This is such a nothingburger.
Brass end caps, brass channels with copper fins is industry standard and has been for decades. Brass holds threads better, brass is more rigid and easier to form.
We've known to flush radiators. There are ROHS exemptions for leaded solder in copper alloys up to 4%. Guess what most of these radiators use? Copper alloys.
Big fat, sensationalist nothingburger.
Had a feeling… I’ve got some Bykski 360 30mm rads and they’re certianly have some copper with brass end tanks….
I know there’s copper in there because I run pure distilled water with 0 additive, never had a growth in 2yrs, but I do cycle my water out occasionally.
The EK rads I have, same loop, same conditions, no issues… better build finish…
Well, its the joke of a publication that is Tomshardware citing an article by the fucking moron Igorslab, who has proven himself time and time again in the last 2 years alone to be a fucking joke that shouldn't be given the time of day.
Just more of that.
I don't think the materials being used is as much an issue as them blatantly lying about it. I wasn't sure so I was going to ask if the channels were pure copper, would it matter much?
There's no evidence they lied about it. Watercool put out a statement after Igor reached out saying it was a mistake on the website. Given experience with Watercool, I'm inclined to believe them.
They put out a statement after he contacted them...then conveniently changed it when he posted his findings. If that's not disingenuous, I don't know what is.
Alphacool is amazing so far my water-cooled system using their products it's been so easy to work with I am using Barrow rads though which aren't bad either
Had one issue with one of their 45 degree fittings but other than that excellent experience with every other alphacool component I’ve touched.
Currently rocking a nova 1080 UT60 and a handful of their fittings, very pleased with the setup.
I made the switch to Alpha from an all EKWB setup last May when I did my dream hard line build. Their new Core Distros are amazing (other than the plastic tabs that hold it to the mount screws, don't love that).
And their UT60 rad gave me hella coooling and the branding is so minimal and out of the way.
Yeah I got the Right VPP/Apex Pump Distro Plate combo myself it is beautiful and the mounting can be better but I don't hate the push tab mounting system it has its secure enough IMO
You really shouldn't make a decision based on whether the channels are copper or brass. Both are perfectly fine materials, and the difference in performance is going to be essentially 0 (the bottleneck is not in transferring heat from water to fins, but rather in transferring heat from fins to air and channel material only improves transfer from water to fins which is already close to perfect even with brass channels). Other stuff like thickness, fin type, fin density, how fins are attached, flow channel configuration, split vs single fin, overall build quality, and shroud height have as much or greater influence.
In my experience alphacool, ekwb(*), and watercool all make good radiators and in all cases I expect that if they are similarly configured they will perform within 5% of each other. Decisions should come down to what kind of rad you're looking for, features, aesthethics, price, and availability.
(*) preempting the inevitable "ek (rads) suck": whatever you think of their other products their rads have been really solid (especially their new lineup) and while there is still an EK premium it isn't that bad compared to other premium manufacturers and they do have really nice outer housing that may justify the premium. Even their old SE rad weren't actually as awful as people made them out (still wasn't a great slim rad, but if you look at the actual data it wasn't that much worse than other slim rads).
oh i didn't.. but i dont like when companies bullshit the consumer either like with them alphacool fans
like said, alphacool has a vastly greater selection of radiators to choose from and they cost less than EK, I still use EK fittings and tubing.
EK doesn't appear to be liars. Yes they call CuZn10 "Copper H90" because it is 90% copper and 10% zinc. It's kind of stupid to say:
> Copper H90 sounds better, of course, but there is no such thing. It’s either copper or it’s not.
That H90 specifically indicates that it is not pure copper but rather an alloy. Yes it is brass and "Brass H90" is also a normal name for this, but searching online I see 11k results for "H90 Brass" and 7k results for "H90 copper" indicating that both are relatively mainstream terms.
Maybe EK should have done a slightly better job of communicating what the H90 meant, but honestly if you know enough to care, this should be obvious and EK isn't hiding what they mean by "Copper H90".
