Evercool WC-202 Water Cooling Kit

Manufacturer: Evercool
Supplied by: Alpha and Omega Computers
Price: $95

by Dean Barker (1/7/2005)

 

Introduction

The performance of all in one water cooling kits has increased tremendously over the past year or two.  As they have becoming increasingly popular, the competition between makers of these types of products has subsequently heated up.  This is a good thing for us Joe Users around because there is a wider variety of products around of higher quality and lower prices now available on the market. 

Many of the water cooling system designs are partially shared or completely shared and licensed from other companies.  About six months ago we looked at Kingwin's Arctic Cooling H2O Kit.  This was the first 5.25" bay type set up we had played with and it got two thumbs up.  Evercool has recently improved on their original version of this same kit, the Evercool WC-201, bringing us the Evercool WC-202 Water Cooler.  These differences between the designs are minimal.  But the WC-202 does boast a 40% stronger pump than the WC-201 along with its ability to now accept LGA775 applications.  With exception of this for the most part, the kit remains unchanged.  Evercool and Kingwin are the only two manufacturers producing this exact kit now to my knowledge.  So to avoid a complete rehash of a review on a design we have already done; we are going to touch on the basic set up and design of Evercool WC-202 and focus more on how well it gets the job done. 

Before we get to far into things, we need to give credit where credit is due.  Alpha and Omega Computers has been around since 1987 and is one of the larger PC component distributors in North America.  Today, we have them to thank for making this review possible.

What you get

As we said, the Evercool WC-202 is an all in one kit.  Emphasizing 'all in one', the Evercool WC-201 comes with several different clips making it applicable to the Intel P4, LGA775, AMD K7 and K8.  Aside from the clips allowing the WC-202 to fit about anything, you also get a secondary radiator and fan, CPU and VGA water blocks, three 572mm lengths and two 420mm lengths of 3/8" OD hose, approximately four ounces of red dyed coolant, mounting hardware, a small tube of silver thermal paste and a fairly comprehensive installation manual.

Central Pump/Radiator

The most visible piece of the Evercool WC-202 is the Central Pump/Radiator unit.  It is designed to fit into an open 5.25" bay.  Optimally, you want to keep the bay above and below it clear if possible to allow a more open flow of air through the top mounted 80mm fan then over and through the copper convection fins and copper tubing of the radiator.  Warm air is exhausted out of the base of the unit hence its best to keep that area clear.  Per the manufacturer, the WC-202 pump is rated at 28.5 gph while making 20dBA of noise.  Not a super cooling unit but these are acceptable figures.

     

The front bezel's left side has a protruding fill plug with a window so adding and monitoring fluid is no big deal.  Three centered buttons 'set', 'up', and 'down' allow for adjustment of the temperature trip point that allows the unit to kick into high gear if that point is exceeded.  Next to this is a silver dial that allows manual adjustment of the fan speed.  There is actually a LED behind it that changes colors depending on the fan's speed setting.  Blue for low speed, Indigo for medium, Pink for high and red for off (red would be a bad thing.)  Also, if the fan or pump fail, an audible alert is sounded guaranteed to get your attention.
 

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