Introduction

Hardware Labs Nemesis 280 GTS Radiator Review

Welcome to another Extreme Rigs 280mm radiator review. Today we’ll be looking at the Nemesis 280 GTS from Hardware Labs. It is one of 16 slim models available in the GTS and GTS X-Flow range of Nemesis radiators that fall under HWLabs Black Ice® banner.
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The Nemesis 280 GTS measures in at just 30mm thick and is therefore well suited for small form factor builds where space is at a premium or for larger builds where extra raddage is required, but room for a bigger/thicker radiator may not be available.

In this review of the Nemesis 280 GTS we’ll take a close look at it’s construction & quality, analyze the performance data by comparing it’s results against other 280mm radiators and then conclude with a summary.

As we reviewed the Nemesis 360 GTS last year, we may make a comparison or two between the 280 and 360 variants. The 280mm version only has ~10% less surface than the 360, so there may be some interesting data which we can highlight.

Firstly a big thanks to Hardware Labs for providing the review sample of the Nemesis 280 GTS. Since we commenced our radiator testing, their commitment to our independent tests has been exemplary. Extreme Rigs couldn’t publish the reviews we do without the continued support offered by our sponsors, so a big thanks to all the crew at Hardware Labs.



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Before we start we would again like to say thanks to Noctua for providing the NF-A14 Industrial PPC-2000 IP67 PWM 140mm fans. We use these fans for all our 140mm based radiator thermal performance testing because they have great static pressure which is required to get the best performance from even densest of radiator cores and of course, their proven reliability.

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What’s in the Box?

The Nemesis 280 GTS sample arrived in full retail packaging. The front features an image of the radiator and Nemesis logo, along with the model number in large bold lettering that leaves us in no doubt what the package contains.

On the back is a technical drawing along with a list of features.

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After removing the outer retail sleeve we find a sturdy cardboard box with a Black Ice® seal.
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The seal advises to check screw length if using screws other than those provided, which we’ll discuss in more detail shortly.

Opening the box, we see the familiar packing layout which HWLabs use for all their radiators. The packaging is strong and secure, but it we feel it lacks a bubble wrap back to avoid possible scuffing/scratches on the paint during transport.

On the right hand side the supplied accessories are placed under a lift up flap.

The accessories consist of the following:

8 x  M4 x 28mm Phillips Head screws.
8 x M4 x 5mm Phillips Head screws.

NOTE: Also supplied were 4 x stop plugs but I have omitted them because I believe it was packing error as the Nemesis 280 GTS only has 2 x G 1/4 ports and therefore has no need for any stop plugs.


The shorter screws measure in at ~5mm and have 2 possible uses. Firstly is for directly mounting the radiator to a case panel. Alternately they could be used to attach mounting brackets for reservoirs or pumps.

The longer screws measure 28mm. These are the perfect length for mounting a 25mm thick fan directly to the radiator, however in most instances they are not long enough to mount a fan between radiator and case panel. If using a mounting bracket, or placing fans between the case panel and radiator, you will probably need to provide your own M4 screws of suitable length. In most instances M4 x 30mm screws will be suitable.


Be warned though, with ONLY a 25mm thick fan, 30mm length screws are too long and the supplied 28mm screws must be used.
In the following photo a stainless rule was placed on top of the screw protection plates and a 30mm length screw tightened until it just touched the ruler. Notice there is also a washer under the screw head, so without the washer and ruler in place, 30mm is too long.
Always check screw length for compatibility.

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Onwards to technical specifications!

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Technical Specifications

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Technical Specifications as listed by HWLabs:

  • 140 mm x 2 fan slim form factor two-pass radiator.
  • 312mm x 153mm x 29.6mm (L x W x H)
  • 16 FPI 25 Micron Copper Fins
  • Now optimized for sub-800 rpm ultra-stealth fans
  • Supercruise optimizations for scalable performance with higher speed fans
  • 15% more tubing area in the same Black Ice® GTS 280 form factor
  • Increased internal coolant flow rates
  • Standard G 1/4″ inlet/outlet fittings
  • Standard M4 mounting threads
  • Custom Dark Matter high quality finish
  • Fully ROHS Compliant
  • 100% Made from conflict-free materials
  • Industry standard Black Ice® quality
  • Lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects*
The following Technical Drawings are provided courtesy of Hardware Labs.

