Review – Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT: Specs | Price | CPU | Profitability | Hashrate | best Coins | Config | Advantage (Pros) and Disadvantages (Cons) and other important features that will help you make better decision.
After several tests of AIO water-cooling kits from different manufacturers having more or less good performance at a wide variety of sound levels, it was time to switch to a real “custom” water-cooling kit, it is now done with Alphacool which offers a kit containing all the elements necessary to cool a processor with high-end components, I named the Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT!
Behind this name hides a kit equipped with a 240 mm radiator (45 mm thick) with 2 fans of 120 mm, a pump, a tank occupying 2 5.25 ″ bays, a water block as well as the liquid and all the necessary connections. , in short there is really everything you need so that the person buying the beast does not have to take the head to choose the elements separately!
Offered at a price of around 250 € it may seem expensive for someone who is only used to air cooling or AIO water cooling kits but you should know that the kit from Alphacool is modular and will allow you to add radiators / waterblock to cool the other components of the PC if necessary, not to mention that by purchasing the various components individually the total is around 340 €! Let’s see what the beast has in its belly!
Box
The kit from Alphacool arrives in a large box offering a photo of the kit and the brand.
Inside, it’s a bit like Christmas, all the elements are packed in individual boxes as if they were bought individually, this double packaging will ensure logically trouble-free transport!
Here is the contents of the box! One thing is certain we are spoiled when everything is unpacked, radiator, pump, fittings, waterblock, pipes etc … everything is there! A small list of the different elements is essential:
Specification: Hashrate – Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240
- 1 x Alphacool NexXxoS XP3 Light waterblock
- 1 x tank 2 x 5.25 ″ Alphacool Repack – Single Laing D5
- 1 x Alphacool VPP655 pump – Single Edition
- 1 x Alphacool NexXxoS XT45 all copper radiator
- 3 meters of transparent Alphacool AlphaTube HF 13/10 (3/8 “ID) hose
- 6 x Alphacool HF 13/10 G1 / 4 black fittings
- 2 x Alphacool NB-eLoop 1200rpm fan
- 1 liter of transparent liquid Alphacool CKC Cape Kelvin Catcher
- 1 x 24-pin ATX adapter for powering on the power supply
- 1 x installation manual
All the components present are of excellent quality, between the XP3 Light waterblock which represents an excellent performance / price ratio, the tank being installed in 2 5.25 ″ slots (and accommodating the pump at the same time), the 240 mm radiator all 45 mm thick copper (when an AIO kit generally only offers 25 mm thick) and so on it goes without saying that we are not facing a low-end kit!
Rather than writing a pie, I will present the different elements to you one by one!
The Alphacool VPP655 pump is in fact a Laing D5 which is no longer to present for connoisseurs, it offers great reliability, a power allowing the liquid to circulate very easily in any installation (even with many radiators / waterblocks etc …) and a silence recognized by many in the community. The present model is powered by molex and its operating speed is therefore not modifiable via the motherboard / software but has a slider ranging from 1 to 5 (position 1 or 2 will be largely sufficient for an installation with CPU waterblocks and GPU, basic it is set to 5).
The reservoir
The tank is of high quality and a very good finish! It clearly has strengths on its side, indeed it will not be necessary to take the head to know where it will go to stay in the tower because it will need 2 bays 5.25 ″ to be installed, the pump will also be installed in the back and the filling will be done at the front thanks to a screw.
The face visible from the outside includes in addition to the filling sight a gauge allowing to see the quantity of remaining liquid (and thus to know when to fill the beast.
Several layers are glued to each other in order to accommodate all of its tasks, namely the tank itself, the circuit where the liquid will pass as well as the layer which will be used to accommodate the pump is the various nozzles.
At the back we find the location of the pump (you will have to remove the black circle to install the pump and then put it back to secure it to the tank) as well as the 2 holes allowing the passage of the liquid through the tank / pump (OUT at the top and IN at the bottom).
The waterblock
Compatible with all sockets on the market, the Alphacool XP³ Light waterblock offers excellent value for money. The top and covered in plastic while the base is of course copper, the whole is heavy and the build quality inspires confidence.
The radiator
The 240 mm radiator delivered with the kit is one of its kind, the build quality is really excellent, both in terms of finish and paint, in addition to the fact that the fins are all copper (therefore a better cooling than all aluminum.The thickness of 45 mm gives the radiator a larger cooling surface than the 25 mm and therefore better cooling.
It will be possible to connect the radiator via 8 holes, all are plugged with original rubber plugs but screws are present to close the circuit once the beast is connected.
Fans
Alphacool supplies with the kit 2 fans of 120 mm, models from Noiseblocker that I have already tested here and which should be very good behind a radiator! The models are powered via a 3-pin cable, run at a maximum speed of 1200 RPM (so the sound level even at maximum will be very contained, 19 dB according to Alphacool). These fans are of excellent quality and equipped with rubber corners to absorb any vibrations.
