UPDATE: I spoke with Phanteks after this review, they said there will be adapter fittings to bridge their proprietary threaded ports to G1/4" so all the EZ-Fit components will be compatible with standard fittings from any brand!
Amazing video! and explanation. Still hope they follow your suggestion and look to the once who want to go a step further but still are affraid. Like you mentioned and concider a 90 degrees ,45 degrees adapter fitting set kit for the starters in hard tubing. Now beginner still will hesitate to spend this kind of money when they are not sure they will be successfull. The complexity difference between soft tubing and hard tubing should have a middle way solution.
That is good news! at least it will be able to integrate to an existing setup, and we know phanteks somehow listen to customer feedbacks. as for my case, this being marketed as affordable will be offset with the purchase of additional adapters so i'll end up near the cost of other watercooling parts. specially if your layout is different. what i think that phanteks should have done is start with the G1/4" fittings, and then add their proprietary fittings as the adapters. just hope that they make a version 2 with this in mind. this kit as almost perfect except for this proprietary thing going on like the old thermaltake and gigabyte kits back in the day (to be fair watercooling was still in it's infancy back then and there are no real accepted standards yet)
Personally, they should have just gone with 14mm OD hard tubing and G1/4 ready fittings from the start. That would put it in-line with the popular 10/13mm (3/8" ID / 1/2" OD) soft-tubing, and they could make push-in pieces that stretch out existing 10/13mm tubing to 14mm OD (like what occurs normally with regular compression fittings) that the custom fittings can bite into. That would have made them a worthwhile option to consider. Or if they really wanted to stick to 16mm OD hard tubing, use standard G1/4 ready fittings with provisions to use existing 5/8" OD (almost 16mm OD) soft tubing. Even if Phantek's hole sizes were G3/8 sizing, only Alphacool and Bitspower create G3/8 fittings, and Alphacool mostly discontinued their fittings in favor of the more popular G1/4, and G3/8 to G1/4 adapters are a pain to work with, adding a second problem point; either not being tightened enough and causing a leak there, or being too tight and impossible to remove off a regular G1/4 fitting. Had this same trouble with Alphacool's Panamax HF Single-Slot pass-through, which uses G3/8 to G1/4 adapters to allow passing of fluid out of a PC case and into an external radiator and then back in.
yeap that sealed the no deal for me. i was quite interested until i heard "proprietary". bad move phanteks. their priority should have been compatibility with other components..
I think what they should've done was make the ports G1/4 standard, but on the tubing insert part, keep it the way they have it now so they can use both hard and soft tubes. And this also gives the user the choice to use other branded fittings if they wanted to. This would actually be a win on both sides for the user and Phanteks.
For soft tubving I recommend use EPDM, its black rubber material, but its checmicaly stable, resistant to staining (not that it would be visible anyway) and have no leaching plasticizer so it can last for years. Also its much more durable and resistant to kinking.
A lot of soft tubes are going that direction I think? But I also noticed EPDM only comes in black, so depending on your color theme, some people might want other color options which aren't as available.
@@hardlinenexus It depend, majority is black which is easy to get. You can get white and blach mesh covered from Corsair. There are at least blue and red variants, but thats not something easy to get, none of WC shops selling them, would have to go to food/checmical industry sources. At least normal black looks good in white/silver/black and even red based builds.
I've noticed lately that rads with inlet & outlets on the same side don't look like there is a divider separating them, making the rad dual pass, if there is no divider you are not getting the full benefit of cooling as the fluid can & will just go in & out without flowing through the rad
Pro tip when bending hardline tubes with multiple bends: Use a piece of tubing to make a 90 ( I_ ) and 45( \_ ) degree corner piece that you can hold up to eyeball your bend. Cut the 90 and 45 degree pieces to the end of your mandrel so you can easily mark and line up the tubing you are going to use for the real run.
