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Poseidon WCL-03

     Water cooling systems seem to be all the rage now.. It wasn't too long ago when you had to make three trips to Home Depot to put one together yourself. Of course there is nothing like doing it yourself, but for those of you that are just waiting to dabble in the wonderful world of water cooling, rest assured, there are literally tons of options to cool your system down. Not too long ago we tested a Kingwin setup that did quite well against its arch nemesis, the Koolance EXOS. Well we just so happen to have another water cooling system that is basically a simple bolt-on that is geared for you bare bones XPC fans that have no room to really put a water-cooler without extensive modifications. Of course mods exist for those of you that are into spending literally hours or days with a dremel only to have a bunch of holes and still no room to water cool. Well the folks at 3RSystem have heard your call, so lets check out their offering, the Poseidon WCL-03.

Specifications

 - Pump Type: Magnetic Pump
 - Pump Head: 400mm (approximate)
 - Pump Flux: 500ml/min
 - Radiator Dimension: 134mm(W) X 90mm(D) X 22mm(H)
 - Radiator Liquid Volume Capacity: 60cc
 - Radiator Material: Aluminum
 - Radiator Weight: 134g
 - Water Tank Dimension: 90mm(W) X 25mm(D) X 30mm(H)
 - Water Tank Liquid Volume Capacity: 35cc
 - Water Block Dimension: 79mm(W) X 63mm(D) X 8mm(H)
 - Water Block Material: Aluminum
 - Water Block Weight: 82g
 - Product Gross Weight: 1.2kg (including box)

Features

     The very first thing you'll observe upon opening the kit is the vast amounts of information you get. The WCL-03 is definitely geared towards those of you that are new to water cooling. This is a good thing since the more information you can get the better off you are at not making simple mistakes during installation which will prevent mistakes, and get the most out of money. The WCL-03 contains a quick start guide, a user manual, a foam mat for the radiator , and assorted hardware for AMD or Intel p3/P4 installation. The mat will prove useful for those of you that don't have the 80mm fan hole on your case. You will have the option of lying the radiator on the mat. We advise choosing a location that is well ventilated since temperatures will be entirely dependent on the outside air temperature.

     The WCL-03 is very simple in design but a bit more difficult to understand in terms of its overall functionality. Basically the water is pushed/pulled through each block and is cooled by a double fan arrangement that has been engineered to provide complete silence. The fitting for the lines is questionable as it uses plastic, so hopefully 3RSystem took that into consideration. The wires for the fans could stand to be sleeved but we realize that may be overkill since most sleeving kits will have enough leftovers to do that yourself. The coolant for the WCL-03 is already pre-filled, and you'll notice the reservoir has removable clamps which could be in relation to the other two consecutive 3RSystem models due to be released soon on their website. A bigger reservoir perhaps?

     A better look at the reservoir which in our opinion may be a bit small compared to other systems. Hopefully during our tests the reservoir won't pose a problem with under load temperatures with our 3.0Ghz Prescott. 3RSystem explains in their quick start guide that over time coolant may be lost which to us is fairly normal. We also concur with 3RSystem that distilled water should be used no matter what. Normal tap water will kill any pump real fast, not to mention corrode the whole cooling loop with calcium deposits. The water tank has a very convenient little latch that allows you to just clip it onto the radiator, which can actually help overall CPU temperatures.

     The CPU Block is an aluminum construction which is good to some, but copper is better. The base is smooth enough, although it could probably use a bit of lapping which will drop temps a bit more. One of the little known assets about aluminum vs. copper is that aluminum can take a higher heat load since it doesn't dissipate heat as quickly as copper, which means it can hold more heat which makes it essential for low-RPM fan utilization. This makes it a perfect choice for the Poseidon.

     The radiator is of very simple construction primarily made up of aluminum and tin. Its not the best we've seen, but its functional. Notice the rear mounted 80mm fan, and the mount for another 80mm fan. One could easily mount another 80mm fan on this and use self tapping screws to mount the radiator to your case. The one thing that we did not like was the use of glue to insure the radiator does not leak. That not too bad, but with a mixture of silver paint, fragile plastic, and plastic plugs its just kind of a mess. We are pretty sure that 3RSystem can do a bit better than this considering their pricing competition is the all copper Kingwin Arctic Cooler.

     A close up of the plastic plug mess... I suppose if it has a QA sticker on it, it should run just fine, which it did during our testing. It just makes us nervous.

     The included clips make it possible and easy to water cool your system whether if its flown blown server or a mini ATX Shuttle XPC. Included are AMD and Intel P3 & P4 brackets which makes the Poseidon very versatile. You simply install the clips onto your existing CPU cooler brackets, install the Poseidon CPU block, and tighten down the thumbscrews using equal pressure. You can use the included white thermal paste but we used Arctic Silver 5 for our testing.

Performance

     Our test bench includes a hot burning Intel Prescott 3.0Ghz which should prove to be able to fry just about any kind of food with a cheap heatsink. We didn't even have a notion of testing the Poseidon against a stock OEM heatsink, but instead opted for our full blown Danger Den triple block setup for comparison purposes. With over $300 in this Danger Den setup we didn't really think a $95 single block system would beat it, but we wanted to get some temperature comparison to show our readers what the Poseidon can do for you. We logged idle Windows XP Desktop temperatures, and used Sandra Burn-In for full load testing. Our setup consist of the following:

• Asus P4C800E
• Intel Pentium 4 Prescott 3.0Ghz
• Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste
• Lian Li PC V2000 Case
• ThermalTake 480W Butterfly PSU
• JetArt DT-5000 for Temperature Logging
• Motherboard Monitor 5.3.7.0 For Internal CPU Diode Temperature Logging

Testing Temperature 77F Room Ambient

     At a default 3.0Ghz the Poseidon gets its clock cleaned fairly well from Danger Den but still shows a bit of poise in these hot summer temperatures. Many may ask why is it 77F in the room? Well in Idaho its like 105 out right now, so even with the AC on its quite hot. With a cooler room temperatures will be remarkably lower than those depicted above.

Conclusion

     We didn't test overclocking tests with the Poseidon due to the fact that we feel it really isn't geared towards the Overclocker, but more towards those that want a quiet solution to air-cooling. On 3RSystem's homepage they have the DBA ratings of several cooling solutions including the retail OEM P4 heatsink. The Poseidon beats them all in temperature and decibel rating which is a big plus. In terms of competition, the Kingwin Arctic Cooler wins easily, but in terms of space efficiency, the Poseidon wins. We can't really recommend this product just yet. It needs a bit more improvement in the workmanship and pricing department. For the $100 asking price of the Poseidon you can get a Kingwin Arctic Cooler which has excellent workmanship, is made of copper, and even has a fan control unit. It's also a bit easier on the eyes. A quick glance on 3RSystem's website says that a WCL-04 and WCL-05 will be coming out soon, so if you are hurting for space with your XPC mini-barebones, we would advise you wait a bit longer for the newer revised versions to come out.