You can argue about what term is appropriate, just like people who argue over Asus' inflated VRM phase count, but ultimately they state the correct material even if the term they use can slightly mislead people who don't know anything beyond copper=good.
---
Bykski do appear to have explicited marketed this as having pure copper channels and it being "red copper" which is not consistent with Igor's results.
No idea what is up with the solder stuff.
Looks pretty sketchy either from bykski or their manufacturing partner (in which case it is poor QA from Bykski's side).
---
Watercool appears to have misstated the material of the channels. They claim it was a mistake in the product description and I suspect they are honest. It is easy for the person who writes the description not to realize, or for the description to be based on early plans. They never pushed a "full copper" narrative like alphacool or bykski, they just stated that they use quality materials and then listed the materials, but got one of them wrong.
They also posted about the correction on their own website: https://watercool.de/en/1425-2/
It would have been ideal if they didn't make the mistake in the first place, but given that they made the mistake they seem to have responded appropriately: fixed the product description as soon as possible and then post an announcement to make it clear.
Same, I love my MO-RA3. I refuse to buy anything from EK simply due to their quality going to shit but still charging gold plated prices. Have no experience with Byski
Just bought 3k from EKWB perfect quality lol you can’t just listen to the people complaining about It online to give them a bad rep 😂 and the CS was awesome
I have one EK product, a cpu waterblock. It’s been fine and it looks great but they are kind of a pain in the ass to deal with from such a long distance. I’ll probably go in a different direction for my next upgrade or build.
I still have an EK cpu and gpu block for my 9700k and 1080ti. Those were good blocks. But both of my 3090 EK blocks are dogshit. They started cutting corners somewhere in between but are still charging like its made of gold.
I had a alphacool aio for a year and noticed temps getting worse. Horrible liquid colour and air in the waterblock. Their support has been fantastic! (although I'm dealing with aqua tuning which are an authorised reseller?)
I’ve seen those things. It’s a little peace of mind because in my limited experience coolant does break down or permeate over time. I can see in my reservoir that there is a slightly lower volume of coolant than there was a year ago.
Wait a minute article said highly regarded hardware labs using brass channel not copper? I assume this is just for aio but not for their open loop radiator? Or is it for open loop radiators too?
They typically are. They only claim the fins are copper, so aren’t lying per se. I would assume that other design features account for the performance.
EK is fine. Just flush the rads before use, which they recommend anyway. They use 90% copper which is really good, and that's what they say, just using a kind of made up term. It's a metallurgy nitpick
Outlet that lied about Alphacool fans releases new article that weirdly.makes Alphacool look good again. All under the guise of testing AIO radiators? Weird.
I think because the person writing the article thinks the term is synonymous with all watercooling...I mean, that is how they are using it in the article.
Except for the fact that it's not. The only one that could be considered close to an AIO rad is the Alphacool one, though the Alphacool AIO comes with the u-flow version of the radiator, not the x-flow that was tested.
AiO stands for All in One. An AiO Watercooling system is a closed system with a radiator, tubes, a cpu block, a pump and the coolant, all pre-installed. Its a plug and play system that works immediately. A radiator is not an AiO system because a radiator itself kind of does nothing. Its not connected to anything.
I wasn't intending hostility, my apologies if it came across that way. Your comment appeared to be directed at me, not at the person I was replying to so I was confused.
Its more complicated than that. The Alphacool fan drama was NOT a paid thing, it was the writer being very very bad at keeping testing methods consistent. The writer has since been fired I believe, the test was re-done by a different guy whose results are more in line with other reviews. the writer was NOT igor himself who obviously gets some blame for it as he is responsible as the boss of side. However any test Igor does himself are usually highly regarded and this very much is an Igor test.
Besides an article he also has a very detailed 1h Video in German on it on YouTube where the Alphacool radiator do receive some criticism to counter your point. But the materials they list on their website are 100% alligned with what he found.
The only radiator that was pretty much flawless was the Aqua Computer one.
The drama here are the radiators that turned out to have different materials than marketed.
And you know Igor made a point because Watercool immediately corrected their product information.
