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Alphacool VPP655 with Pump Head Unit Complete Review

Dark Mantis

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Alphacool VPP655 with Pump Head Unit Complete Review
« on: April 22, 2011, 04:38:48 pm »
Alphacool VPP655 with pump head unit.

by Dark Mantis




This pump supplied to me for review by Alphacool is a special version of the well known Laing/Swiftech 655 pump. This pump is the

mainstay of the watercooling fraternity because of it's power and durability. Made mainly of Delrin and stainless steel it features

ceramic bearings and no moving parts apart from the magnetically driven sperical impellor giving it a working lifetime of roughly

50,000 hours which works out to over five years of continuous use without a break. This is some achievement and because of this and

it's legendary reliability it is of no surprise that it is so widely used. The pump will work almost silenty even at full speed and

can be decoupled from the chassis it is located on if necessary by various means if even more dampening of the sound/vibration is

required.



This particular pump was supplied complete with the head unit into which I will go into more depth later. The motor unit also comes

as a seperate part for people needing a replacement or a power source for a custom head unit. This is a very useful addition to the

range and makes a cutomised version of this pump very affordable.



The motor itself is a powerful compact affair which will run off anything from DC 8 - 24V although obviously it is aimed at 12V usage

for computers. At 12V and maximum speed it requires 23W of power with a reduced need as the speed drops. On the back of the motor

there is a small variable resistor with a screwdriver slot to enable easy adjustment continously from 1 to 5 with 1 being the lowest

and 5 being the highest speed.The speed markings are rated as follows :

1 = 1800 rpm
2 = 2550 rpm
3 = 3300 rpm
4 = 4050 rpm
5 = 4800 rpm

At top rate at 12v with zero head it is really powerful and will shift coolant at the rate of 1500 lph which is 25 lpm!



Visually the complete unit has a nice clean look and instead of the more standard head with the moulded on 1/2" ports this pump comes

with a more versatile head which will accomodate any normal 1/4" BSPP screw fitting. This now means that it is much more

straightforward to use with a smaller bore loop like 10mm. It also give the opportunity to decide on different inlet and outlet

directions which can make siting in some cases much easier. There are two ports for both inlet and outlet and two blanks are supplied

for the unused ports this makes it even better than the  EK head kit that I reviewed recently which had only three ports. Personally

I would have preferred to have the blacks  as black nickel or plain black to match the housing rather than the copper coated ones but

it is a minor point and they can easilly be swapped. The other negative point I would pick up is that the power cable should have

been braided to give a good finish instead of bare red and black pvc. This is terminated in a standard molex plug with just two of

the four pins used. The lead measures a fairly long 1.1 metres.



The main pump is by no means new design but it has adapted well and there is no doubt that it wll do the job and now with the

modified head make it even easier for all concerned. I would award it 9/10






Supplier: AlphaCool International http://www.alphacool.com      


Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy

Dark Mantis

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Re: Alphacool VPP655 with Pump Head Unit Complete Review
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2011, 07:47:19 pm »

« Last Edit: April 28, 2011, 09:27:59 pm by Dark Mantis »
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy

Dark Mantis

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  • 18405
  • 414
  • 10typesofpeopleoneswhoknow binaryandoneswhodont
    • Dark Mantis
Re: Alphacool VPP655 with Pump Head Unit Complete Review
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2011, 09:28:33 pm »
For future use
Gigabyte X58A-UD7
i7 920
Dominators 1600 x6 12GB
6970 2GB
HX850
256GB SSD, Sam 1TB, WDB320GB
Blu-Ray
HAF 932

Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
i7 3770K
Vengeance 1600 16GB
6950 2GB
HCP1200W
Revo Drive x2, 1.5TB WDB RAID0
16x DLRW
StrikeX S7
Full water cooling
3 x 27" Iiy