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Dimensions Measured on the Radiator Tested:


Radiator Core Dimensions:



The 19 mm thick core is made up of a single layer of 16 tubes arranged in the standard U-Flow (dual pass) configuration. The fin arrangement consists of split, non louvered fins with a 16 FPI count. The Nemesis 280 GTS looks to be a really well balance core package fora radiator of this thickness and hopefully the thermal results will match the promising specs it has on paper.

The following picture is a reference which shows a typical U-Flow coolant flow path, where the coolant travels up all the tubes on one side (left in pic) of the rad and then returns down the other side. U-Flow is most easily recognized when the port end has 2 separate tanks, unlike the Nemesis 280 GTS which has a formed tank end with separate cambers inside.

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The split, louvered fins are spaced very evenly between the tubes and our sample had a fin count of 14 – 16 FPI.

 

Finish and Features

The matte black finish on the review sample was excellent. In fact the finish is perfect and is part of the reason Hardware Labs has been setting the standard for PC water cooling radiators for the past decade. All visible joints are well done, port locations are well placed, and fan mounting holes are position correctly.

The following images are courtesy of Performance PCs and show the 4 different finish options the Nemesis 280 GTS is currently available in.


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Performance PCs also have a “primer only” version available of the Nemesis 280 GTS.
To assist in the perfect paint job they sell the “HWLabs Professional Radiator Paint Hanger Assembly”.
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Screw protection plates are fitted under each fan attachment hole on the Nemesis 280 GTS.

As we pointed out earlier, screw length can be a little problematic when fitting a fan between the radiator and case panel, so having the peace of mind of protection plates is great even thought the mounting holes are not located directly above any tubes.

 

A standard 15mm spacing is used between the center fan attachment holes..

The first technical drawing showed a fan spacing of 124.5mm which is just about perfect for a 140mm fan which has center spacings of 125mm. Clicking the next image, you would be pretty harsh not not call the distance measure exactly 124.5mm.

The distance across the centers was ~125mm. Perfect.

Speaking of fan, let’s take a look at the Nemesis 280 GTS with a few different fans attached.

The Nemesis 280 GTS is fitted with just 2 x G 1/4 ports. We love a good multi-port rad, so this us wanting a bit more despite being a standard fit out for a slim radiator.

No alternate ports are on the other side or ends of the tanks.

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and no ancillary port is fitted to the return end.

This leaves us with one very “traditional” option for installing the inlet and outlet fittings, and no option of a fill/bleed port, or drain taps and temp sensors with additional fittings being used.


Having the fans offset back from the tanks slightly means even the largest of fittings can be used on the Nemesis 280 GTS.
Here Bitspower’s jumbo sized 1/2″ x 3/4″ compression fittings are installed with plenty of room to spare.

Care has been taken to avoid paint getting onto the thread of the ports. It’s small details like this which can mean carefree integration into your loop, or unnecessary maintenance issues.

So we have a slim (30mm thick) radiator with a medium density core. Two G 1/4 ports are fitted and screw  protection plates are installed. The paint finish on the matte black sample was excellent as was the overall build quality.

 

So far so good, now let’s see how it performs…

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Flow Rate Testing

The Data

As all the testing was performed with the exact same equipment (except the 140mm Noctua Industrial fans replace the 120mm GT fans), using the exact same methods as was used in the 360mm round-up we have decided to keep this review uncluttered by keeping our testing methodology, test set-ups and equipment used in a single location. To see exactly how the tests were carried out, details of the test set ups and equipment used, please head over to the RRU Test Setup page.

Restriction Test

It is generally agreed that radiators are one of, if not the least restrictive components in the water cooling loop. There are some exceptions however, so this must still be verified through testing:

cool13The above photo is for referencing the restriction test bench The Nemesis 280 GTS is not loaded so please disregard the data in the picture as it does not relate to the its test results.

Here is the raw data at the tested flow rates, displaying the measured Differential Pressure across the radiator as flow rate was increased.
The table numbers indicate that the Nemesis 280 GTS could be one of the exceptions, as these numbers look quite high. However numbers in isolation can only tell half the story. By plotting against other components it more easily shows the whole story.

We use a HeatKiller 3.0 CPU block as the reference in this next plot for two reasons. Firstly there is little chance of the plot being cluttered by curves overlapping and secondly it gives a reference point against a fairly common loop component of average restriction.

