CoolIT Vantage Advanced Liquid Cooling

Zitat: Golden Bear Award Pro: + Pre-assembled and tested Contra: - Cable to the motherboard slightly short The system performed as advertised. It would work well in an environment where too much fan noise would be objectionable. Also, the thermal paste is of good quality. We award this product the Bjorn3D Golden Bear Award .

Zitat: Pros: + Handhabung + Optik + Verarbeitung Cons: - Preis/Leistung Der große Vorteil des Komplettsets Vantage liegt darin, dass man fast keine Arbeit bei der Installation hat. Einfach befestigen und fertig, hier muss man nichts nachfüllen, umbauen oder erweitern. Die Montage ist kinderleicht und wird durch ein bebildertes Handbuch noch unterstützt. Die Verarbeitung ist ohne Mängel und optisch ist das Display mit seinen Features einzigartig. Bei den Temperaturen muss man immer bedenken dass diese nur auf der Oberfläche gemessen werden, hier sollte man unbedingt auch andere Tools mit zu Rate ziehen. Die Kühlleistung ist Recht ordentlich wenn man bedenkt dass nur ein Radiator zur Verfügung steht. Der Preis von fast 100 Euro ist angemessen, wenn man vergleicht was eine gute Wasserkühlung kosten kann.

Zitat: The CoolIT Vantage A.L.C. CPU cooler is a very interesting piece of hardware that does not need any type of maintenance (well, except from cleaning dust off the radiator from time to time). The product has a brain and a very nice LCD display that can be rotated at an angle of our choice (depending on how we have installed it on the motherboard). Navigating through the profiles is easy, the colored backlight adds a very nice touch, but the problem is that every time we want to navigate the menu, we have to open up one side of the case and press the buttons. Modifying the settings will be much easier in the future, thanks to the CoolIT Maestro (a hardware/software combo solution). Maestro is a software program that interfaces with the selected devices through a USB wireless dongle; with its help, we will be able to do all the modifications we can now by pressing the buttons (and more, like selecting a custom RGB color for the backlight), without opening up the case. Regarding its performances, I can say it performed very well for a no-maintenance liquid cooling system, and the temperatures were similar with the Noctua NH-U12P SE2 (which comes from the factory with fans for a push-pull configuration), when the CPU was clocked at 4.0GHz. A nice addition would have been the ability to set the fan speed manually, in small steps, through an option inside the LCD menu.

Zitat: Wir bevorzugen in unseren Systemen sowieso das ganze Jahr über eine ordentliche Wasserkühlung. Diese ist deutlich leiser und leistungsfähiger, als 5x größere Turmkühler. Eine kompakte Kühleinheit wie die CoolIT Vantage A.L.C. kann da natürlich nicht mithalten, alleine wegen der Größe des Radiators und der Leistung der Pumpe. Trotzdem hat uns diese Kühllösung sehr gut gefallen. Der Hersteller verspricht nichts, was er nicht einhält.

Zitat: Pros: + Silent at stock speeds + Flexible cooling + Pre-assembled + Bolt-in plug and play + Multi-socket compatibility + Great low noise performance + Ease of installation + Aesthetics + Upcoming ´Maestro Software Control Suite´ Cons: - Still comparatively expensive When you get down to it, the CoolIT Vantage ALC is a cooling system that earns its keep at the top end of the spectrum. At the low end, you may not see the lowest temperatures at idle or at load when compared to the "Big Dog" air-cooled solutions for one reason: the dynamically controlled fan is adjusted on the fly to provide a low noise signature. This means by default that the temperatures will be a little warmer. However, when additional cooling capacity is called for, the Vantage ALC is ready to get down to business. Along that vein, the Vantage ALC uses three performance modes to allow you to further tailor the cooling and noise to your needs. You get Quiet, Performance and Extreme. During the testing, the Vantage ALC performed in line with coolers not at the top of the charts, but right in the middle of the pack and delivered a cooling performance equal to some higher-end cooling solutions. At full load when overclocked with the standard test overclock, the Vantage registered a temperature of 58 degrees Celsius, or two degrees better than the CoolIT ECO ALC and five degrees higher than the Noctua NH-U12P. Respectable to say the least. Not satisfied but more intrigued with just how much cooling capacity the Vantage ALC had available, I wanted to see if it could handle my everyday overclock of 4.0GHz, without reaching temperatures that are unacceptable. To put that in perspective, the temperature baseline with the stock Intel cooling solution was 71 degrees Celsius under load at 2.66GHz with 1.18v running to the CPU. What the Vantage was capable of at 4.0GHz was an average core temperature of 75 degrees Celsius using 1.35v to the cores. Only four degrees higher than the stock heat sink delivers, with 1.33Ghz less clock speed and with Hyper Threading enabled. That in itself earns the Vantage big points. One thing the Vantage has that the ECO does not, is flexibility. Not the socket compatibility, as the Vantage ALC can be used on Intel sockets 775,1156 and 1366 with AMD sockets AM2, AM2+ and AM3, but in the fact that the control module mounted on the pump can be configured in five different colors and four different orientations. Not to mention the the cooling levels and actual display settings available. The installation of the Vantage ALC is no harder than installing a bolt-in heat sink and rear fan. The use of thumb screws and a full back plate for Intel installations, makes installing the pump/heat sink assembly a breeze. Screw in the four screws to hold in the radiator assembly, peel off the covering on the two-sided tape to mount the back plate onto the motherboard, install the board and set the Vantage ALC pump in place and tighten the four screws until they bottom out. Then you plug in the power for the pump and connect the fan to the pump and it´s off to the races. I did have one scare on initial startup, with a beeping noise from the unit. A quick look showed the pump speed not registering but once through the POST sequence and into the OS, it disappeared. I did not notice this on warm reboots, but instead after an overnight cool-down, so it may be a combination of low temperatures and the boot cycle. Priced at about $115 the Vantage ALC is not going to be a budget cooling solution when you compare it to the mid-range 50 to 60 dollar heat sinks on the market, but when you narrow it down to the massive air coolers that come without fans, such as the Thermalright TRUE and Prolimatech Megahalems, adding fans on top of the purchase narrows the pricing gap for the high-end air solution. When you compare it to custom water cooling kits, the prices go up exponentially, making the comparison a moot point on value, though a custom kit