Alphacool releases new reservoir, looks like a winner.

Smoked Brisket

Smoked Brisket

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Feb 6, 2013
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Alphacool's latest reservoir, or distroplate, or manifold, looks pretty slick and comes in at a fair price relative to similar entries on the market. I like the fact that these look premium and are generic distros rather than specific to a case. Good to see someone seriously competing with EKWB in this space. Unfortunately it looks like Alphacool continues to insist on badly designed mounting systems. I am still a buyer and cannot wait to design a loop around one. Here is the article https://www.techpowerup.com/303808/alphacool-unveils-core-distro-plate-series and here is the store link https://www.alphacool.com/AtsdCustomCategories/index/type/productstream/ps/117

What do you all think?
 
So, it's a reservoir, pump-top and distribution plate all in one?

That's pretty convenient.

I'm not really a fan of clear plexi for anyhting (I've always opted for black acetal when able) and I'll probably continue to use traditional tube reservoirs, soft tubes, and no distribution plates, but it is great that there are more options for those who want them.
 
The all in one factor is very nice. The trade off is that the space you appear to be losing in equivalent to that of an equal sized radiator. It then becomes a looks / convenience versus performance product. At the price point as well, you could probably buy a traditional; pump, reservoir, radiator, and fittings for the price of this unit. With that all said, I do think it is a neat product and as previously stated appreciate it not being tied to specific cases.
 
Beaflag VonRathburg said:
The all in one factor is very nice. The trade off is that the space you appear to be losing in equivalent to that of an equal sized radiator. It then becomes a looks / convenience versus performance product. At the price point as well, you could probably buy a traditional; pump, reservoir, radiator, and fittings for the price of this unit. With that all said, I do think it is a neat product and as previously stated appreciate it not being tied to specific cases.
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It fits on a radiator. You dont have to do it that way, but that is the intent. Pump and res bought together would cost $220. At normal prices(not fire sale prices) you'd be pressed to get pump, res, rad, and fittings for 220. This is meant to compete with the EKWB FLT series. I have one of those and love it because it is a space saver, has great mounting hardware and is easier to work with than traditional tubes. I have used primochill, alphacool, and singularity tube reservoirs over the years. To me this is well priced for the category and another player in the flat res market makes me happy.
 
I'm certainly not happy about having to drop my dual 5.25" bay reservoir/pump units because very few cases actually offer 5.25" bays any more (it's largely just the Fractal Design Pop! and Define 7 XL these days), but one of these things mounting where a typical fan or radiator would could easily work around that.

With that said, as people have pointed out, this would come at the expense of radiator space, which would be undesirable in a lot of case designs. If I had one of those, I'd use it in a case like the typical Lian-Li PC-O11 where there's a triple 120mm fan mount right around the divider between the mobo/expansion card area and the PSU/HDD area, while still freeing that front 120mm mounting area for another radiator.
 
bale-1.jpg


ooooh that is nice....
 
I think it's cool, but I'd rather use the space you need to sacrifice for a distro plate for a full sized radiator instead 🥸
 
xDiVolatilX said:
I think it's cool, but I'd rather use the space you need to sacrifice for a distro plate for a full sized radiator instead 🥸
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I'm not a fan of distros either. Too restrictive as far as what you can do with them but they have their place in the right cases. And they look sweet when done right.

KazeoHin said:
Friends don't let friends use DDC pumps.
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Nah, DDCs are great little pumps.
 
Looking at it, I'm trying to discern how the flow works.

Is it split so it winds up being parallel? I do t like that at all.
 
NightReaver said:
Isn't that how all the distro plates work?
Click to expand...

No idea. I've never used a distro plate.

But parallel flow results in lower flow rates across blocks, which results in a higher delta T between the CPU and the coolant temp, which is negative.
 
KazeoHin said:
Every one I've owned, every one I've seen in person, and every one I've seen reviewed online has screamed like a banshee at anything over 50% speed.
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That's really odd. My experience has been quite the opposite.
I've run 10-12 from just about every rebadged laing, lowara and xylem co. out there over the years. I've only had one truly loud DDC (swiftech) that was due to a bad impeller out of the box. I run dual pumps at full speed in all of my loops. The only time I adjust them down or turn one off is during the purge process. Otherwise they will blast the air back into the loop (very loud and very annoying) no matter how big the res or loop. Once the loop is full they're fine. I've currently got 3 different Laing 3.2s that are all silent.
I've actually had far more problems with loud D5s than DDCs.
 
Smoked Brisket said:
It attaches to a radiator.
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Yeah but imagine how restrictive that would be. Either you're going to cut off all flow to your GPU, or you're going to cut off exhaust. I'm running push-pull on 3 rads very low RPMs I'd imagine installing one of these in the back of a radiator it would Spike up the GPU temp at least 10°since the GPU is air-cooled. Or alternatively installing one of these instead of one of the radiators would do the same thing spike up the temperatures another 10° lol don't get me wrong I love a little RGB on all of my components inside the case except for the fans but the distro plate is getting a little too fancy for me LOL
 
Smoked Brisket said:
It fits on a radiator. You dont have to do it that way, but that is the intent. Pump and res bought together would cost $220. At normal prices(not fire sale prices) you'd be pressed to get pump, res, rad, and fittings for 220. This is meant to compete with the EKWB FLT series. I have one of those and love it because it is a space saver, has great mounting hardware and is easier to work with than traditional tubes. I have used primochill, alphacool, and singularity tube reservoirs over the years. To me this is well priced for the category and another player in the flat res market makes me happy.
Click to expand...

Mounting it on a radiator obstructs strait through airflow by forcing a 90* bend in the path. I'm happy there are more options on the market for combined pump/res units than a ~decade ago when the only one I could find was swiftechs big tube on top of a DDC setup; but think I'll be giving anything like this a pass in my upcoming build.
 
KazeoHin said:
Every one I've owned, every one I've seen in person, and every one I've seen reviewed online has screamed like a banshee at anything over 50% speed.
Click to expand...
Screaming like a banshee's a lot stronger than I'd put it, but both of mine were the loudest part in the system when running at full speed. Fortunately running at ~50% didn't impact temps by any significant amount (IIRC 1-2C at full heat soak) and massively quieted my system in the process.
 
DanNeely said:
Mounting it on a radiator obstructs strait through airflow by forcing a 90* bend in the path. I'm happy there are more options on the market for combined pump/res units than a ~decade ago when the only one I could find was swiftechs big tube on top of a DDC setup; but think I'll be giving anything like this a pass in my upcoming build.
Click to expand...
If you want the distro plate for aesthetics it doesn't matter. Before these you removed the fans and the case. At least with these you get some air going around. Probably would be a good idea to have some past through hole also.
 
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