As with all previous radiator restriction plots, we have limited the maximum flow rate displayed to 2.0 GPM as we suspect there are very few systems that operate above 2.0 GPM. For more information on how to read a restriction plot check out our guide.

This plot indicates the Nemesis 280 GTS is an average restriction loop component when compared to a CPU block of average restriction, but what about other radiators?

The next three plots show the restriction level at three different flow rates compared to the other 280mm radiator that have been tested. We consider the chosen GPM rates to represent systems which have low, medium and high flow rates.

That is very high indeed compared to the other 280mm radiators.
In general we try to aim for ~1.0 gpm flow rate and we know a D5 pump at full power with a decent after market top puts out ~4.5 PSI at 1.0 GPM. Therefore we can determine that the Nemesis 280 GTS will take about 15% of the pump’s output to keep a 1.0 gpm flow rate.


The Nemesis 280 GTS is the most restrictive of all the radiators in the test group at all flow flow rates which were chose to compare against. Remembering that in general radiators are low restriction components, the Nemesis 280 GTS’s high restriction level appears worse (and let’s be honest it is high) because the data it is being compared against other radiators which are low in restriction.

A zoomed in plot showing a flow rate zone where most systems are likely to be operating at.

I dare not look at percentage differences for the data, but lets just say that the Nemesis 280 GTS is a lot more restrictive then the other 280 mm radiators.

Let’s now take a look at where the Nemesis 280 GTS fits in relation to all the radiators we have tested. For this plot, only results for 1.0 GPM have been used for the comparison.

When put into context with all the radiators at 1.0 gpm, the Nemesis 280 GTS fits into our criteria as a very restrictive radiator. We consider this borderline unacceptable and care will have to be taken with loop design and pump power carefully considered if more than 1 Nemesis GTS series radiator is to be used.

It is only the Dual Pass Nemesis GTS series which are so restrictive as can be seen in the following plot which shows restriction levels at 1.0 gpm for many current model radiators from Hardware Labs.

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Next onwards to Thermal Performance.

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Thermal Testing

The Thermal Data

A total of 6 tests were conducted at 1.0 GPM with fan speeds of 750 rpm, 1300 rpm and 1850 rpm being run in ‘Push Only’ and ‘Push/Pull’. All inclusive this testing takes between 40 – 50 hours of logging time (plus processing the data) to get the results that are presented.

Below is the final data results gathered from at least 5 data logging runs at the flow rate and fan rpm combination. The most stable 15 minute period from each logging run was used and then averaged with the other runs to obtain the data for the table below. A total of 16 temperature sensors are used in the thermal test chamber (8 air in, 2 air out, 3 water in, 3 water out). Each sensor takes a reading every second and is logged via a CrystalFontz unit.

The data in the table below is the averaged results of the logging runs which has then been used to create all the plots and tables there-after.

The performance metric of critical importance is the delta between the warm coolant temperature in and the cool ambient air temperature going into the radiator. Given that the system is well insulated and in equilibrium and we know the heat input to the system then we can also calculate a very important number. That number is the amount of power required to raise the coolant temperature by set amount. That amount is typically 1C or 10C. The latter is a more useful reference point.

Let’s take a look at the Delta T results from the tests. Note that the extrapolation of the curve is much more sensitive to error than in the tested range.

I was not too concerned about the actual delta numbers but instead the trend pattern. As we should expect, the deltas come down as the fan speed is increased. The less significant temperature drop from 1300 to 1850 rpm indicates the bulk of the radiators performance potential can be achieved with low and medium fan speeds.

Delta T results (as above) are not always helpful when thinking about how many radiators you would need to cool your system. Instead it’s more useful to know the metric of W/Delta C. This metric is plotted below. It tells us how many Watts are dissipated by the radiator when the coolant rises 10C above ambient temperatures. (W/10 Delta T):

The average difference between Push Only and Push/Pull results at the same fan speed was ~13%, and ranged from ~14.5% at 750 rpm to 11.5% at 1850 rpm. With percentages lowering as fan speed increased means the Nemesis 280 GTS has less gains from the additional airflow and is no doubt due to the thinness of it’s core. The percentages are quite close though, indicating that the potential performance scales evenly across different fan assemblies as the fan speeds are increased.

This same data can now be plotted on a chart so that an end user can interpolate their own fan speed. Note again that the extrapolation of the curve is much more sensitive to error than in between the tested range.

