Optimus Water Cooling V1 Intel CPU Water Block Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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Optimus Water Cooling V1 Intel CPU Water Block Review

Optimus Water Cooling is primed to give the competition a run for the money when it comes to water cooling your very hot and overclocked LGA 115X CPU. This block is made right here right in the USA. Does the company's "revolutionary patent-pending Hybrid Fin technology" transform a simple water block into something that can dominate its competition?

UPDATE - 12/18/17: Optimus has dropped their prices by $20 on the V1 block for Intel and will be shipping with all the changes we suggested in our review.
 
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Thanks for the write up, that was fun to read. Makes me thankful we have companies like this who not only value integrity in their company and product, but are not afraid of letting a reviewer critique and find flaws. Wouldn't mind grabbing one of these to replace my budget block tho, those are some damn good numbers on this guy
 
Brass top on a copper base?

I don't fully understand galvanic corrosion, but is this not vulnerable to it?
 
Brass top on a copper base?

I don't fully understand galvanic corrosion, but is this not vulnerable to it?

No worries with galvanic corrosion between copper and brass. They are almost identical on the galvanic chart. Many radiators and fittings are made of brass for example. Most companies prefer to use brass over copper in components other than cold plates, because brass tends to machine better than copper.
 
I'm also super interested in an AM4 solution from these guys. One possibility (and the thing I really like about the Koolance CPU-380 and -390 blocks) is the mounting plate being removable. Essentially their regular AMD and Intel blocks are the same block, they just come with the AMD or Intel plate attached by default. You can actually purchase the other plate for just a little more $$$ and have all of your bases covered on this front AND it allows new "adapter plates" to be manufactured if the hole patterns change a bit (like the difference between the AM3 and AM4 hole patterns).
 
With that kind of a performance boost I just might have to give one of these a try on my next rig, especially if those few pre-production issues are sorted out. I like simple, less-flashy, and unlit parts for the majority of my work and this certainly fits the bill.
 
Very nice. Been a while since I've seen anything in the PC water-cooling world that piqued my interest. Well done!
 
Thanks for the sweet review, and I definitely got my eye on Optimus, can't wait to see where they go from here. Fantastic start for them. Love the company's transparency, and their willingness to accept feedback and improve. Optimus feels like the kind of company I wanna give my money to. I hope we see more of them.
 
I am starting a new build and have had my eye on this block. Thanks to Kyle and his review I am very much excited and might just pick it up.

Optimus Water Cooling - any plan to switch out the spring or do I need to make a run ACE Hardware?
 
Optimus Water Cooling - any plan to switch out the spring or do I need to make a run ACE Hardware?
Reading is fundamental. :)

After our discussion Optimus told us, "We won't ship out units with those weak springs."
 
I am starting a new build and have had my eye on this block. Thanks to Kyle and his review I am very much excited and might just pick it up.

Optimus Water Cooling - any plan to switch out the spring or do I need to make a run ACE Hardware?

Awesome! Yes, as Kyle had mentioned, we will ship out units in January once the spring issue has been completely resolved.
 
Thanks for the sweet review, and I definitely got my eye on Optimus, can't wait to see where they go from here. Fantastic start for them. Love the company's transparency, and their willingness to accept feedback and improve. Optimus feels like the kind of company I wanna give my money to. I hope we see more of them.

Thank you very much for the kind words! :)

We will do our best to learn from any customer or reviewer feedback to make our products something that people are happy using and owning.

Very nice. Been a while since I've seen anything in the PC water-cooling world that piqued my interest. Well done!

Thank you!

I'm also super interested in an AM4 solution from these guys. One possibility (and the thing I really like about the Koolance CPU-380 and -390 blocks) is the mounting plate being removable. Essentially their regular AMD and Intel blocks are the same block, they just come with the AMD or Intel plate attached by default. You can actually purchase the other plate for just a little more $$$ and have all of your bases covered on this front AND it allows new "adapter plates" to be manufactured if the hole patterns change a bit (like the difference between the AM3 and AM4 hole patterns).

Awesome! Yes, AM4 is something that we will work on supporting and we should have a solution for that by the time Ryzen 2 is released. The mounting plate idea is something that we'll definitely keep in mind. We kind of liked having the top plate being one solid piece, because it offers very good mounting and gives us a unique look. However, If more people would be interested in this as opposed to a uni body design, that is definitely something that we can offer in the future. Thanks for your feedback!
 
