Legit Cooling Reviews

Koolance CPU-LN2 Rev2 Liquid Nitrogen Pot Review

Manufacturer: Koolance
Product: Koolance CPU-LN2 Rev2
Date: Fri, Jan 22, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Chris Morrell -
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Liquid Nitrogen Results

Liquid nitrogen is a colorless liquid that boils at -195.79 Celsius. Formed by liquefying air, liquid nitrogen takes a special container called a dewar to store and vacuum flasks to pour into the pot. Dewars are simply large vacuum flasks, my dewar has a 25L capacity while my hand flasks are 1 liter Ikea coffee thermoses. Make sure whatever flask you use is vacuum insulated and ideally steel or aluminum as glass can crack easily. For the liquid nitrogen tests I attempted to maintain a stable pot temperature while monitoring the IHS temperatures. Since these tests are less easily repeated the videos are more important for gathering an accurate impression of the pots performance.

The liquid nitrogen results are a bit less clear in the videos versus the dry ice results considering how the limitation was no longer in the coolant but in my pouring ability. So there aren't any hard and fast numbers but there are some very important observations. Firstly, the pot is incredibly reactive. The Rev1 was very slow to pulldown in temps with the drop from 30C to -60C taking upwards of 5 minutes. Quite the speed demon, the Rev2 was somewhere in the range of 70 to 90 seconds pulling down from 30C to -80C. Secondly, you have to be very precise in your pouring with the CPU-LN2 REv2 versus the K|ngp|n F1EE. The CPU-LN2 Rev2 has some mass to it but it isn't nearly as hefty as the F1EE. Couple this with the incredible amount of surface area and an overpour can quickly result in coldbugging your CPU. However with a few minutes of practice I feel even a first-time LN2 bencher would be able to dance around 2-3 degrees of their target temperature without overshooting too often.

In conclusion the Rev2 embarrasses the Rev1 and gives the F1EE a run for its money. It won't replace my F1EE just yet but the huge surface area of the CPU-LN2 Rev2 may be very useful with the upcoming Gulftown processors and multi-threaded benchmarks. I didn't show video of this but I was able to pass 3DMark Vantage CPU test at a new personal record of 5360MHz. I partly attribute this to the pot allowing me to pour differently versus the F1EE. I did however have trouble besting my 3DMark 2005 runs at 5550MHz, I kept overshooting because of the light load and crashing the system.

Next Page - Conclusion


Review Index
Page 1 - Extreme Cooling
Page 2 - Koolance CPU-LN2 Rev2 Kit
Page 3 - Preparation for Subzero Benching
Page 4 - Test System
Page 5 - Dry Ice Results
Page 6 - Liquid Nitrogen Results
Page 7 - Conclusion