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Amongst the established competition in the form of Swiftech and other providers of water-cooling solutions, Germany-based Alphacool is still a relatively small entity. Quantity, however, does not necessarily correlate with quality, since what we have here today on the "Waterblock", is engineering at its finest, resulting in superior cooling capabilities combined with exemplary ease of installation.

Aircooling has served us well for many years, however as one looks towards the future, one is left to wonder how much longer air-cooling is viable. Water-cooling is not a new technology. However, the application in personal computers is relatively new. Often clunky and obtrusive to a end-user such as myself, the benefits have been overshadowed by the drawbacks.

Change occurs often for the better; as various water-cooling companies have sprung forth to address the heat related concerns of the PC enthusiast, many complete kits have surfaced promising Jack that “magic bean” in the form of extra “frequency”, a term sure to get the taste buds of any burgeoning overclocker salivating. The ability to aid the practice of overclocking, is afforded to the end users by the inherent ability of water-cooling to dissipate more heat than standard air coolers. Almost more important, is that through clever engineering, the size and application of these kits are becoming such that an average user can set them up and fit them inside of a standard PC case.

In mentioning clever engineering and size, it’s only proper that we think towards Germany, as the country well known for their engineering prowess particularly with automobiles. Yet here we also find what is considered to be one of the very best water-cooling blocks in the Alphacool NexXos XP (Extreme Pro). A slice of copper and an agglomeration of aluminum and tubing, does not make a water block. With clever crafting and the use of impingement zone water direction, the NexXxos has demonstrated the ability to hang with, and more often than not, beat the traditional water blocks. Are the NexXxos products far superior to everything else in the market? This is a question I don’t think we will answer today, but something to keep in mind when researching your next purchase.

We were offered the opportunity to find out for ourselves how functional and practical an Alphacool NexXxos XP water-cool setup is. We choose the Alphacool 120 12volt kit as we believe this setup to be more realistic to implement in modern cases that use 120mm fans. That said, a 240 or 360(twin or triple 120mm fan radiator) kit could be custom fit to many cases. However, that would add complexity to the installation, and I wanted to show results that one might expect with little effort during installation.

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