 

Now let’s analyze that data some more…

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Data Analysis

This first table shows the Nemesis 280 GTS’ Watts/10 Delta Temp numbers in a quick glance chart format.


Using this data we can effectively show percentage gains/losses relative to a reference point. It’s an interesting way to show gains/losses while changing a variable.

So, let’s focus on 1300 RPM as our reference and see how much gain or loss in performance we get by changing fan speed.


From these results we see a ~33.5% drop in performance of from 1300 rpm to 750 rpm in Push Only and Push/Pull. The increases from 1300 rpm to 1850 rpm were the best gains of the slim radiators of the group indicating that it hasn’t peaked with medium speeds fans as we earlier suggested, and it may in fact be a good all round performer.

So from the data above we’re getting a good idea of how the Nemesis 280 GTS radiator performs relative to itself. But there is a large selection of 280mm radiator models to choose from, so let’s put the it’s results into some comparison charts.

Push Only Data vs Competition

In general, thicker radiator perform better than thinner radiators of the same size (fan capacity) but a lot also has to do with how each core has been designed / tuned; number of tubes, thickness of tubes, fin array etc.
If it were thickness alone we should expect the Nemesis 280 GTS to always be near the bottom and our testing would be totally unnecessary.

Focusing on the Push Only results for now, let’s see how the Nemesis 280 GTS’ performance compares to the competition.

Let’s start with 750 RPM.


Clearly this results is fantastic for the Nemesis 280 GTS. Finishing in fourth place and just 2% behind the winner. Of more interest is that all but one (which is the same thickness) of the radiators below it are at least 25% thicker, some are in fact twice as thick!

Now let’s look at 1300 rpm:

At Push Only 1300 RPM the group settles roughly into order of thickness. The 2 Nemesis GTS models have virtually identical results and are ~7% ahead of the other slim in the group.

 

Now 1850 rpm Push Only:

At 1850 rpm the Nemesis 280 GTS climbs a few spots and finishes 13% behind it’s dominant stable mate, the Nemesis GTX which is 25mm (or + 83%)  thicker. Of more relevance though is that it is the best performing slim radiator and is even ahead of thicker radiators such as the CE and AX.
Let’s find out how the Nemesis 280 GTS performs with Push/Pull fans.

Push/Pull Data vs. Competition

Firstly the 750 rpm:

Again the Nemesis 280 GTS is at the top end of the comparison chart in the low speed fan results.

Let’s move to 1300 rpm:

Here we see very similar ranking to which we saw at Push Only 1300. In Push/Pull the Nemesis 280 GTS and it’s sibling X-Flow variant have again performed almost identically and are clear of the other slim radiator by ~9%.

Now 1850 rpm:

At 1850 rpm Push/Pull the Nemesis 280 GTS is the clear winner of the slims in the group. It can’t match the performance of the thicker radiators but is not too behind the 45mm thick models.
Let’s now combine the Push Only and Push/Pull results of our 1.0 GPM flow rate tests. Sometimes these combined plots show up points of interest, though they can get a little busy and perhaps confusing if you’re not used to them.
It turns out that only the 1850 RPM has something of interest so the 750 rpm and 1300 rpm plots are spoilered.

Spoiler Inside: 750 rpm and 1300 rpm combined plots SelectShow

At 1850 the Push Only result of the Nemesis 280 GTS is only 2.5% behind the Push/Pull result of the ST30 which is also a 30mm thick radiator. Nice!!

On the other side of the coin the Nemesis 280 GTS’ Push/Pull (80mm total thickness) result is worse than the Nemesis GTX’s Pull Only result which is 79mm thick.

Another view of the same data, this time plotted as curves and some extrapolation added.
Be warned these plots can be hard to read given that many results are similar at the same data points.

Again the Push Only data first:

This perhaps best shows just how close the results are, particularly with low speed fans.

Because the data curves in plot above are almost blurred into one another, we have split it into two separate plots; 750 rpm to 1300 rpm and 1300 rpm to 1850rpm and zoomed in on those fan speed zones.


Now the Push/Pull results are plotted, again followed by split and zoomed versions.

Nemesis 280 GTS vs. Nemesis 360 GTS

Before moving on let’s take a quick look at the thermal results for the Nemesis 280 GTS and Nemesis 360 GTS on the same plot. This is one of those “just for fun” plots because in reality we can’t make a 1 to 1 comparison between the two sizes because of the differing performance of the fans used.