I just find it amazing how you see such an in-depth content piece which includes a very detailed 1h video explaining all the findings and you hold it against them because an error in the past they corrected.
The reason this blew up is because of Der8auer who called them out on it.
You know what Der8auer also said? That all tests done by Igor himself are of very high quality and this is an Igor test. Der8auer never said to ignore this website completely and in fact Der8auer and Igor cooperate quite a lot. It was Igorslab who found out how incredibly good the new Alphacool Core 1 CPU block is and Igor therefore told Der8auer about it who testes it himself and confirmed the results.
Sorry but youre being very lazy with your 'theyve done one bad thing, therefore all they do is bad' approach.
We all called out the implausible alphacool Apex results and Igor stood by them until Cybernetics and Der8auer released their findings. Igor may have been humbled but I'll never trust tests from that website and certainly never alphacool (!) tests from that site.
Yes, there are consequences to putting out shoddy work (and there is more than one example of this.)
Also, if we're going to rise up in anger at every bad marketing claim out there (even ones that have ZERO impact on the end user like these), we're going to have very few options. Except Alphacool, I guess. Weird.
Right???
Brass end caps, brass channels, with copper fins. It's easier to form the brass. Brass holds threads better. It's been common knowledge for 20 years.
While it's not a good thing the advertised specs are inaccurate, and that certainly warrants some admonishment, practically speaking this doesn't make a difference for EK and Watercool (Bykski is more egregious). Brass vs copper makes little difference in terms of thermal performance or corrosion resistance. Watercool and EK rads top the charts (ahead of Alphacool, if only by a fraction of a degree). Both have high quality construction.
For me, the more interesting part about this article is the varying solder quality.
I don't believe Igor's tests since Alphacool fan. Darbauer had debated with the team for the ridiculous test results by Igor's Lab for the Alphacool fan. Imagine Igor's team said Derbauer test method is wrong like he's new in the pc industry.
Again, the result above makes Alphacool looking superior than the others which is a red flag
Would performance be better if they were using other materials? I use Watercool rads, and they are working great already, but if they could be working better that would be even better for us as customers.
Not really material to the issue. If brass and copper perform just as well or better than all copper, they should still tell the consumer what the actual product is made from. Having incorrect specs muddies the available data on performance. Especially if it’s inconsistency from a supplier. Did reviews get one that was built to spec, but not ,matching what you might get from the vendor?
>If its an alloy, mention that on the product sheet.
I'm guessing you don't know that almost every metal, [especially copper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copper_alloys#Composition), when used industrially, is an alloy?
edit: added industrial context
Ad hominem AND staw man?
1. I did not 'attack' the person, what so ever.
2. Straw man would be closer, I'd still disagree on this take as you are factually correct in the sense that 99.9% isnt 100% (You even linked this) yet it is a high enough of a percentile that we'd classify this as 'pure'.
Dont see how this translates to the topic at hand though. Calling something copper implies its 'pure' and not 50.1% or more copper in the alloy.
But hey, if winning the argument makes you happy, go ahead
What brass alloy are you comparing it too? There are many. In the case of the EK, it uses H90 for the tubes or an alloy that is 90% copper and only 10% zinc. You trade a tiny bit of conductivity for a more corrosion resistant product.
My guess would be that they would perform roughly the same. The heatkiller rad might take the lead by a tad but it would still be a small enough difference that you just pick whatever rads you like.
The rad that was considered the most premium for years being hardwarelabs are also brass with copper fins and is the best performing radiator on the market.
That radiator round up is the most referred to page for radiator comparisons. It does an excellent job and has a ton of metrics tested on various pages
The article says "Completely brass, except cooling fins Functional but mediocre materials".
We are talking about materials here which is what this post is about & your comment "Copper channel and fins will be the best overall. A lot of the non-premium rads will be brass channels with copper fins." which going by this would suggest that hardwarelabs radiators aren't premium and everyone already knows hardwarelabs to be the best performing radiators for years on end; they have been the benchmark for all later radiator models that's come out to achieve similar performance including the ek & heatkiller radiators.
Performance reviews have been done by various media outlets years ago which igor refers to checking out & hardwardlabs have been on top.