I think what you mean is a drain valve. The res itself already comes with a plug in each port. There aren't any drain valves that fit on the Phanteks port though.. until Phanteks themselves come out with one
I may have missed it but is it safe to use a gpu water block made out of nickel? I remember seeing something about making sure the radiators and blocks need to be the same metals to prevent corrosion.
Nickel is fine. Nickel, brass, copper, stainless steel, acrylic, POM, acetal... they can all be used together. The only metal you should avoid is aluminum.
I have been building Liquid cooled PCs for about 28 years and I watched as it went from a few people trying to get more power out of the hardware to becoming a Multibillion $ industry. I agree that it is currently a very expensive hobby or as I see it an Artform. I like some of what Phanteks is doing here I just feel they have cut some corners like the fittings I tried these type of fitting in the past and found them to be inferior to standard fitting. I am currently doing a build using EKs latest products and using chromed brass tubing 16mm, it has cost over £2k just for the cooling so yes we need something like this to allow people who couldn't or wouldn't spend that much to do what an all in one could do. Alphacool tried a similar system a few years ago but this is MUCH better.
This will fail simply because it's proprietary. If even Corsair aren't foolish enough to make their system proprietary, phanteks is going to have a world of hurt when this doesn't pan out for them. They seriously need to change the whole proprietary angle and get over themselves.
Awesome video!!!! Looking forward to trying this out in my build. So happy Phanteks released G1/4 EZ-Fit fittings so I can use with my existing rads/distro.
love the vid but the radiator part is ind of false you are trying to fit the radiator when there is another one with fans already installed, i think it could have fit if you just changed the order of installation. I guess if you have to "Find" something to ding it for it must be great. i'm glad more companies are doing this. i have wanted to water cool for years but don't see it worth to spend my GPU cost just for a couple of degrees.
Let me suggest 3/8 quick connect air line fittings which do the same thing. Local hardware stores have them for cheap. I added teflon tape and they are leak free.
Barrowch have had this same design of anti-slip fittings (their wolverine series) for years, it's nothing new. And they are in standard g1/4 threading too. Neither are custom loop kits new, have been around donkeys years.
Thank you for the thoughtful presentation. It does look as if Phanteks is committing to a consumer friendly mentality. Regarding the GPU part of it, do you know if there will be an available adapter, in order to use the Phanteks fittings with your own GPU block?
I don't think they will do that. Like their EZ-fit threaded side to a standard G1/4 thread, highly doubt it. But you wouldn't need to anyways, because your GPU block could still use the standard G1/4, you just need to make sure the tube side of it is 16mm to match the rest of the loop since that's the only tubing size Phanteks will use. I guess from an aesthetic standpoint, you'll just have different looking fittings on your GPU than the rest of the EZ-fit system lol
And like that you’ve lost my interest entirely, g1/4 threading is a standard so just make a slim adaptor, otherwise you will be putting people off watercooling in the long run, as people will look to update their loops not just expand them so if none of my current stuff fits the new stuff why would I ever consider it 7:17 😢
I really appreciate how Phanteks uses the LED industry standard 3 pin JST connector for their ARGB strips....this is the same connector you'd find on any non-computer branded addressable LED strip. There's literally no point to that stupid 4 minus 1 equals 3 pin ARGB connector the motherboard manufacturerers invented and forced on us
What is going on with phatheks? They have been keeping customers in the dark with delays and new release dates. Also, why did they not mention this is not a g 1/4 from when they showed it at computex?? Btw Barrow has those fititngs in g1/4 for people that might like the idea behid this.
People still trying to compare it with AIO or aircooler. Not the point. When I said it's "more affordable" it's meant to be compared with what custom water cooling prices have been.
This is not easier, cheaper or better. I really don't get what the value add is. You don't have to tighten fittings collars? Lol. All this does is introduce a whole host of new problems for newcomers to solve. Makes no sense.
And what problems might that be? The only problem I see is not enough adapter fittings which would force newcomers to have to do multiple bends on a single run which is quite difficult.