The Nemesis 280 GTS has ~10% less surface area than the Nemesis 360 GTS. Knowing that and the difference in fans used to test the 120.x and 140.x radiators, interpret the following as you will.

Push Only 750 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~11.5% better.
Push/Pull 750 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~3.5% better.

Push Only 1300 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~13.5% better.
Push/Pull 1300 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~5.5% better.

Push Only 1850 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~13.5% better.
Push/Pull 1850 rpm: Nemesis 360 GTS was ~3.5% better.

Which is an overall average of ~8.5% better performance in favor of the Nemesis 360 GTS, which has a ~10% greater surface area.

BUT, what I find most interesting is that the Nemesis 360 GTS’ Push Only results were almost equal to the Nemesis 280 GTS’ Push/Pull results.

From every radiator tested we create APF “Average Performance Factor” charts from both the Push Only and Push/Pull results. We also make a combined plot of the average called the “Master Performance Factor”. The radiator with the best cooling ability (W/10ΔT) at each rpm is awarded a score of 100 and every other radiators W/10ΔT result is scored as percentage of the top performer.

This way of looking at the comparison takes away any advantages that a radiator may have at higher or lower fan speeds and looks at an overall average. While this appears fair it does tend to favor those radiators that are all-rounders and those radiators which do very well at high RPM. Most users should be more focused on their specific use case.

Here are the Nemesis 280 GTS’ percentage scores at each data point:

This table shows us that the Nemesis 280 GTS is on average ~10% behind the best performing radiator at each data point that was tested, but range from 2% to over 22%. The results “appear” to get worse with increased fan speeds, but that does not mean that the Nemesis 280 GTS’ performance got worse, more so that the best radiator got better as the fan speeds increased.

As these percentage scores are relative to the best performer at each data point, we again advise readers to cross reference specifications and results for each radiator and keep in mind your intended fan assembly and operating speed.

The percentage numbers in the table above offer another way of looking at the Nemesis 280 GTS’ results. But for our scoring system we need a way to reduce the categories while retaining the data. To do this we average the results for each fan assembly type giving us Averaged Performance Factors. We calculate this for Push Only, Push/Pull and finally an average of everything.

Firstly – the Push Only APF:

With an 92.2 % Averaged Push Only result the Nemesis 280 GTS places equal 5th (after test error margin is factored in) with a radiator which is + 50% thicker than it. This is an excellent data set for the Nemesis 280 GTS.

Now the Push/Pull APF:

In Push/Pull APF rankings the Nemesis 280 GTS places equal 6th with it’s sibling X-Flow variant and a 45mm thick radiator. Any weak points were somewhat magnified by the 100% score on the Nemesis 280 GTX. All in all the Nemesis 280 GTS performed very well here given it’s thickness and was in equal 1st place for the slim radiators of the group.

Finally we created the Master Performance Factor which is calculated from the averaged results of all the Push Only and Push/Pull thermal tests, at all fan speeds.

The Nemesis 280 GTS placed equal 6th overall, ~ 8.5% behind the winning radiator. Of more relevance is that it came in as equal top performing slim radiator.

Space Efficiency

The Nemesis 280 GTS’ space efficiency vs. performance ranking is likely to be very good as thinner radiators almost always produce better results here than their thicker counterparts. We have used the Average Performance Factor results from the charts above to compile two plots which shows us how it compares to the other rads in terms of performance Vs. space taken.

First up is Radiator Thickness Vs. APF

Here the combined APF scores were divided by the radiator thickness only, with the highest (most space efficient) issued a score of 100. Each of the other radiators results was converted to a percentage of the most space efficient radiator’s score.

Lets call this an equal 1st place. The order has ended almost in order of thinnest to thickest and as anticipated the Nemesis 280 GTS ranked highly in this comparison.

Next we took the APF results for Push/Pull and divided it by the total thickness including the fans and applied the same scoring system. For the Push Only we used the Push Only Vs Push/Pull comparative results and applied the same scoring system when compared against the Push/Pull.

This plot is likely the most useful of the 2 plots for readers looking at space efficiency. With fan thickness factored in the Nemesis 280 GTS finishes in equal 1st place for both Push Only and Push/Pull.


