QUOTE
It's known that bigger thicker radiators require higher speed fans for the air pressure needed to blow out hot air.
Some correction, thicker radiator does not means require higher rpm fan. Its all about the Fins Per Inch, the more fins the more air flow restrictive the radiator are.
Radiator generally divide into 2 type, High FPI type and Low FPI type.
For High FPI type, you require high RPM fan and high pressure fan. eg. Black Ice GTX, Black Ice GT ( One of the slimmest radiator yet need high RPM fan to perform well due to super high FPI ).
The BIX 360 basically outperform any brand of radiator in the market if paired with high speed fan, eg, 3000rpm San Aces etc...
For Low FPI type, low rpm perform well on this kind of radiator, you don't need high RPM fans for it. Low FPI radiator normally come with thicker size to cover the lack of cooling surface weakness due to lesser fins. Eg. Feser XChanger, Black Ice SR-1 series.
These radiator do very well with 1200-1500 rpm fans, but could be outperformed by an high dense fins radiator with super fan...
Hence, if you wan performance and don't mind about noise, definitely High FPI radiator to go.
But if you want high performance yet silent setup, go for Low FPI setup.
The RX series of XSPC perform well with fan less than 1k rpm.
* about the coolant, if using coolant, normally we will get white clouding gunk in the tubings over time. But unless suffering performance drop, its also almost as same as distilled water, which means we must check or maintain our loop over time. If no performance drop occur, i see no point to dismantle everything if using coolants, just top up if coolants level dropped.
Oh ya, moogle stated arer correct, using silver coil + distilled water is one of the cheaper and good solution...
This post has been edited by lichyetan: Dec 17 2009, 11:12 PM