I am afraid that is often the way these retailers are. They will sell you anything they can often, that is why it is worth hanging onto a good supplier if you find one.
Forget getting a copper lined one as there are plenty of full copper radiators for that sort of price or a little more. I am not sure of the availability in the US but to give you an idea check this out :
http://www.candccentral.co.uk/radiators-and-grills/
Dark Mantis, did you happen to get a note back from Mick as yet? I wrote to Koolance last night and got an answer back today that was kindof confusing. LOL, of course that is an easy thing to do to me... Anyway, you know for some reason i thought that i posted what he said on here but guess not. Hope it's ok to share what he said but this is it;
Hello,
If we sell the Exos-2.5, likely HX-CU1020VS or V would be used.
Aluminum is fine to use in a rad as long as there is no un-plated copper in the loop and a decent coolant is used. Many customers use regular di-water with or without simple additives and have multiple copper blocks that don't use nickel plating. Aluminum shouldn't be used in that situation. All of our copper is nickel or gold plated.
Thank you for your inquiry,
Info
Koolance, Inc.
www.koolance.comIF? Well they do sell it because that is where I got it from and it sure doesn't have anything but an aluminum rad in it. It says so right under the product on their site.
So then later today I called Koolance and got another guy and he said that he thought that whoever answered my email (there was no actual name) thought I was talking about a future product of theirs.
Ya right, I think that the guy just was trying to pull the wool over my eyes or something but who knows. I had worded my email message so that he should have known that I was talking about an Exos 2.5 that i owned and told them I wanted to replace the aluminum rad if possible with a copper one.
Well the guy on the phone told me it wasn't possible for some reason but then you told me to just go ahead and get a real copper rad anyway. I asked them though because I found out that their copper rads aren't lined they are copper with brass fins he told me. You know I must have written all this last night and then went to bed this morning and forgot to post it. Anyway the only things that will be in the loop I will have is the two GTX 480's that run REALLY hot especially with them being overclocked.
I really don't want to just toss a unit that was just under $400 a bit less than a year ago though and the water blocks are the Koolance ones that are "high density copper and nickel plating".
So with that in mind do you think it should be ok to use the Aluminum rad? Then my only problem would be trying to find the Mayhems UV Blue Dye unless you think that the Primochill UV Blue tubing is dark enough. I have never used that brand at all so I don't know.
I was looking at the Primochill Dye that was black and then UV Blue and since there will only be the 2 vid cards in the loop and I am going to put quick disconnects before and after them so that I can readily take them out any time I choose to clean them out it wouldn't matter if I had some of that dye getting caught anywhere because I could pop them out and clean them out as well as the pump, rad and res every couple of months.
I do understand what you have told me and that does seem to be the general consensus over the internet but there is also a lot of different mindsets on the subject too. You have a lot of experience though but I already am having to buy a bunch of parts like all of the quick disconnects and was also going to get a cool front bay slot temp, fan speed, and card reader all in one that is total overkill but I really liked the look of it. Sorry for such a long post...
