Raijintek Atlantis Series Custom Loop Water Cooling Review

Test System and Methodology

Testing water cooling varies wildly compared to the kind of tests we perform on standard cooling systems, and as such, hardware may require being customised to each water loop we test and can vary further based on the radiators being tested, the kind of pump and more, so we can only give relative performance statistics per build. For this review we will be using the following hardware.

Test System

• Gigabyte G1 Gaming Z97MX Micro-ATX Motherboard
• Intel 3570K @ stock and @4.5Ghz 1.35v
• Crucial 16GB DDR3
• Crucial 120GB SSD
• Seasonic 820W Platinum PSU

Additional Hardware

• Raijintek Styx
• Noctua NF-F12/NF-F14 (dependant on radiator size used)
• Mayhems flexible tubing 10/13mm
• Raijintek Compression Fittings
• Alphacool 240mm Slim X-Flow Radiator

Testing Methodology:

• We always use Gelid GC-Extreme thermal paste to make sure testing reveals the efficiency of the tested coolers not the efficiency of the bundled thermal paste.
• Prime 95 is run for 10 minutes and then the average maximum temperatures as recorded by CPUID HWMonitor are noted
• The average temperature across the four cores is taken on our quad-core processor
• Fans are mostly left to operate at default PWM profile speeds and with maximum fan speed for reference. If PWM functions are not supported then fixed fan speeds are used and sometimes a low noise adapter if appropriate/provided. If fixed fan speeds or low noise adapters are used it will be clearly pointed out either on the graphs or in the write-up.
• Pump speeds may vary, but will be detailed in the performance section
• All default result entries on graphs are for PWM performance unless otherwise specified. A variety of fan speed results are done for a particular product review and then removed from the graphs in future reviews of other products to avoid clutter. If you would like to see more fan speed results for a particular product please check its individual review.
• For water cooling tests, all pumps have been operated at 12 volts directly from the power supply
• Delta temperatures are always used (Observed temperature minus ambient temperature) and we keep the ambient at 22 (+/- 1) degrees for all testing. Delta temperatures should correct for any marginal ambient differences between 21-23 degrees.
• Acoustic measurements are taken 10cm horizontally away from the CPU cooler with the VGA fan disabled, the hard drive in idle and power supply isolated. These are taken at desktop idle and Prime95 load.
• The cooling performance tests are run at stock 3.4GHz (with Intel Turbo up to 3.8GHz) and overclocked 4.5GHz (1.35v) settings. Voltages are fixed to prevent inaccuracy between comparisons.
• All other coolers in the graphs have been tested under identical settings so are fully comparable unless otherwise stated.
• Each test is repeated 3 times with remounts for consistency of results
• There is approximately a 1-degree celsius margin of error in our temperature recording software CPUID HW Monitor
• There is approximately a 1.5dBA margin of error with our Benetech GM1351 decibel meter

Software Used

• CPUID HWMonitor
• Prime 95

In all these graphs we may have a few “reference” results of particular products that do not fit into that category for comparative purposes.