EVGA CL28 AIO Watercooling Review

 

Up Close:  Radiator 

The CL28 measures 312x139x27mm (LxWxH), so with a pair of 140mm fans on will be a total of 52mm thick.  The fans in question actually come pre-screwed to the radiator, but can be removed and replaced in the normal way, should you so desire.

 

 

From the front on view you might think that they are just standard black OEM fans.  Not so, these puppies are rather elegant units with dropped cowlings, which EVGA claim improve performance and therefore cooling. 

 

 

The radiator has fin density of 22FPI, and has 13 visible water channels, which makes it about average for a radiator of this size.  Unlike some other manufacturers, there’s nothing really fancy about the rad, although it does appear to be be very well made. 

 

 

The braided tubes insert into the radiator with what we’ve come to term “Grannies Ankles”.  This is quite a common connection type, and although we seem disparaging of the aesthetic, in reality, we’ve never known of an ankle breaking. 

 

 

The Radiator may be verging on vanilla but the casing on the cold plate is anything but.  There is perhaps a slight case of form over function in that the tubing penetrates directly into the pumps upper surface without allowance for flexible elbows or rotating junctions.  We’ll have to see when we get to fit the pump whether this is going to be an issue or not.  From an aesthetics standpoint, we do quite like the way the EVGA logo has been etched into the underside of the acrylic cover plate.  The surround, although appearing to be Aluminium(ish) is actually plastic, and in the flesh, we’re not fooled by it.

 
 

 

The cold plate has a copper contact plate which has TIM pre applied.  This we will of course remove prior to testing and replace it with our usual Noctua TIM.  The housing has an Intel bracket pre attached, but an AMD one is also included in the fittings.  The pack doesn’t currently include a fitting for AM4, but this can be supplied free of charge on application with the appropriate proofs of purchase. 

 

 

We’ve included the image below to help show just how much the casing on the pump doesn’t look like Aluminium.  Perhaps it’s not meant to, we don’t know, but what we do know is the visual is somewhat “plasticy” and detracting from the the otherwise very classy appearance of the pump assembly.  Also, of note while were down here is that the pump can, and indeed should be attached to the motherboard via the supplied USB cable.  This attachment enables almost infinite control over the pump speed, fan speed (via the cables shown below), LED colour and many other factors, all of which we’ll cover later in the review.