Here's a short review and install pics of the Domino A.L.C.
Box Pics:
Unboxing Pics:
Upon opening the box I found myself looking at a pretty sturdy unit with a small LCD screen and a nice shiny cpu water block attached to the end of cheap plastic looking tubes hooked in the end.
Btw the system being used for this test is listed in my signature below.
Lets get to the difficulties of installing this unit. The manual was pretty helpful and labeling which backplate was for socket 1366 which is for the i7 920 being used on this test. The backplate came with two adhesive strips attached in front where it will be connected to the motherboard. One of the annoyances I found concerning the backplates was the screws were a bit big and had to apply a bit of force on them to get them through the PCB of the mobo.
Another annoyance was, since the case being used in this test was a HAF 932, you will have to choose between losing your 230mm side intake fan OR losing your top exhaust fan. I chose to lose the top exhaust fan in this case. See pics of install below.
Here's one with the panel closed.
Now that's installed. Let's get on with the performance part. Since I have an overclocked i7 920 @4.0Ghz, I only stress tested my CPU with the DOMINO under full fan speed settings. Didn't bother with the lower settings as I doubt it would be able to cool my processor to reasonable levels at full load.
With my i7 being overclocked to 4.0Ghz with a settings of (200x20 1.312vcore and 1.30 QPI/VTT voltage) here are the highest temps taken with REALTEMP after half hour of Prime95 and 20 mins of Linx.
Prime 95 - 83-83-82-81 @ 22 C Ambient
Linx - 82-81-80-79 @ 22 C Ambient
I must say i was very disappointed with these results as I was expecting at least a decrease in temps when comparing it against my old cooler which was a Xigmatek DK. While under load i touched the hose and radiator and they were really getting to the "too hot to touch" temps. Also the highest coolant temp was @41 C.
Anyway to wrap this up, I really no see a reason to spend 70-80 dollars on a all in one water cooler that can be easily outperformed by a $40 air cooler. Even with sound levels this product cannot compete as in quiet mode the temps just got too high for me when gaming (70-71) and the performance mode was already too loud (some people can probably find the sound levels of performance mode tolerable). However, with full settings, this pretty much sounds like one of the front fans in the XPS 630i@100%. I know you guys what I'm talking about when it comes to the front Jet Engines cough... cough...fans.
