240 mm Vortex One Advanced DIY Water Cooling Kit - Black

I'll start this review by saying you get what you pay for. This kit is ~£80, which is less than most pumps cost alone. So don't expect an amazing pump, waterblock or radiator. They do their job pretty well but that's about it.The pump is reasonably quiet once you remove any air from the system and runs off a molex connector, so there is no variable speed control or even the ability to monitor pump speed. There is a flow meter included which I suggest you use, as at this price point I'm not sure how reliable the pump will be.The waterblock seems to be decent quality and comes with all manner of different mounting hardware. It was easy to install and the white led illuminates it nicely.The radiator seems to do its job well. I do have a minor grip with it though, the screw holes don't seem to have been threaded properly and made mounting the rad more difficult than it should have been.For the fittings it's an all metal affair in black. They appear to be good quality and provide an excellent seal. Just remember to not overtighten them when installing.The pipework is a standard 10/13mm and is nice and flexible but you have to be careful that you don't bend it too far or it will kink, so make sure you'll have enough space for fairly large radius bends.The one thing I didn't like was the fluid included with the kit. It's simply distilled water and a selection of dyes. As far as I can tell there is no biocide or corrosion inhibitors so do yourself a favour and get a decent pre-mix fluid instead (I'm using XSPC EC6 - Blood Red)The fans included have nice bright leds (although I've swapped them for some red fans I had). They're quiet and move a decent amount of air through the radiator. They come with both molex and 3 pin fan header connections on.Finally, performance. I'm impressed! This loop is keeping a de-lidded i7 4790k @ 4.8ghz under control. The temperatures aren't amazing but they are well within a comfortable zone, max temps when running cinebench r20 was 80 degrees C, idle around 30 and gaming around 50.All in all, the system is considerably quieter than when I had an air cooler in it and it looks far better. This is my first attempt at a custom loop and I found it nice and easy to put together. If I have any reliability problems with the pump I'll update this review but at the moment I'm very happy with it.Edit 01/02/2021: I've had this for nearly a year now and have had no problems with it whatsoever

works as should but pump is noisy and the flow meter keeps failing

Great value, you can spend £300-£400, and more on custom high end kits and they would do just the same as this kit for quarter of the price, I have two 240mm radiators hooked up to my setup and it's been faultless, temps idol at 35deg, and max out at 70deg full load. We'll worth it.

This is a great little kit for a first timer like me. I'm an experienced PC builder, but this is my first foray into water cooling. I was able to get the system set up and running in a little under 2 hours.Now, a couple of weeks later, I know some of the things I would have done differently, but the kit itself was the perfect starting point. I've since bought a few spares and fiddled with my layout a bit. Draining a system is a bit of a bind, so it's DEFINITELY worth sitting down and planning your layout before you start, paying particular attention to making sure you can fill the reservoir up completely to remove any air gaps.It's worth noting that the radiator comes with the fans attached, but it's very quick and easy to unscrew them and put them on the other side of the radiator if you need to invert it, or even if you just need to reorientate them for easier access to the power leads. Plan it out, and do that *before* you fill it.On the subject of power, I think my biggest annoyance was the power connectors. The pump comes with a passthru Molex power connector that's fully populated. The fans come with 3-pin fan connectors *and* passthru Molex, but only two of the pins on the Molex are populated. The supplied LED for the CPU block is also a 2-pin-populated Molex - but it's the opposite two pins to the fans, meaning you can't daisy-chain them all together. An annoying discrepancy that could have been fixed for a fraction of a penny.The kit comes with the bare minimum of tube connectors to put the components together, and the coolant supplied (distilled water) is *not quite* enough to fill all the supplied tubing and reservoir to the top, so it may be worth buying some extra distilled water to make sure you can get rid of any bubbles, and also give the radiator a bit of a shake and a rinse through before you start - mine had some bits of cruft inside that got caught in the CPU heat exchanger first time out.Another thing you might want to purchase as an extra is a silver 'Kill coil'. This small spring of silver can be inserted into one of the tubes and will act as an anti-algae and biocide agent, meaning that you don't have to use the supplied dyes if you don't want. Crystal clear water looks very nice next to the bright white fan LEDs...