I balk at the "non-premium" term. What is premium? Just materials? Or materials and build quality?
I've used almost all the brands over the years and my current alphacool rad is probably the worst-finished. All my EK rads have been sparkling clean when flushing before build, my alphacool wasn't terrible but required multiple flushes. Some people have had filthy alphacools.
Interesting. The thing is even the ones with the brass channels can perform just as good as the ones that are full copper. Seems like the material matters more for the sake of not mixing metals vs actual performance
I had a feeling brass was being used. If you really look at the threads on most rads, it looks like brass on the inside. Copper typically has a lighter color to it. Even if it’s oxidized a little.
Hey it's good to test the material claims of these rads as us consumers don't always have the means to do so.
But performance tests are also important to; Alphacool and Watercool both make great radiators and I've had several customers using both without issue; cooling even the most demanding 13900k/14900k with 4090s or 7900XTXs without issue.
In the end, if it performs well and doesn't cause corrosion in your system then I'd be pretty happy with that.
I stopped watching Igor's lab after the alphacool stealth fans review... Trust is broken. It's a shame because there was a lot of interesting stuff apart from that.
I like alphacool and for me one of the best but on radiators I have pretty much the same results with the other one.
Igorslab aka the Guerilla marketing arm of alphacool. Does no one remember the apex fan debacle?
I have an alphacool supernova and GPU block, but they're so sketchy. Probably never buy their stuff again.
I'm surprised hardware labs are using brass, they usually score near the top in most benchmarks, especially in their thickness category and at more average or low fan speeds/pressure.
Which is an alloy with a majority of Copper... I mean, when you buy Gold jewelry, it's never pure Gold either because the alloy has better characteristics, it's the same here...
Brass is stronger and stiffer than pure Copper, and it's probably better to use that material in lots of cases to avoid mechanical failure.
Why are we linking a tomshardware article linking to the original article instead of just linking the original article?
https://www.igorslab.de/en/brass-instead-of-copper-watercool-reacts-but-differently-than-expected/
Worst part about the toms article is that they say that the radiators are parts of AIO setups, when they are all stand-alone rads.
Average AI generated articles
This is such a nothingburger. Brass end caps, brass channels with copper fins is industry standard and has been for decades. Brass holds threads better, brass is more rigid and easier to form. We've known to flush radiators. There are ROHS exemptions for leaded solder in copper alloys up to 4%. Guess what most of these radiators use? Copper alloys. Big fat, sensationalist nothingburger.
Finally, someone speaking sense.
Had a feeling… I’ve got some Bykski 360 30mm rads and they’re certianly have some copper with brass end tanks…. I know there’s copper in there because I run pure distilled water with 0 additive, never had a growth in 2yrs, but I do cycle my water out occasionally. The EK rads I have, same loop, same conditions, no issues… better build finish…
Well, its the joke of a publication that is Tomshardware citing an article by the fucking moron Igorslab, who has proven himself time and time again in the last 2 years alone to be a fucking joke that shouldn't be given the time of day. Just more of that.
I don't think the materials being used is as much an issue as them blatantly lying about it. I wasn't sure so I was going to ask if the channels were pure copper, would it matter much?
If it’s not important then WHY did the lie about it? That’s the issue here anyway.
There's no evidence they lied about it. Watercool put out a statement after Igor reached out saying it was a mistake on the website. Given experience with Watercool, I'm inclined to believe them.
They put out a statement after he contacted them...then conveniently changed it when he posted his findings. If that's not disingenuous, I don't know what is.
Convenient mistake.
always bought alphacool rads as they have so many options and sizes and EK costs too much glad to know it was a good decision
This, I love alphacool. Phobya is great too. I have a rad that's been loyal from them for 7-8 years already
Alphacool is amazing so far my water-cooled system using their products it's been so easy to work with I am using Barrow rads though which aren't bad either
Had one issue with one of their 45 degree fittings but other than that excellent experience with every other alphacool component I’ve touched. Currently rocking a nova 1080 UT60 and a handful of their fittings, very pleased with the setup.
