Introduction

Back in 2001 (before I even wrote for Procooling) I was young and naive.  I was under the delusion then that since I had cobbled together an AMD diode reader that I was suddenly qualified to test waterblocks.  I contacted a few manufacturers and retailers and amassed a few blocks for testing.  One of the most interesting blocks was from Scott at HighSpeedPC: the Innovatek Rev3.  At the time of its purchase, it had a very distinct block design and mounting clip.  I quickly learned that (a) waterblock testing is hard and (b) the Rev3 was a very good waterblock.  In fact, I used the Rev3 (modified with 1/2" barbs) for many months in my personal rig. I also managed to cause corrosion in my Rev3 by using brass barbs and no corrosion inhibitor, and so I figured I would never actually make good on this review.  Luckily for me (and you guys), Aardil from the ProForums kindly donated one of his Innovatek Rev3 waterblocks for testing.

The Innovatek Rev3 uses a cylindrical copper base with grooves cut into it for water flow.  The outer part of the waterblock is anodized black aluminum. In stock form the Rev3 uses small stainless steel fittings; I opted for 1/2" nylon barbs instead.

The baseplate of the block has a good finish and the mounting clip is quite elegant. It engages all 6 lugs of the AMD socket and then the large thumbscrew is simply tightened down.  When fully tightened the proper force is applied on the waterblock.  Overall there is nothing in the design or manufacturing with which to find fault.

Test Results and Observations

I finally got around to putting together a summary of my testing methods and equipment, so if you want to get the full lowdown on the Procooling test bench then just give that a read.  Here is a bit more information on the "delta T" numbers that are used in all the graphs that follow:

 I measure CPU diode temperature, the temperature of the water at the waterblock's inlet, and the water flow rate.  By plotting the difference between CPU temperature and water temperature, we can normalize all testing.  This is required because water temperatures may vary from day to day in my testing room.  The closer that this delta T (engineering-speak for temperature differential) is to 0, the better the waterblock is performing.

I found the Innovatek Rev3 block to be very easy to mount and use; its clip is really a great design. 

The first test I conduct is the variation of waterblock performance over repeated mounting replicates at 1.50 GPM flow rate: 

Over five mountings the average temperature difference between CPU diode and water inlet was 12.54C, and the standard deviation was 0.12.  I seem to be now approaching competency at block mounting and thermal paste application. I suspect that the extremely thick base of the Innovatek makes repeatability in mountings somewhat easier to obtain too.

The next test conducted is the relationship between waterblock performance and flow rate:

The Innovatek Rev3 does very well at low flow rates and then its performance flattens out at 1GPM and above.  Increasing flow rate provides only minimal performance gain with such a thick baseplate.

It is more useful to plot the performance of the Innovatek Rev3 waterblock versus other commercial blocks I have tested:

For a waterblock that is over 2 years old, the Innovatek Rev3 performs exceptionally well.  In fact, at low flow rates it remains a viable choice.  Notice how little the Rev3 improves at higher flow rates; the decision by Innovatek to couple this waterblock with small ID tubing and an Eheim 1046 pump would hurt performance relatively little.    

Thanks again to HighSpeedPC for being so tolerant of my delays and to Aardil for providing this block for testing.  We hope to have several more German waterblocks here to test soon.

If you have any comments or Questions please contact pHaestus@ProCooling.com