Hardware CoolIT Domino ALC

it's $65 dollars on directron http://www.directron.com/dm1000.html

that's not too bad

 

You've hit a good point there - the Domino helps reduce the ambient temps of the PC by shifting the heat right out the back of the rig, so it will inadvertently help keep the graphics cards cooler too

 

Obviously if you have to have a pr guy come onto a comments section and defend your product then something is wrong. If it was so great and so awesome winning awards left and right then who cares what one review site thinks right? Like everyone else has said I like bit-tech because they are honest and some people dont like that (pr guys @ coolit *cough cough*). I will def. be passing on this product as it offers not better performance over air colling and for more money. No thanks.

 

ya the only decent cooling solutions from Cool It is their highend stuff and of course their beverage cooler

 

It seems to me that you're giving the product a way too tough time.
It seems rather unprofessional to compare Delta T temperatures. I don't think that differences in ambient temperature are affecting CPU temperature linear (for example, if the ambient temp is 25C and the CPU's 45C, it doesn't mean that when the ambient temp is 30C then the CPU would be 50C). It's only natural, that you compare them in a controlled enviroment at one time, since this can be achieved with a conventional air conditioner...
The medium setting of the fan is less noisier than the Titan Fernir. Its db level is around 30db, which is perfectly acceptable. Obviously not for Richard "I have to say only the lowest the suitable for those wanting a quiet build." Those who want a quiet build wouldn't go the quadcore road, i presume...
And another thing - if, lets say Intel, sends you an ES i7 and it doesn't overclock much would you go ahead and give it low marks? I'm not quite sure who is telling the truth but if the first samples were preproduction ones it seems very unprofessional to include the impressions gathered from them in the final product review...

 

But isn't that ambient temperature topic something James keeps bringing up as well?

Anyways, I find it sad that it had to turn out like this. Let's just end this discussion by saying that BT wasn't impressed by the product, you disagree and by the way you showed this we weren't impressed.

Just leave it now. Get over it, it's not that it's bad, just not up to the standards of an enthusiast's site/forum.

 

All testing performed in an air conditioned environment where the temperature only varies between 21°C and 24°C. The fact that we measure Delta Ts and not temperatures was not only requested by the readership, but has also been approved of my many in the industry, including, CoolIT when they stopped by last week.

Your posts are sounding more and more like desperate purchase justification, and if you think the CoolIT on medium is "quiet" when your CPU is at full load then you are very much mistaken. An Akasa Nero is miles quieter (a £25 air cooler), and Noctua P12 120mm fan is quieter still. We've reviewed some of the best coolers out there and compare them all to each other - the Domino comes off badly in comparison to what's available from air coolers and there's no bones about it. We're not going to go easy on it just because it's water cooling for cheap.

In regards to our approach to the product "early samples," my understanding is we were given samples from the same batch of stock that first went on sale in the UK and were told these were release standard review samples. If we're handed a product for review, a product that is already on sale, we're going to approach it as if we've just spent our hard earned cash on it ourselves.

 

The Domino ALC was first launched in December last year. I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I'm struggling to see how the units we were sent could be production samples (or whatever they want to be referred to):

Press Release

Availability must have been close, because reviews appeared on the 19th: http://www.futurelooks.com/coolit-domino-alc-cpu-cooler-review/

 

I've just canceled the order on the Domino under your influence... The $53 Fenrir is on the way. I really wanted to give the idea a chance, support it by buying one. Maybe in time there will be a bigger unit, better pump, bigger radiator for a better price. Having read the comments I couldn't convince myself that I've made the right choice so it's no suprise I couldn't convince you all
Well, in the end of the day it's common sense that gives us hope and I'm happy that it has prevailed in me.

 

James do you think those barbs where just pissed that the flames are out in the first round of playoffs again so they finally decided to snap?

 

I don't think we'll ever see a 'good', low cost water cooling system. It's just logical - an air cooler only requires a series of fins (flat metal, easy), heatpipes, a contact block and a mounting mechanism. All fairly straight forward, no moving parts, no water-tight parts needed.

Watercooling needs a
Block - contact block, clock cover, mounting mechanism,
Pump - pump housing, impeller (asuming its magnetic drive and there's no bearings)
Radiator - fins (lots of), water pipes (lots of), chamber, and casing.
The whole lot needs connected with tube, fittings, and some sort of clamp. It's a much more complex system, and accordingly if you are designing a cheap system it has to have compromises, because you either can't use as good materials (eg plastic fittings) or have to have simpler parts (like simpler cpu block machining).

I think we'll always see a price void between high end air coolers and a 'reasonable quality' water cooling system. This product has had a good go at getting the right price to fill the void, but it's missed the noise and temp benefits that make a watercooling system attractive.

