Love comes in small bundles they say and it must be true. I was ever so happy to receive a nice package from the U.S.A, living in The Netherlands I immediately knew it was from Danger Den. Who else would send me mail from the other side of the world? As you might have noticed I reviewed the Danger Den Maze 4 GPU first because I had some motherboard and CPU problems, but now that that is all fixed I can test this quality waterblock from Danger Den.
So what do you get when ordering one of these blocks? Obviously the block itself and a Ziploc bag with the necessary mounting tools, you know your nylon washers, springs, and other hardware.
First thing that I noticed is that its smaller then other blocks, like the Danger Den Maze 4 for example. This block totally concentrates on cooling the core, quite obvious since it’s the part that expels heat but will its size matter? As usual Danger Den engraved there company name and the type in the block, in this case “Danger Den TDX”.
When checking the site I found out that the base is machine lapped with 1200 grit sandpaper, which makes it nice and smooth. The base has a little protective film to prevent it from being scratched and protect against corrosion. When removing the film you are left with an oily residue, just use some white spirit or alcohol to remove it.
It might just be me, but when I have something new it has to come apart so I can see how it works. I removed the top to have a closer look in the block without the hose barbs restricting view.
First thing you may notice is the nozzle, yes that’s right the block uses accelerator nozzles. Think of them like your adjustable showerhead, giving you the ability to direct the flow of water. Danger Den sells an optional package of 5 different designs of nozzles that might help you to just shave top of that last degree for those crucial few MHz on your overclock. The TDX comes stock with nozzle #1 so if you want to do any fine tuning you will need to buy the extra nozzles.
The nozzles are great but underneath that nozzle is what really counts. Instead of using their traditional maze flow design Danger Den has made something completely different. The TDX is similar to the RBX block from Danger Den, although modified for use with only 2 hose barbs. The area of water impingement features a wave shaped set of channels with cupping divots that force water to convect with the surface via cavitations of the blocks surface right over the CPU. This design greatly increases surface area at the waters impingement, as well as increasing heat transfer by using higher pressure forced convection.
I’ll be testing the TDX block on a AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Barton core, this baby eats 81 watts of power as estimated by Sandra which makes it formidable challenger for the TDX. For the testing I’ll be using a small little program called Toast, its very effective for bringing your processor up to 100% utilization. This program is freeware so you can download it by clicking on the image. I will run this program for 30 minutes, the temperatures will be gathered from my motherboards thermal sensors.
Test setup
The complete test bed consists of an ASUS A7V600, AMD 3200+ Barton, Sapphire ATi X800 Pro, 1GB DDR, and the rest of a system. Now those first 3 things are all watercooled, the X800 with a Maze 4 GPU block, the Northbridge with a Z chipset block, and the CPU with this TDX block. I’m using an inline closed loop system instead of using a reservoir and Asetek 120mm radiator (Black Ice Xtreme clone) with a 120mm Akasa Fan. The water is circulated by an Eheim 1048, so not to shabby in my opinion. My homemade block is a simple 3 piece copper construction that I made for fun. It has a 5mm base with small dents to enlarge the surface area, a square copper ring 10mm thick and another 5mm base with copper tubing.
The testing took the better part of a day, emptying the water loop and letting it run for a few hours to get rid of all that nasty trapped air that would otherwise cause higher temperatures. After refilling and bleeding the system I played some Counter-Strike: Source for about 10 minutes to heat the water, and then I left it alone for 30 minutes which gave me the idle temperatures. I then ran Toast for 30 minutes to get the load temperatures. Checkout the difference for yourself, I thought it would only be 1 or 2 degrees less then the Maze 4 but it seems I was really wrong, its smaller but its cools better.
Conclusion
Well after 5 hours of filling bleeding and heating the CPU I came to the following conclusion, the TDX beat all of its competition. Size doesn’t matter, with a great piece of CNC machinery and some great minds behind the drawing board Danger Den has done it again. They have produced another heavyweight in the watercooling industry and you shouldn’t be disappointed with this block. So there’s really nothing for me left to say but to give this product from Danger Den a straight and deserved 10/10 earning it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval. I would like to thank Danger Den for making this review possible.
Pros
- Great cooling
- Nifty design
- Not too expensive
- Tops for all socket types
- Optional accelerator nozzle set for fine tuning
Cons
- None