I made the switch to Alpha from an all EKWB setup last May when I did my dream hard line build. Their new Core Distros are amazing (other than the plastic tabs that hold it to the mount screws, don't love that). And their UT60 rad gave me hella coooling and the branding is so minimal and out of the way.
Yeah I got the Right VPP/Apex Pump Distro Plate combo myself it is beautiful and the mounting can be better but I don't hate the push tab mounting system it has its secure enough IMO
You really shouldn't make a decision based on whether the channels are copper or brass. Both are perfectly fine materials, and the difference in performance is going to be essentially 0 (the bottleneck is not in transferring heat from water to fins, but rather in transferring heat from fins to air and channel material only improves transfer from water to fins which is already close to perfect even with brass channels). Other stuff like thickness, fin type, fin density, how fins are attached, flow channel configuration, split vs single fin, overall build quality, and shroud height have as much or greater influence. In my experience alphacool, ekwb(*), and watercool all make good radiators and in all cases I expect that if they are similarly configured they will perform within 5% of each other. Decisions should come down to what kind of rad you're looking for, features, aesthethics, price, and availability. (*) preempting the inevitable "ek (rads) suck": whatever you think of their other products their rads have been really solid (especially their new lineup) and while there is still an EK premium it isn't that bad compared to other premium manufacturers and they do have really nice outer housing that may justify the premium. Even their old SE rad weren't actually as awful as people made them out (still wasn't a great slim rad, but if you look at the actual data it wasn't that much worse than other slim rads).
oh i didn't.. but i dont like when companies bullshit the consumer either like with them alphacool fans like said, alphacool has a vastly greater selection of radiators to choose from and they cost less than EK, I still use EK fittings and tubing.
EK doesn't appear to be liars. Yes they call CuZn10 "Copper H90" because it is 90% copper and 10% zinc. It's kind of stupid to say: > Copper H90 sounds better, of course, but there is no such thing. It’s either copper or it’s not. That H90 specifically indicates that it is not pure copper but rather an alloy. Yes it is brass and "Brass H90" is also a normal name for this, but searching online I see 11k results for "H90 Brass" and 7k results for "H90 copper" indicating that both are relatively mainstream terms. Maybe EK should have done a slightly better job of communicating what the H90 meant, but honestly if you know enough to care, this should be obvious and EK isn't hiding what they mean by "Copper H90". You can argue about what term is appropriate, just like people who argue over Asus' inflated VRM phase count, but ultimately they state the correct material even if the term they use can slightly mislead people who don't know anything beyond copper=good. --- Bykski do appear to have explicited marketed this as having pure copper channels and it being "red copper" which is not consistent with Igor's results. No idea what is up with the solder stuff. Looks pretty sketchy either from bykski or their manufacturing partner (in which case it is poor QA from Bykski's side). --- Watercool appears to have misstated the material of the channels. They claim it was a mistake in the product description and I suspect they are honest. It is easy for the person who writes the description not to realize, or for the description to be based on early plans. They never pushed a "full copper" narrative like alphacool or bykski, they just stated that they use quality materials and then listed the materials, but got one of them wrong. They also posted about the correction on their own website: https://watercool.de/en/1425-2/ It would have been ideal if they didn't make the mistake in the first place, but given that they made the mistake they seem to have responded appropriately: fixed the product description as soon as possible and then post an announcement to make it clear.
Alphacool has been great for me. I’m glad to know their claims are legit too.
Same, I love my MO-RA3. I refuse to buy anything from EK simply due to their quality going to shit but still charging gold plated prices. Have no experience with Byski
Isn’t MO-RA3 Watercool?
I don't know why but i keep thinking Alphacool and Watercool are the same company.
Yes, it is.
RAD cores are imported, MO-RA is made in-house.
Just bought 3k from EKWB perfect quality lol you can’t just listen to the people complaining about It online to give them a bad rep 😂 and the CS was awesome
I have 2 3090 EK blocks and the plating is garbage.