UPDATE: I spoke with Phanteks after this review, they said there will be adapter fittings to bridge their proprietary threaded ports to G1/4" so all the EZ-Fit components will be compatible with standard fittings from any brand!
Amazing video! and explanation. Still hope they follow your suggestion and look to the once who want to go a step further but still are affraid. Like you mentioned and concider a 90 degrees ,45 degrees adapter fitting set kit for the starters in hard tubing. Now beginner still will hesitate to spend this kind of money when they are not sure they will be successfull. The complexity difference between soft tubing and hard tubing should have a middle way solution.
That is good news! at least it will be able to integrate to an existing setup, and we know phanteks somehow listen to customer feedbacks. as for my case, this being marketed as affordable will be offset with the purchase of additional adapters so i'll end up near the cost of other watercooling parts. specially if your layout is different. what i think that phanteks should have done is start with the G1/4" fittings, and then add their proprietary fittings as the adapters. just hope that they make a version 2 with this in mind. this kit as almost perfect except for this proprietary thing going on like the old thermaltake and gigabyte kits back in the day (to be fair watercooling was still in it's infancy back then and there are no real accepted standards yet)
Glad to hear. The kit is a cool start but I def agree with all the negatives you brought up.
Thanks for vid!
Personally, they should have just gone with 14mm OD hard tubing and G1/4 ready fittings from the start. That would put it in-line with the popular 10/13mm (3/8" ID / 1/2" OD) soft-tubing, and they could make push-in pieces that stretch out existing 10/13mm tubing to 14mm OD (like what occurs normally with regular compression fittings) that the custom fittings can bite into. That would have made them a worthwhile option to consider.
Or if they really wanted to stick to 16mm OD hard tubing, use standard G1/4 ready fittings with provisions to use existing 5/8" OD (almost 16mm OD) soft tubing.
Even if Phantek's hole sizes were G3/8 sizing, only Alphacool and Bitspower create G3/8 fittings, and Alphacool mostly discontinued their fittings in favor of the more popular G1/4, and G3/8 to G1/4 adapters are a pain to work with, adding a second problem point; either not being tightened enough and causing a leak there, or being too tight and impossible to remove off a regular G1/4 fitting. Had this same trouble with Alphacool's Panamax HF Single-Slot pass-through, which uses G3/8 to G1/4 adapters to allow passing of fluid out of a PC case and into an external radiator and then back in.
Yea i was in on it until the word proprietary. Then it becomes a aio with extra steps and phenteks is my favorite.
Agreed, I was really interesting this until that point, too bad.
yeap that sealed the no deal for me. i was quite interested until i heard "proprietary". bad move phanteks. their priority should have been compatibility with other components..
I think what they should've done was make the ports G1/4 standard, but on the tubing insert part, keep it the way they have it now so they can use both hard and soft tubes. And this also gives the user the choice to use other branded fittings if they wanted to. This would actually be a win on both sides for the user and Phanteks.
@@hardlinenexus exactly. Because if anything like a bad fitting happened, you can only get it from one spot. That's inconvenient for the user.
@@zero-wo9lh especially if they are not dedicating to watercooling. Then proprietary is pointless.
For soft tubving I recommend use EPDM, its black rubber material, but its checmicaly stable, resistant to staining (not that it would be visible anyway) and have no leaching plasticizer so it can last for years. Also its much more durable and resistant to kinking.
A lot of soft tubes are going that direction I think? But I also noticed EPDM only comes in black, so depending on your color theme, some people might want other color options which aren't as available.
@@hardlinenexussoft tubing can be sleeved now! Thx to MDPC!
@@hardlinenexus It depend, majority is black which is easy to get. You can get white and blach mesh covered from Corsair.
There are at least blue and red variants, but thats not something easy to get, none of WC shops selling them, would have to go to food/checmical industry sources.
At least normal black looks good in white/silver/black and even red based builds.
