Koolance Exos-Al Review - Box
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The Koolance Exos-Al comes in a fairly large box and its components are very well secured within to prevent damage while shipping and assure zero-leakage straight out of the box.
The unit itself looks very good. While it is fairly large, the Exos is designed to either sit on top of a computer case or on a desk. Because it is flat, and the front of the chassis is accented with a clear piece of plastic and two metal pipes, and the top angles inward, the Exos is very nice to look at. The blue LED display is pretty spiffy, too.
The Exos-Al sports three 80mm fans that cool the internal radiator. These fans are hang upside down so that air is sucked in from the vents on the sides and blown up and out. The chrome grills give the Exos-Al a very bold look.
The back of the Exos-Al shows the reservoir and pumps, the reservoir's fill hole, rear connections for the Exos's quick release nozzles, and the power cable connection. Note that the original Exos did not have this top fill hole and had to be filled from the bottom, which the Exos-Al can as well.
Busting inside the Exos reveals a very neat set of components, securely in place, including the radiator, reservoir and pumps, power control board, and hidden beneath the reservoir, three 80mm fans.
The 13 row 11.5" x 4.5" aluminum radiator is very large for an all-in-one water cooling kit and is the main reason why the Exos performs so well.
The Exos-Al utilizes a redundant dual pump system rated at one liter per minute by Koolance. The use of two pumps basically insures that your water cooled PC will never be left without running water for whatever malfunction (unless both pumps stop working).
The components included with the Exos-Al are the external chassis, heat exchanger, reservoir and pumps, top cooling module with fans, LED display, power control board, slot interface, quick-release valves, User Manual, liquid pack, funnel, tubing, attachment strips and pads, and other smaller components.
The included 1/4" tubing comes as a long piece of blue external tubing and a shorter piece of standard clear tubing. The external tubing connects to the first and last coolers in a loop, and the standard tubing is used in between individual coolers.
The slot interface is very important because it passes power to the Exos unit, transmits temperature diode information to the Exos LCD display, can power two extra fans, turns the Exos on and off when the system is turned on and off, and provides two spring mounted holes for tubing to go in and out of while preventing kinks. Also shown below are two plastic quick release nozzles with metal compressions, four rubber feet, four Velcro feet (two strips of cloth are included for people who decide to use the Velcro feet), a funnel, a piece of wire, and external power cable.
Koolance also gives a 600cc pouch of their special blue liquid coolant, LIQ-600BU. By weight, it is 70% distilled water, 27-28% Monoethylene Glycol (antifreeze), and 2-3% other chemicals that make anti-foamer, color dye, and pH regulator.
The instruction manual is very informative. It details the installation process step-by-step with pictures and diagrams to go along. The last two pages have in-depth answers to eight common questions regarding the Exos-Al.
The CPU-300-H06 cooler (comes separately from the Exos-Al) has a very distinct look to it. At a glance, it is unmistakably a Koolance water block.
The cooler comes complete with a simple mounting mechanism that supports several different platforms, both large and small die, as well as a tube of thermal paste, instruction manual, and two pieces of metal tape for taping a temperature probe in place.
The gold-plated copper base comes covered with a piece of plastic to protect it from any damage. Removing the plastic cover reveals an extremely flat and well polished, shiny base.
Notice in the above picture I have taped down the Exos-Al's temperature probe to the CPU-300-H06 with the included metal tape. The water block has grooves on both sides for temperature probes and either one can be used for the Exos-Al.
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