The accessories
The fittings numbering 6 are of excellent quality, one part will be fixed on the tank / waterblock / radiator (the left part in the photo on the right) on which the pipe will sink and the other part will tighten the hose to prevent leakage. Please note that the tightening does not require tools, it will be enough to tighten it by hand to ensure a perfect seal.
The included hose is flexible and transparent with a length of 3 meters, a length amply sufficient for mounting with a processor (see much more, everything will depend on the arrangement in the box).
The coolant is of course delivered, a one liter bottle. Namely that in my assembly the totality was used to arrive at a filling of the tank of 100%.
Finally, Alphacool also supplies an adapter which will allow the system to be tested without having to install the entire configuration and therefore to avoid as much as possible the damage that could occur due to a leak. All you have to do is connect it to the power supply (be careful to leave the power supply on 0, or remove the power cord before) and plug the pump into a molex connector to start the beast.
To begin with, the test platform being on socket 2011-3 there will be no need to install a plate behind the motherboard or anything, only 4 screws will have to be placed, like this one:
That we place like this:
Since the surface of a 2011-3 socket processor is quite large and the waterblock will not have the pressure of a large heatsink, I decided to spread a very thin layer of thermal paste. It is of course possible to put a grain of rice there, or any other method. Be careful, however, not to use too much otherwise the performance will drop and also have thermal paste everywhere 😉
Once the thermal paste has been applied, all you have to do is place the waterblock on the processor and place the fixing plate on it, like this:
You must then take these washers and put one on each of the screws:
We continue by putting a spring on each screw, over the washer:
Then you have to put the nuts in place, be careful not to screw them fully one by one, you have to go there little by little in turn in order to exert a homogeneous pressure as much as possible:
To finish with the waterblock you must place the 2 end caps like this, be careful not to use tools to avoid damaging the seals, the force exerted by tightening by hand will be largely sufficient to ensure the seal:
Now it is time to undress the tank, in order to install the pump it is necessary to remove the retention system (the black circle held by 8 screws), like this:
The pump must be placed in the hole, taking care that the rubber seal is in place (it will ensure the seal), like this:
We then replace the retention system over the pump, being careful not to tighten the screws too hard and going slowly one by one, as usual do not fully tighten one screw until the others are not a minimum tight.
To finish with the tank, you have to put the tips as it was done on the waterblock, once again tightened by hand and not with a tool! At this stage it is possible to preset the pump, as I said there are 5 notches which will influence the flow rate and also the noise pollution, for a single CPU and an appreciable silence I advise to set the beast to 1, see 2 to the maximum (after all is possible!).
The radiator now, let’s start by plugging the holes that will not be used with the supplied caps, like this: (note that depending on the installation it will be quite possible to use another combination!)
Then the 2 end caps in the 2 remaining holes, by hand again:
To finish with this man the radiator, you have to install the fans on it, which you just have to fix with the screws provided, in total of 8!
The preparation of the elements is now complete! Now the choice is yours, either you install the kit directly in the box and on the processor, or you do it outside the box (taking care beforehand to cut the pipes to the right length) in order to test the tightness of the circuit. In any case, before turning on the PC you will have to be sure that nothing is leaking, so it’s up to you to see what you want to do!
In short, the first step, you have to place the tank in the 5.25 ″ slots, in my case the Fractal Design R5 only has 2 so the choice is quickly made!
Once the tank is in place you have to take care of the radiator, in my case I decided to place it at the top of the box, be careful to remember to connect the 8-pin processor cable before installing the radiator otherwise not being able to do this (depending on the case and the location of the radiator of course).
We’re coming to the end! Now that everything is in place, the different elements must be connected together. To do this, connect the outlet of the tank (top right) to the inlet of the CPU waterblock (the “IN” which is marked above), the output of the CPU waterblock (the “OUT” marked above) to one of the 2 radiator tips (it doesn’t matter which it doesn’t matter) and finally the other radiator tip at the inlet of the tank (bottom right). As usual the fixing of the pipes to the end pieces is done by hand, do not use any tools! For my configuration here is what it gives:
The space between the radiator and the tank not being huge on the Fractal Design R5 I had to make a loop between the radiator and the tank so as not to have a pinched pipe, so pay attention to this also under penalty not to have a functional system!
The test platform
The Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT kit has been tested on the configuration below:
- Processor : Intel Core i7 5820K @ Stock / 4.5 GHz 1.28V
- Motherboard : Gigabyte X99 Gaming G1 Wifi
- Memory : DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 4 X 4 GB 2666 MHz (tested here)
- SSD : Plextor M6 Pro 256 GB (tested here)
- Graphics card : MSI R9 290 Gaming OC (tested here)
- Food : be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850 (tested here)
- Case : Fractal Design Define R5 (tested here)
The test protocol
The core i7 5820K will be tested once at the original frequencies and once overclocked to 4.5 GHZ for a voltage of 1.28V, which should do a lot of work on the kit given the consumption of the processor at this stage. The temperatures under load are an average of all the cores for 3 tests of 30 minutes on OCCT, the temperatures at rest were taken after 15 minutes on the desktop (still an average of the 6 cores). A test will take place with the fans at 5V and another with the fans at maximum (12V), the pump will be set to position 1 throughout.