Heck yeah nice build! Super excited to see what other people do with this :)
No G1/4 is a direct disqualification
I've noticed lately that rads with inlet & outlets on the same side don't look like there is a divider separating them, making the rad dual pass, if there is no divider you are not getting the full benefit of cooling as the fluid can & will just go in & out without flowing through the rad
FYI: The threads on traditional watercooling fittings are actually BSPP (British Standard Parallel Pipe).......
Good to know
Pro tip when bending hardline tubes with multiple bends: Use a piece of tubing to make a 90 ( I_ ) and 45( \_ ) degree corner piece that you can hold up to eyeball your bend. Cut the 90 and 45 degree pieces to the end of your mandrel so you can easily mark and line up the tubing you are going to use for the real run.
Awesome video, subbed and waiting for more content, you nailed it. Hope the best for you brotha.
Can you buy a drain plug to put on the reservoir when its time for you to drain the coolant?
I think what you mean is a drain valve. The res itself already comes with a plug in each port. There aren't any drain valves that fit on the Phanteks port though.. until Phanteks themselves come out with one
This is interesting i think i will go with soft tubing thanks for the informative video.
I may have missed it but is it safe to use a gpu water block made out of nickel? I remember seeing something about making sure the radiators and blocks need to be the same metals to prevent corrosion.
Nickel is fine. Nickel, brass, copper, stainless steel, acrylic, POM, acetal... they can all be used together. The only metal you should avoid is aluminum.
Still expensive. 500$ for only cpu cooling. Good aio is 100$, and good air cooler is under 50$
This
Custom can easily be much more expensive
That’s super freaking cool I want these fittings separately and would pay £10 per fitting all the way up to £12 per fitting 6:24 please phanteks
I have been building Liquid cooled PCs for about 28 years and I watched as it went from a few people trying to get more power out of the hardware to becoming a Multibillion $ industry. I agree that it is currently a very expensive hobby or as I see it an Artform. I like some of what Phanteks is doing here I just feel they have cut some corners like the fittings I tried these type of fitting in the past and found them to be inferior to standard fitting. I am currently doing a build using EKs latest products and using chromed brass tubing 16mm, it has cost over £2k just for the cooling so yes we need something like this to allow people who couldn't or wouldn't spend that much to do what an all in one could do. Alphacool tried a similar system a few years ago but this is MUCH better.
This will fail simply because it's proprietary. If even Corsair aren't foolish enough to make their system proprietary, phanteks is going to have a world of hurt when this doesn't pan out for them.
They seriously need to change the whole proprietary angle and get over themselves.
So you get the soft line kit with the hardline kit but you only get soft with the cheaper kit? 2:36
Ah makes sense 3:26
Awesome video!!!! Looking forward to trying this out in my build. So happy Phanteks released G1/4 EZ-Fit fittings so I can use with my existing rads/distro.
Did you happen to run any benchmarks for temps using this system?
Nope. Just showed how to put it together.
@@hardlinenexus Thank you
The complete kit better come with extras for that price daaamn 1:35
The most expensive part is the gpu water block and cpu water block, everything else should be cheap.
love the vid but the radiator part is ind of false you are trying to fit the radiator when there is another one with fans already installed, i think it could have fit if you just changed the order of installation. I guess if you have to "Find" something to ding it for it must be great. i'm glad more companies are doing this. i have wanted to water cool for years but don't see it worth to spend my GPU cost just for a couple of degrees.
What if you want to drain it out
Let me suggest 3/8 quick connect air line fittings which do the same thing. Local hardware stores have them for cheap. I added teflon tape and they are leak free.
Barrowch have had this same design of anti-slip fittings (their wolverine series) for years, it's nothing new. And they are in standard g1/4 threading too. Neither are custom loop kits new, have been around donkeys years.
Oh yes we know. Hyte also came out with it before a couple years too. It's new for Phanteks, not for the rest of the world.
Phanteks should make a reference block as it’ll fit more than 1 gpu to go with this for an extra $80 Corsair would be shaking in their boots 4:52
What's the actual noise level when using the fan? I heard it goes over 41dB - how is it?
