some more testing on the Domino ALC.

Core i7 965 @4.0GHz (multiplier 30x, BCLK 133, vCORE auto)
Windows Vista 64
RealTemp 3.00
Prime95 v25.8b4 Small FFTs
open test bench, so no airflow over system

Stock Core i7 965 heatsink set to "P" (there's a little switch on it)
90/97ºC

CoolIt Domino ALC set to HIGH (although AUTO gives near identical temps)
94/100ºC
*** Thermal protection kicked in and multiplier dropped to 12x (CPU 1.6GHz). Prime95 and Windows never gave errors or anything and everything kept running, only slower. Once multiplier dropped, temps peaked around 60ºC.

CoolIt Domino ALC set to HIGH with an auxiliary 120mm fan to cool the PWM/chipset
84/91ºC

CoolIt Domino ALC set to LOW (very quiet), system idle
~40/45ºC

Very interesting results. At stock speeds of 3.2GHz the CoolIt unit was easily capable of keeping the CPU cooler than the stock cooler as I have mentioned before, plus at much lower noise levels. However, at the overclocked speeds suddenly temps went awry and some kind of thermal protection kicked in. I noticed that the heatsinks around the CPU were burning hot, so I directed a 120mm fan pointing down at the CPU area and (after a system reboot to get back to 4.0GHz) again temps were lower than stock cooler. Note that the CoolIt was a touch quieter than the stock unit, but the pitch was lower so less annoying. However, both CoolIt and stock cooler at those settings were too noisy for my tastes.

By itself the CoolIt seems to do a better job than stock cooler at lower noise levels, plus channels heat directly outside the system. However, it does not do anything for chipset/PWM cooling.

aigomorla, when you watercool and overclock do you do anything special for chipset cooling?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Zap

aigomorla, when you watercool and overclock do you do anything special for chipset cooling?

of course.

i always watercool the chipset.

When you ramp up the fsb and settings, ie, 920 overclocking, your mosfet and nb will get hot.