The Watercooling kit has been tested against:
- Corsair H110i GT (tested here)
- Fractal Design Kelvin S36 (tested here)
- Noctua NH-D15 (tested here)
Original frequencies
The temperatures
The temperatures of the processor cooled by the kit from Alphacool are very good, so good that with the 12V fans we end up with the best result of the comparison! All other AIO kits are outdated, although the differences are not huge. With 5V fans, we reach a maximum of 52 °, which represents what the Fractal Design Kelving S36 or the Noctua NH-D15 can do in PWM, which is a very good result for fans that run really very well. slowly.
Seeing this graph we can tell ourselves that it is not that good given the price of the kit and the much longer assembly it requires in the face of all-in-one solutions, but that’s not counting the nuisances sound, the fans rotate at a maximum speed of 1200 RPM is much less than the others, let’s see the sound level in practice!
Noise pollution
Warning: Part to be taken with a grain of salt, unfortunately not having access to the appropriate equipment and using an android application to take the readings The measurements below are only indicative! The readings were taken 15cm from the cooler.
Ambient sound level: 31 dB
Here on the other hand the result is final, the NexXos Cool Answer 240 DS / XT is clearly the quietest of the comparison! Once the fans are set to 5V they are simply inaudible, only the pump emits a very slight noise due to the vibrations it transmits to the tower, but very clearly nothing bad and this disappears once the case is closed.
Once the fans are fully loaded we go up to an excellent 37 dB, which for 2 fans is an excellent result and puts the kit in first place, quite simply!
It is now easy to see which of the solutions represents the best performance / price ratio here, when we see a Corsair H110i GT at 63 dB in “performance” mode, a Fractal Design Kelvin S36 at 49 dB maximum and the excellent Noctua NH -D15 to 43 dB.
Now let’s move on to the results once the Core i7 5820K is overclocked, because having a € 250 water-cooling kit to leave the processor at the original frequencies would simply be throwing money out the window!
Overclocking
The temperatures
The good results at the original frequencies are confirmed here with a maximum of 60 ° once the fans are in 12V and 69 ° with the fans in 5V. There is no denying the NexXos Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT from Alphacool enjoys excellent performance, whether with minimum or maximum fans! The competitors are not doing too badly either and also the kit of today’s test (the Fractal Design Kelvin S36 and the Corsair H110i GT) but as we have seen at the original frequencies it will not be without effects on noise pollution!
Noise pollution
Warning: Part to be taken with a grain of salt, unfortunately not having access to the appropriate equipment and using an android application to take the readings The measurements below are only indicative! The readings were taken 15cm from the cooler.
Ambient sound level: 31 dB
As the fans are not controlled by the motherboard, the sound level of the NexXos Cool Answer does not therefore logically change with always this excellent 37 dB at full blast and 32 dB with the fans at minimum, it will either be that it will be silent in almost all the configurations on the market, knowing that the graphics card will always make more noise than that when loaded.
Here we are at the end of this test, what to say about the Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT?
Difficult is the task of setting up a “custom” water-cooling system when you are a novice and do not want to go through the AIO box kit which is often noisy and not always of very good quality. Alphacool has thought of people who do not want to take the lead and who are looking for a complete kit to cool their processor (and more if affinity), but without falling into the low end as we could see it a few years ago on this kind of kit.
All the elements are present to install the beast, the build quality is simply excellent and everything exudes quality. Whether it is the famous pump, the all-copper radiator, the tank that can be easily installed in any tower, the 3 meters of pipes (and so on) Alphacool provides a turnkey solution for everyone!
Regarding performance, the kit will manage to cool the ardor of the most greedy processors on the market by keeping very good temperatures, but above all in the most appreciable silence thanks to the adjustable pump (I remind you that the notch 1 is more than enough for a single processor) and excellent quality fans running at a maximum speed of 1200 RPM, of course the change of fan is quite possible for those who want a blower but Alphacool is clearly betting on silent operation here, and this is no worse!
As for the price, everyone knows that “custom” water-cooling is not cheap, the NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT kit is offered at around € 250 (at aquatuning for example here) and even if it may seem expensive for a uninformed person you should know that taking the items one by one would cost almost € 100 more, suddenly the entry ticket into this small world is very low! Do not forget that the delivered pump is more than more than enough for a complete circuit including several graphics cards if necessary, it will suffice to add waterblocks (and radiators most certainly) to continue the adventure!
Advantages
- Build quality
- Silence
- Performance
- Bundle and equipment
- Price
A big thank you to Eddy from Aquatuning who allowed me to do this test.
Where to find the Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5 / XT?
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