CoolIT Vantage A.L.C. Advanced Liquid Cooling CPU Water Cooler Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,345 words · ~6 min read
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this is the kolet Vantage so this is an upgraded version of the Eco which is
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economical and the Vantage is not as economical so what do you get for your
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less economical well first of all you get two fans okay so you have two fans
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mounted in push pull on the radiator second of all you get an LCD interface
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on the CPU Cooler itself which gives you error alerts as well as being
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customizable with different colors so that's pretty neat you get a univers
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retention system which you also get with the Eco and you get fully
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upgradable and we'll get into more of that but you get fully upgradable
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compliance with Kit's Maestro software control platform Wireless software
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control platform so that's pretty cool let's start getting this opened up and
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we will have a look at the Vantage Advanced liquid cooling solution for
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CPUs
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all right here we go so ket's packaging has evolved a lot over the years it's
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gotten a lot better here's the instruction manual it is available in a
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number of different languages shows you how to attach your back plate how to
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install the Vantage in your case because it does use a 120 mm fan it's look at
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this this is a color manual I didn't even realize it's phenomenal actually um
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because it does use a 120 mm fan it is compatible with most cases that feature
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a 120 mm cooling fan at the back this is
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your unique Hardware ID number that's kind of neat okay you have different
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performance modes Extreme Performance and quiet which will actually ramp up
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the fan speed differently based on the temperature and which mode you select so
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that's kind of cool what else do we have in here we've got an installed unit
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we've got uh it's completely configurable via the built-in LCD screen
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so here's all the different stuff that you can
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change and there we go I guess that's all there is to really say about this I
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hope that Maestro is still the same uh the same wireless control thing that
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they showed at CES you can actually see the CES sticker on the box so they want
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to design and Engineering showcase honor at CES 2010 here's all our different
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back plates I'm actually not going to go too far into that because back plates
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are not very interesting and then here we have hold Downs so you go ahead and
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uh loosen that and you can pull these
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apart there you go so that's the AMD
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hold down all right
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and there is the Vantage itself curled up in the fetal position hiding from my
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unboxing oh this is interesting it's not
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actually dual fan that's a shroud so
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kolet has gone ahead and done a shrouded
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cooler now what impact that has on performance I'm not sure but something
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that I can promise you is I will be testing it against the Corsair h70 in
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the coming uh in the coming week or so and then I will let you guys know
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exactly what kind of a difference this shroud makes as well as uh letting you
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know if it's possible to install an additional fan because what I do see
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here is an additional fan Mount unless this is a okay hold on I don't get it
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this doesn't happen to me well it happens to me once in a while during my unboxings but no I like to think not too
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often well we'll figure out exactly what all of this means in a moment but let's
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take a look at the Vantage itself so here you can see this is kind of like a
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fan frame that's why I miss took it for a push pull uh radiator but uh yeah it's
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just a little mounting bracket so you can go ahead and screw that into your
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case no problem it uses quite a thin low profile radiator and then you can see it
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is completely sealed so this is the fill Port right here and then there is an
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inlet and an outlet Port into the radiator which runs right over to your
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CPU block now this is one thing that's really cool that ket's done with their
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coolers is you can see they do use
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rotating uh hose barbs so what that means is if you're installing the
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Vantage Radiator in your case like this and your CPU socket is most comfortable
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like that or like that or wherever it is
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that you need to mount it you have that flexibility and you can uh mount it
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however you need to so here on the CPU
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block or rather the CPU block and pump because it's an integrated unit you've
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got one power input and one power output
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so uh yeah yeah here we go so this plugs in here and Powers the fan so it looks
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like we don't have built-in support for an additional fan and it is meant to be
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used as like a shrouded uh setup okay
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and then this one plugs into your CPU socket here is the LCD screen itself
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which you can see will look right side up regardless of which way you install
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it in your case although I don't know if it has some way of knowing whether it's
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right side up or not you can see this is the universal mounting system here so
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you can slide this in and out depending on what kind of an Intel setup you are
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using and then you can install the AMD brackets if you are using an AMD setup
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so here you just lift it up and then I believe you push it over hold on see if
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I can figure this out that would help if that wire wasn't
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there yeah there we go and then you just pull it in like that so you just put it
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in the position it belongs in put the appropriate back plate on the back of your motherboard and boom it's mounted
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just like that here is the bottom of the Vantage so you can see they actually
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label which holes you need need to move the mounting kit over to in order to
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have it fit on socket 775 1156 or 1366
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you can see it does have pre-applied thermal compound on the bottom of the
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copper CPU water block and I think that's pretty much all
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there is to say about
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it actually that's not all there is to say I wanted to talk a little bit about
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Kit's Maestro software I don't know if they've actually released this yet by
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the way here are the mounting screws for the radiator but Maestro allows you to
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Monitor and control your system via software from like a convenient software
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interface and you can actually set all the different things like fan profiles
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as well as um even lighting effects I believe you can change with Maestro
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there's a bunch of really cool stuff that they showed off at CES but I think
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one of the reasons they're not talking about it too much yet is that it's not
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100% ready yet I mean software stuff like that often takes a long time to
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develop and debug if you want it to work right and there's one thing kolit has
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demonstrated again and again is that they don't like to release a product until it's actually ready so thank you
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for checking out my unboxing of the cool advantage and stay tuned for some
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performance testing thank you for checking out my channel lineus Tech tips
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and don't forget to subscribe