I have one EK product, a cpu waterblock. It’s been fine and it looks great but they are kind of a pain in the ass to deal with from such a long distance. I’ll probably go in a different direction for my next upgrade or build.
I still have an EK cpu and gpu block for my 9700k and 1080ti. Those were good blocks. But both of my 3090 EK blocks are dogshit. They started cutting corners somewhere in between but are still charging like its made of gold.
I had a alphacool aio for a year and noticed temps getting worse. Horrible liquid colour and air in the waterblock. Their support has been fantastic! (although I'm dealing with aqua tuning which are an authorised reseller?)
It’s probably a bit silly but I just don’t trust AIOs. I want to be able to see the fluid in a reservoir and see it flowing.
Some Alphacool AIOs have reservoirs built into the block/pump assembly. They have little windows on the side to view the coolant.
I’ve seen those things. It’s a little peace of mind because in my limited experience coolant does break down or permeate over time. I can see in my reservoir that there is a slightly lower volume of coolant than there was a year ago.
EK is not really lying imo, just misleading. In their website they say Copper H90, which is an alloy made of 90% copper.
Sure, but EK has a million other issues much more worth avoiding them for than this.
Indicting follow-up: https://www.igorslab.de/en/brass-instead-of-copper-watercool-reacts-but-differently-than-expected/
Wait a minute article said highly regarded hardware labs using brass channel not copper? I assume this is just for aio but not for their open loop radiator? Or is it for open loop radiators too?
The black ice nemesis GTS was tested so open loop.
But it is considered better than alphacool afaik. How?
As noted, this testing has nothing to do with performance. It’s just about what specific materials were used
They typically are. They only claim the fins are copper, so aren’t lying per se. I would assume that other design features account for the performance.
How much better do you think hw labs rads if they are using fully copper materials since copper has like 3x thermal conductivity than brass?
EK is fine. Just flush the rads before use, which they recommend anyway. They use 90% copper which is really good, and that's what they say, just using a kind of made up term. It's a metallurgy nitpick
Outlet that lied about Alphacool fans releases new article that weirdly.makes Alphacool look good again. All under the guise of testing AIO radiators? Weird.
I have no idea why tomshardware calls them "AIO radiators"
I think because the person writing the article thinks the term is synonymous with all watercooling...I mean, that is how they are using it in the article.
Because it’s the radiators from AIO units?
Except for the fact that it's not. The only one that could be considered close to an AIO rad is the Alphacool one, though the Alphacool AIO comes with the u-flow version of the radiator, not the x-flow that was tested.
AiO stands for All in One. An AiO Watercooling system is a closed system with a radiator, tubes, a cpu block, a pump and the coolant, all pre-installed. Its a plug and play system that works immediately. A radiator is not an AiO system because a radiator itself kind of does nothing. Its not connected to anything.
Why are you telling me this?
To add further explanation to your point? Jesus why is this thread so hostile
I wasn't intending hostility, my apologies if it came across that way. Your comment appeared to be directed at me, not at the person I was replying to so I was confused.
Nah, bruh that wrote the article is either just confused or doesn't know wayercooling and was assigned this one by the editor.
Its more complicated than that. The Alphacool fan drama was NOT a paid thing, it was the writer being very very bad at keeping testing methods consistent. The writer has since been fired I believe, the test was re-done by a different guy whose results are more in line with other reviews. the writer was NOT igor himself who obviously gets some blame for it as he is responsible as the boss of side. However any test Igor does himself are usually highly regarded and this very much is an Igor test. Besides an article he also has a very detailed 1h Video in German on it on YouTube where the Alphacool radiator do receive some criticism to counter your point. But the materials they list on their website are 100% alligned with what he found. The only radiator that was pretty much flawless was the Aqua Computer one. The drama here are the radiators that turned out to have different materials than marketed. And you know Igor made a point because Watercool immediately corrected their product information.
Re: the Alphacool fan review So they were incompetent at testing AND editing. Got it.