Awesome! Yes, AM4 is something that we will work on supporting and we should have a solution for that by the time Ryzen 2 is released. The mounting plate idea is something that we'll definitely keep in mind. We kind of liked having the top plate being one solid piece, because it offers very good mounting and gives us a unique look. However, If more people would be interested in this as opposed to a uni body design, that is definitely something that we can offer in the future. Thanks for your feedback!


The advantages of the removable mounting plate are hard to beat. I've got 3x Koolance CPU-380's I got for AMD rigs and they were expensive at the time. Those blocks have all been mounted on a variety of CPUs since then, including Intel and Ryzen units. You may note that Koolance does not officially make an adapter plate for the CPU-380 on Ryzen - I took the CPU-390 adapter plate and drilled it out to work on my -380 blocks. All told I've gotten my money out of these blocks. This coming tax time, I'm looking to overhaul my current loop on my Ryzen 1700 system and was considering getting a newer CPU block for it. I really like yours, but I won't purchase a block that isn't similarly versatile to the Koolance 380's I already have - I just switch things around too much for that to be viable. If you guys do make a similarly versatile block at this performance level, I'll be all over that puppy like white on rice.
 
Fantastic block.
How do you clean/unclog it without causing damage? The fins must be tremendously fragile.
Its inevitable deposits will form between them.
 
Fantastic block.
How do you clean/unclog it without causing damage? The fins must be tremendously fragile.
Its inevitable deposits will form between them.

The fins are stronger than what were first expected. You should be able to use a tooth brush to clean the block without any issue. I have only been able to bend the fins a little bit if I went out of my way to do so with a finger nail. I don't think cleaning will be an issue with out blocks. Thanks for the kind words!
 
Very exciting review with an awesome write up and images. I love the look, best looking block out there, at least to me. Also would be very interested in a Ryzen/AM4 version, then a bigger version for ThreadRipper/TR4.

One of my first thoughts looking at those fins is it might be very beneficial to have a filtering system in the cooling system :). To keep that very impressive performance, 4c cooler than the best block on the market is astonishing considering the maturity of this market segment. Those super micro fins/channels I would want totally foreign free of anything except the cooling medium.

Wounded Warrior emblem or version with support for our troops would be well received by many. Anyways when these are available for Ryzen I will buy.
 
Got an email today:

"Hi <My Name>,

Thank you very much for your patience. We will be able to ship out your water block by next week.

Sincerely,

Optimus Water Cooling Team"


I assume this may also depends on your placement in the pre-order line. But seems they will be shipping soon.
 
Looks like these are US only for now (no resellers, they only ship to the US when purchased directly), which is unfortunate.
 
Looks like these are US only for now (no resellers, they only ship to the US when purchased directly), which is unfortunate.

Once they get going here pretty well, they'll go international I'm certain. Too much money to be made in EU to ignore that market.
 
Got an email today:

"Hi <My Name>,

Thank you very much for your patience. We will be able to ship out your water block by next week.

Sincerely,

Optimus Water Cooling Team"


I assume this may also depends on your placement in the pre-order line. But seems they will be shipping soon.

Yes, we should start shipping out blocks on Monday!



Looks like these are US only for now (no resellers, they only ship to the US when purchased directly), which is unfortunate.

Once they get going here pretty well, they'll go international I'm certain. Too much money to be made in EU to ignore that market.


We are looking into getting listed on and stocking our blocks at several retailers that ship internationally as well.


I also wanted to mention that we have machined our first AM4 block prototype, so we should have that released well in advance of Ryzen 2
 
Yes, we should start shipping out blocks on Monday!








We are looking into getting listed on and stocking our blocks at several retailers that ship internationally as well.


I also wanted to mention that we have machined our first AM4 block prototype, so we should have that released well in advance of Ryzen 2
You need to hire a consultant that knows about these things. ;)
 
Have there been any updates from these guys? I can't find anyone that ships them to Canada yet, and the [H] review is the only one that comes up. Their twitter has been silent since February. :confused:

Has anyone received any orders from them?
 
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I know for a fact they were shipping orders out.
 
got all happy until i saw no broadwell-e support? really?
This is quoted right from the product page...

COMPATIBILITY:

  • Intel LGA-1150/1151/1155/1156 (Ex: Coffee Lake, Kaby Lake, etc.)
  • Intel LGA-2011(-3) (Ex: Broadwell-E)
  • Intel LGA-2066 (Ex: Skylake-X)
 
The graph says "XSPC RayStorm Neo" but the review refers to the "XSPC RayStorm Pro". By the black mounting HW in the pic I'm assuming it's the Pro throughout?
 
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