Date: May 30th, 2007
Article by: Joe Anderson (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: Gigabyte <--SHOP FOR A GIGABYTE 3D GALAXY II CPU LIQUID COOLING SYSTEM HERE
PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES
Gigabyte has packed a lot of features into the Galaxy II in order to make this a truly turnkey liquid-cooling system. We'll go over each one in detail as we look at the individual components, but for now, suffice it to say that this kit addresses some of the troublesome pitfalls that novice waterheads are likely to encounter in their first build and makes the installation as painless as possible.
The specs are pretty self-explanatory, so we'll only touch on a few of the more interesting ones here. The “mosfet cooling fan” is an 80mm unit that mounts above the CPU waterblock to cool the components surrounding the socket, which can be a problem with some liquid cooling kits. Remember, one still needs airflow across the motherboard as the CPU is not the only component generating heat here. Putting out a bit over 100 gallons/hour, the pump has acceptable flow, and the 2-meter head spec is more than adequate for this application. The pump has a ceramic bearing for long life and is very quiet. The ½-inch PVC tubing is UV reactive, and matching barbs and clamps are featured on the radiator, block and valves. The valves, which are really manifolds with integral ½-inch and ¼-inch valving, make for easy upgrades or draining and are made from POM. For anyone who's interested, POM is a thermoplastic material (acetal polyoxymethylene copolymer) with excellent rigidity, impact toughness, and abrasion, creep and solvent resistance. Sounds like good stuff for this application. The Galaxy II supports all modern processors and sockets.
PRODUCT COMPOSITION
The large and colorful box has a lot of information printed on it and features a big window to show off the main components.
Inside, these components are nestled into dense black foam to protect them during shipment. Beneath this, in the bottom of the carton, the less fragile parts are secured in cardboard and include the thick, multi-lingual manual and quick start guides, the tubing and all the mounting brackets and hardware. There's a lot of stuff in this kit!