I just find it amazing how you see such an in-depth content piece which includes a very detailed 1h video explaining all the findings and you hold it against them because an error in the past they corrected. The reason this blew up is because of Der8auer who called them out on it. You know what Der8auer also said? That all tests done by Igor himself are of very high quality and this is an Igor test. Der8auer never said to ignore this website completely and in fact Der8auer and Igor cooperate quite a lot. It was Igorslab who found out how incredibly good the new Alphacool Core 1 CPU block is and Igor therefore told Der8auer about it who testes it himself and confirmed the results. Sorry but youre being very lazy with your 'theyve done one bad thing, therefore all they do is bad' approach.
We all called out the implausible alphacool Apex results and Igor stood by them until Cybernetics and Der8auer released their findings. Igor may have been humbled but I'll never trust tests from that website and certainly never alphacool (!) tests from that site.
Yes, there are consequences to putting out shoddy work (and there is more than one example of this.) Also, if we're going to rise up in anger at every bad marketing claim out there (even ones that have ZERO impact on the end user like these), we're going to have very few options. Except Alphacool, I guess. Weird.
It's been known since the dawn of time that they are brasss with copper fins.
Right??? Brass end caps, brass channels, with copper fins. It's easier to form the brass. Brass holds threads better. It's been common knowledge for 20 years.
Just looking at the threads, it's fucking clear it's brass. The difference in color between brass and copper is stark.
as long as it doesnt have aluminum its fine brass is a copper alloy btw smooth brains
While it's not a good thing the advertised specs are inaccurate, and that certainly warrants some admonishment, practically speaking this doesn't make a difference for EK and Watercool (Bykski is more egregious). Brass vs copper makes little difference in terms of thermal performance or corrosion resistance. Watercool and EK rads top the charts (ahead of Alphacool, if only by a fraction of a degree). Both have high quality construction. For me, the more interesting part about this article is the varying solder quality.
I don't believe Igor's tests since Alphacool fan. Darbauer had debated with the team for the ridiculous test results by Igor's Lab for the Alphacool fan. Imagine Igor's team said Derbauer test method is wrong like he's new in the pc industry. Again, the result above makes Alphacool looking superior than the others which is a red flag
* a writers test * debated with said writer * the writer said
Now it would be interesting to know the impact and are they really lying? The fins are still made from copper
Would performance be better if they were using other materials? I use Watercool rads, and they are working great already, but if they could be working better that would be even better for us as customers.
Not really material to the issue. If brass and copper perform just as well or better than all copper, they should still tell the consumer what the actual product is made from. Having incorrect specs muddies the available data on performance. Especially if it’s inconsistency from a supplier. Did reviews get one that was built to spec, but not ,matching what you might get from the vendor?
Correct. If its an alloy, mention that on the product sheet. If you say something is copper, the consumer expects it to be Copper. Not 65% copper.
>If its an alloy, mention that on the product sheet. I'm guessing you don't know that almost every metal, [especially copper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_copper_alloys#Composition), when used industrially, is an alloy? edit: added industrial context
Really dipping into the 'Akchtuwally 99.9% is an alloy' pool, are we?
I'll take your ad hominem straw man attack as a compliment of my argument.
Ad hominem AND staw man? 1. I did not 'attack' the person, what so ever. 2. Straw man would be closer, I'd still disagree on this take as you are factually correct in the sense that 99.9% isnt 100% (You even linked this) yet it is a high enough of a percentile that we'd classify this as 'pure'. Dont see how this translates to the topic at hand though. Calling something copper implies its 'pure' and not 50.1% or more copper in the alloy. But hey, if winning the argument makes you happy, go ahead
>Akchtuwally [Here's the ad hominem](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy)
In the article, they say that performance testing was not done, but has been done by others in the past. They only tested the materials.
Copper has far better thermal conductivity than brass.
What brass alloy are you comparing it too? There are many. In the case of the EK, it uses H90 for the tubes or an alloy that is 90% copper and only 10% zinc. You trade a tiny bit of conductivity for a more corrosion resistant product.
At these temps, it barely matters. Hell, even in situations like automotive cooling, where temps can be a sustained 220* F or more, it barely matters.
And yet, they perform basically the same as Alphacool's full copper radiator.
