HEXUS.reviews :: Thermaltake Armor LCS (Liquid Cooling System)

[Steve]

Today we look at a hybrid of Thermaltake's new product ranges; the Armor LCS (Liquid Cooling System). It features the popular Thermaltake Armor chassis with a self-contained water-cooling kit. Weighing in at a considerable 13.9kg, the Armor LCS is not light, but given dimensions of 530mm (H) x 220mm (W) x 560mm (D) it’s a proper full-tower chassis.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6747

[cjs150]

NOt surprised about MB temps, seems like there is a basic design flaw. Radiator at front, means fans are sucking in cold air from the front of the case and blowing it out over the MB! Bound to increase MB temps. Better design would be to have the fans blowing through the radiator and out the front but the downside is that the air the fans blow out is from the inside of the case and therefore pre-heated which will reduce the effectiveness of the radiator.

Only sensible solution is to ducting, fans suck air from the outside of the case through the radiator and then the expelled air is ducted to a suitable exit hole at the back. Downside is that you lose airflow over the MB which can be sorted by including a fan on the side panel.

I also have issues with the back of the case - it looks like the fan at the back and any fan on the PSU (if facing into the case) will be very close creating air turbulence - means more noise and possibly (someone more experienced can confirm) that the fans will be less efficient.

Nice try Thermaltake but flawed.

[ecat]

MB temperature:

I suspect the MB temperature sensor is near the CPU. A typical location would be near the CPU power supply circuit built around the CPU socket itself. This area is a real pain for water cooled systems as it is designed to be cooled by the air flow generated by the CPU cooler. No CPU fan = no active cooling near the CPU.

Take my WC system as an example. The CPU psu circuit on my DFI MB will reach 70 DegC or more during load if I remove my custom temperature controled fan. This is more an example of inconsiderate, with respect to water cooling, MB design than anything else. It certainly destroyed my dreams of a fanless system

Front fans:

When combined with the right radiator these slow RPM fans are very quiet and excellent at cooling the water loop, they impressed this old cynic. But when it comes to moving lagre volumes of air they are not in the same league your typical 120mm case fan, think of under volting a standard fan to 5 or 6 volts, so the standard rear fan + caddy fan + PSU are probably doing most of the system cooling.

Air off the radiator:

Contrary to popular belief the air coming off the radiator is not all that warm, if it is there is something wrong with the cooling loop. Air off may be up by a typical +3 to +5 DegC, see http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=77260, and probably not of major significance ?

[Thorburn]

Am I right in thinking that the CPU was a Pentium Extreme Edition 840 in a D955XBK motherboard? Not bad CPU temperatures if I'm right

[chuckskull]

I have the none LCS version of this, got it for £80 on dabs ages ago, 3mm steel all round, weighs a ton, but lives up to the name. They fixed the motherboard temp problems with a huge 250mm fan in the side panel http://www.thermaltake.com/product/C...2400/a2356.asp. Which you cant buy in Britain for love or money

Just wish they sold the liquid cooling kit as an upgrade for the armour too. Despite it's size there isn't much metal left to mount a rad in yourself.

[MD]

Yep - the LCS did very well, I am trying to get some of their stand alone stuff in to put that through the mill - hopefully it will go just as well

As for the side panel, Ill check with Thermaltake on that for you, I figure it would make the world of difference in all honesty.

As for the LCS kit, I think you can buy it separately, in bits, but again, supplier dependent.

Matt

[chuckskull]

Yeah getting this stuff in the UK is like pulling teeth. Everyone seems to sell the basic armour and the soprano(which I have my feet on) and not much else.

I'll pay you to lose the review samples of the side panel and LCS upgrade kit. Seriously.

[MD]

Ill see what i can find out from Thermaltake for you

[arthurleung]

Is the case meant to be full aluminium or not?

The Chinese spec says Steel body and Aluminium Front, but the English spec says full Aluminium.

If it does support the 25cm fan that would be frigging awesome

[chuckskull]

The black one is 3mm steel, the silver is aluminium. You can pick up the side panel on a few foreign sites, not seen any in britain yet though.

[Thorsson]

Was the top case fan set to suck or blow? Did you try changing it around to see if it made any difference to the MB temp?

[MD]

Was set to extract the heat from the rear - as is standard for all cases that are shipped.

When reviews are undertaken we make sure to test the chassis 'as-is' without additing any additional fans.

Of course we could test a number of different configurations with additional fans and cooling systems - but this really isn't viable and not only that would be an additional cost over the stock product.

Whilst I appreciate why you are asking, its not realistic for us to do such tests with the amount of harware we have coming through the labs.

Matt.

[chuckskull]

Was the top case fan set to suck or blow? Did you try changing it around to see if it made any difference to the MB temp?

The top fan is useless, I tried it both ways around made no difference to temps.

[gamertech]

I have recently bought the black version of the case, and I didn't really have a problem with my cooling. When I got the case I replaced the front fans with Scythe S-Flex 1600rpms and fitted the window with the 25cm fan in the side, I also fitted a small blower fan provided with my mainboard to the chipset heatsink, and all temps were in the low 30's high 20's under load except for the graphics card which averaged about 49c, (fix that later).
Keep in mind this computer was running with a full 3hr Nvidia Ntune overclock. (Check my profile for pc specs). The computer stayed fairly quiet under full power, and completely cool. I'm thinking of swapping the videocard with 2 8800GTS's and fitting Thermaltakes GPU waterblocks, which will drop both the noise and temps right down, (plus I get to fit more UV reactive hose to it) .

[chuckskull]

Did you happen to buy the side-panel in the UK? I'm still after one.

[gamertech]

no sry I ordered through a supplier here in australia