Noise level of what? The entire build or the fans themselves?
@9:15 I can't think of an ITX case that supports a 360mm rad anyway tho
There aren't many. But the only one I can think of would be the Yuel Beast Calypso. But that case is quite easy to work with since it's open-air
@@hardlinenexus right on, thank you.
Hi, can u write here your components in this PC?
GPU and MB i know, but other? Thanks man" Look so cool !
Ordered a full kit individually, the rads don't come with soft tube inserts and I cant buy them anywhere.... I'm one short.
Really? Hit up Phanteks about that, they should set you right.
Yeah it’s just a pain lol
Thank you for the thoughtful presentation. It does look as if Phanteks is committing to a consumer friendly mentality.
Regarding the GPU part of it, do you know if there will be an available adapter, in order to use the Phanteks fittings with your own GPU block?
I don't think they will do that. Like their EZ-fit threaded side to a standard G1/4 thread, highly doubt it. But you wouldn't need to anyways, because your GPU block could still use the standard G1/4, you just need to make sure the tube side of it is 16mm to match the rest of the loop since that's the only tubing size Phanteks will use. I guess from an aesthetic standpoint, you'll just have different looking fittings on your GPU than the rest of the EZ-fit system lol
Phanteks just released G1/4 EZ-Fit fittings, and I cannot wait to try them out in my loop.
What did you use to get that water colour?
It's just EK's Azure blue solid premix coolant
@@hardlinenexus Thanks.
And like that you’ve lost my interest entirely, g1/4 threading is a standard so just make a slim adaptor, otherwise you will be putting people off watercooling in the long run, as people will look to update their loops not just expand them so if none of my current stuff fits the new stuff why would I ever consider it 7:17 😢
🎉 very good material
I really appreciate how Phanteks uses the LED industry standard 3 pin JST connector for their ARGB strips....this is the same connector you'd find on any non-computer branded addressable LED strip. There's literally no point to that stupid 4 minus 1 equals 3 pin ARGB connector the motherboard manufacturerers invented and forced on us
The soft tube and hard tube combos are weird. I would not have included fans, and given either soft or hard tubing, not soft or both.
What case is this?
XT Pro
should come with 3 hardline tubes
Oh damn it’s just getting worse, it doesn’t even fit older phanteks hardware 😅 7:29
Phanteks just released G1/4 EZ-Fit fittings.
Subscribed 🎉 thank you
Thank you!
What is going on with phatheks? They have been keeping customers in the dark with delays and new release dates.
Also, why did they not mention this is not a g 1/4 from when they showed it at computex?? Btw Barrow has those fititngs in g1/4 for people that might like the idea behid this.
ugh. They really made a mess of this with the proprietary fittings and the knock on from that.
Why here but nowhere else, what the heck 11:47
£349.99 here in the uk for 1 rad, pump and cpu block and soft tubing 😆absolutely terrible
Oh I guess companies should just give CPU blocks out for free then huh
@@hardlinenexus no, you can buy the same amount of corsair parts for cheaper and thats saying something
watercooling just for the cpu is the dumbest trend ever! on top this set is stupidly overpriced. 200€ would be too much.. lol..
So what you're saying is the CPU block should be free?
Too costly, at this point for 100$ I get arctic aio and get the same performance with cooling. No brainer.
People still trying to compare it with AIO or aircooler. Not the point. When I said it's "more affordable" it's meant to be compared with what custom water cooling prices have been.
He's the Asian version of Elon Musk 😁
Not the first or second or third time I've gotten this comment. Can dig through those in my past videos
#tricepgang
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This is not easier, cheaper or better. I really don't get what the value add is. You don't have to tighten fittings collars? Lol. All this does is introduce a whole host of new problems for newcomers to solve. Makes no sense.
And what problems might that be? The only problem I see is not enough adapter fittings which would force newcomers to have to do multiple bends on a single run which is quite difficult.