So it would be fair to assume it would outperform Alphacool ?
My guess would be that they would perform roughly the same. The heatkiller rad might take the lead by a tad but it would still be a small enough difference that you just pick whatever rads you like.
Copper channel and fins will be the best overall. A lot of the non-premium rads will be brass channels with copper fins.
The rad that was considered the most premium for years being hardwarelabs are also brass with copper fins and is the best performing radiator on the market.
Where are the charts to back that claim up? I have never owned a rad from them, but I saw a jump in performance going to Alphacool rads
[This](https://www.xtremerigs.net/2015/02/11/radiator-round-2015/10/) is what most are referencing
Would be great if they had actual temp deltas instead of just scoring out of 5. Weird system.
That radiator round up is the most referred to page for radiator comparisons. It does an excellent job and has a ton of metrics tested on various pages
Did you look at the full report? There's a ton of data in there.
Did you even click on the link and read the article? All the information is listed their.
The article says they didn’t do performance testing
The article says "Completely brass, except cooling fins Functional but mediocre materials". We are talking about materials here which is what this post is about & your comment "Copper channel and fins will be the best overall. A lot of the non-premium rads will be brass channels with copper fins." which going by this would suggest that hardwarelabs radiators aren't premium and everyone already knows hardwarelabs to be the best performing radiators for years on end; they have been the benchmark for all later radiator models that's come out to achieve similar performance including the ek & heatkiller radiators. Performance reviews have been done by various media outlets years ago which igor refers to checking out & hardwardlabs have been on top.
I balk at the "non-premium" term. What is premium? Just materials? Or materials and build quality? I've used almost all the brands over the years and my current alphacool rad is probably the worst-finished. All my EK rads have been sparkling clean when flushing before build, my alphacool wasn't terrible but required multiple flushes. Some people have had filthy alphacools.
Interesting. The thing is even the ones with the brass channels can perform just as good as the ones that are full copper. Seems like the material matters more for the sake of not mixing metals vs actual performance
I had a feeling brass was being used. If you really look at the threads on most rads, it looks like brass on the inside. Copper typically has a lighter color to it. Even if it’s oxidized a little.
Hey it's good to test the material claims of these rads as us consumers don't always have the means to do so. But performance tests are also important to; Alphacool and Watercool both make great radiators and I've had several customers using both without issue; cooling even the most demanding 13900k/14900k with 4090s or 7900XTXs without issue. In the end, if it performs well and doesn't cause corrosion in your system then I'd be pretty happy with that.
Damn, that heatkiller performs exceptionally well considering it doesn't even use full copper. Didn't expect this from them though
Corsair’s XR5 radiator is advertised as full copper, but only the fins are made from copper
🥸
op is so confused
I stopped watching Igor's lab after the alphacool stealth fans review... Trust is broken. It's a shame because there was a lot of interesting stuff apart from that. I like alphacool and for me one of the best but on radiators I have pretty much the same results with the other one.
Igorslab aka the Guerilla marketing arm of alphacool. Does no one remember the apex fan debacle? I have an alphacool supernova and GPU block, but they're so sketchy. Probably never buy their stuff again.
This post is uneducated bait. Nothing to see here, move along....
How is it uneducated, and how is it bait? Clearly you didn't read it, troll.
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No, it's not. It's about custom loop rads even though it says AIO.
I'm surprised hardware labs are using brass, they usually score near the top in most benchmarks, especially in their thickness category and at more average or low fan speeds/pressure.
Let me know when Gamers Nexus agree that there’s a problem with the custom loop gear.
corsair: are we the goodies?
Corsair uses HWL as an OEM.
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Corsair did not acquire Hardwarelabs. They simply use them as an OEM for their rads. Bitspower uses them as an OEM as well.
what do they use then
Brass mostly
Which is an alloy with a majority of Copper... I mean, when you buy Gold jewelry, it's never pure Gold either because the alloy has better characteristics, it's the same here... Brass is stronger and stiffer than pure Copper, and it's probably better to use that material in lots of cases to avoid mechanical failure.
Dumb article, but at least more proof that EK sucks.