 

Justifiable, I've seen better products fail because of word mouth, and a bad rap. (See: Vista)

 

it's like the slap chop

 

Products like this have no place in the real-world cooling market.

There are good reasons why Intel and AMD produce CPUs which are designed to work within the TDP envelope of safe, compatible, risk-free aircooling - They need these products to work with the lowest common denominator of cooling systems for reasons of marketability.

Processors (whether CPUs or GPUs) don't need watercooling until they're being pushed hard via overclocking and this simply does not happen outside of the realm of the enthusiast.

The argument that products like this (and I mean all of these self-contained watercooling systems, not just the Domino ALC) are some sort of step-up for a budding enthusiast moving from air-cooling to watercooling is a laughable one.
Enthusiasts don't need training-wheels and every enthusiast forum out there will still give the advice "Don't waste your money on premade stuff, custom gear is better and you'll learn more from it for future builds".

Buying a premade watercooling system is conceptually akin to buying a premade PC and thus runs counter to the very ideals that keep the entire enthusiast community going.
On top of that, anyone who cares enough to get the better-than-air performance out of their processor will also care enough to invest time and money in a proper watercooling system.
(pistol_pete summed up the reasons for this perfectly above)

Watercooling is something for enthusiasts for reasons of its very function and design that a mainstream, premade system is unlikely to ever rectify. (Leakage risks, case compatibility, space-consumption and the 'overkill' factor)

Not all 'jumps' in a learning curve are undesirable and not all gaps in a market need to be filled, nor can be successfully - Especially with a market as generally well-informed and well-reviewed as that of the computer enthusiast.
Bad products just won't cut it and the close scrutiny that we demand as informed consumers from sites like bit-tech will show up the flaws of any product.

...And that's exactly what happened here, simple as that.

 

How can it be good though if CoolIT sends out FOUR pre-production units that all fail within the short time bi-tech reviews them? (short compared to how long a enduser will expect a product to last).
The Intel comparison is not really valid, or do you know of any instance where intel sent out four faulty ES Cpu's half a year after product launch?

Besides, if CoolITs target audience for the Domino are indeed the noobs with no clue about watercooling, then that is all the more reason for it to built extra sturdy, but they obviously did not.

 

naokaji, I'm not convinced they were pre-production units because the Domino ALC has been 'out there' since 18th December (see my above post). I seriously doubt there was a six month period where the ALC was in a pre-production state after it was announced on CoolIT's website and reviewed by at least one US-based site.

 

lol, are you for real? This is a working water cooler which performs on par with the some of the best air coolers. If the price was $10 lower, the fan a little bit quieter, the build quality better - I doubt that it wouldn't be a bestseller.

yeah, right, why bother with water, go freon instead! If I can have 4ghz on air, I wouldn't bother with water just to get 4.4Ghz, I'd save the money for my next CPU...

What happened here is that CoolIt has made a compromise with performance in favor of price. A better fan (or two instead of one), maybe a better pump and so on, at the same price, would be a winner.

 

I disagree. There is a place for it in autonomous builds for system integrators.

 

Zurechial is correct. CoolIT say the product will never need to be topped up, that is a load of crap, no matter how airtight or contained the unit is it will lose fluid over time. In a few years time when your pump burns out and your CPU fries due to their being no fluid in the loop, you need to replace the CPU and they buy another unit.

You could buy a decent liquid cooling solution for the price of the broken system plus the new one you would have to buy, not to mention the cash you would have to spend on a new CPU. At least with a decent kit you can always upgrade and add pieces to suit any cooling situation.

You say that "This is a working water cooler which performs on par with the some of the best air coolers.", you may be true but the true function of water cooling is for it to perform better and work quieter than air coolers. This CoolIT system can compete with and beat high end air coolers but will make your ears bleed in the process. Why pay twice a much for a cooler that is much noisier and performs a couple of degrees better than a decent air cooler. If you didn't care about the noise you could get a TRUE120 and bolt 2 100+cfm Panaflows to it and it will demolish this cooler by a long run and save you a lot of cash.

Water cooling is all about providing near ambient temps for a low noise output. You find me an self contained unit that can keep my 8800GTX and my Q6600 at 36c load and I may consider it. This is not water cooling, this is exactly the same deal a people buying Thermaltake and other self contained units, it's all about the e-penis of having water cooling. The unit may work well for a low end C2D or a low end AMD system but considering everyone who water cools has top end tech and OCs the balls out of it, units like this have no place in the real world cooling market, unless you take Bindi's point into consideration.

 

This I can agree with, so then let me rephrase and state that I don't believe there's a place for products like this in the retail, end-user market.

Let it be solely something for system-builders like Dell to use in their XPS gaming systems or whatever.
My point that it's a gap in the retail market filled needlessly still stands.