Value Factor

While our APF’s are still fresh in mind, let’s now look at some results vs Price to show which of the 280mm radiators might offer the best bang for your buck. Each radiator’s combined APF scores were divided by the radiator cost and again we applied our scoring system of percentage Vs. the best performer of the category.

HWLN280GTS-APF-Value

The Nemesis 280 GTS’ Value Factor turns out to be the best of the group, which tells us that it offers excellent value for the performance potential it offers. In reality the difference is not great, but when visualizing with percentages as we have done, the gap appears large. Generally value and space efficiency metrics usually correlate – thicker radiators do contain more material afterall and so are usually also more expensive.

 

Next Up – Summary!

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Summary

Thermal Performance

Thermal Performance scores are derived from the relevant Performance Factor scores. We set this scale with 75% and below as the 0 mark, with each 2.5% increase in relative performance adding 0.5 to the awarded performance score.

Note: Our test group of 10 radiators range in thickness from 29.5mm to 84.5mm with core density ranging from 9 FPI to 21 FPI. This greatly differing array of samples means that the better performing thicker radiators (generally speaking) will actually make the thinner radiators scores appear worse. This is an unavoidable side effect of the scoring system and we again advise readers to focus on radiators which are suitable for the specific case scenario. Depending on the amount of variance in the results, this could end up with misleading scores based on the comparative performance.


Push Only Thermal Performance

  • 3.5/5

The Nemesis 280 GTS’ Push Only APF result of 92.2  translated into a performance score of 3.5/5.
It’s 19mm thick core combined with the medium density FPI fin array proved to be a great combination for Push Only. It ranked very well with low and high fan speed, but was really a great all rounder finishing in equal 5th overall and equal 1st among the slim radiators.


Push/Pull Thermal Performance

  • 2.5/5

The Push/Pull APF result of 87.3 translated into a thermal performance score of 2.5 out of 5. As expected the thicker rads pulled away in the performance comparisons, but among the slims the Nemesis 280 GTS was at the top taking equal 1st place.


Overall Thermal Performance

  • 3/5

The Master Performance score of 89.8 generates an overall performance score of 3/5, painfully close to achieving a 3.5. It was ~8.5% behind the overall winner came in equal 1st among the slim radiators. Again the Nemesis GTX pushed many other radiator’s scores lower having an APF result of 98.2.

Performance is not the be all and end all factor in making a purchase decision, though for many it is high on the selection criteria.

Because of it’s thinness the Nemesis 280 GTS ranked very well in our Thermal Performance Vs. Space Efficiency metric and the Value Vs. Performance in which it came 1st place in both categories.

 

Features & Quality – 4/5

The Nemesis 280 GTS has Hardware Labs legendary Black Ice DNA built in. The build quality is excellent with and the matte black finish is flawless. It is quality products like this that that has earned Hardware Labs the reputation of setting the standard for PC radiators.

The 30mm thickness is the standout physical characteristic of the Nemesis 280 GTS and offers fantastic performance for builders putting together small form factor builds or those wanting to add extra cooling capacity to larger builds but are limited on mounting options.

There are only two G 1/4 ports and there is no auxiliary bleeder/fill port fitted. Tube protection plates are included to protect the medium dense 16 FPI core.  Given this some dedicated cleaning time should be set aside to keep performance at peak levels. It has a very high restriction level so consideration of pump power and expected flow rate is advised particularly if multiple Nemesis GTS series radiators are to be installed in a loop.

Summary – 3.5/5

The Nemesis 280 GTS proved to be a very good all round performer and was best (or equal best) of the slim radiators in 4 of the 6 thermal tests, sometimes outperforming radiators which were 50% thicker.

The fantastic thermal performance comes with a price though, it is very restrictive, almost excessively restrictive even, and this is the only real downside to the Nemesis 280 GTS. If the port locations are suitable or perhaps even more convenient for your build we suggest considering the Nemesis 280 GTS X-Flow which is virtually equal in thermal performance but is much less restrictive due to it being a single pass radiator.

The Nemesis 280 GTS looks great, has best in class performance and is fantastic value for money. With a caution thrown in about the restriction level we have no hesitation in recommending the the Nemesis 280 GTS and are issuing it with a coveted ER award.

 

Where to buy:

 

 

 

  • Performance PCs : Black $60 (USD) + shipping
  • Performance PCs : White $70 (USD) + shipping
  • Performance PCs : Red $70 (USD) + shipping
  • Performance PCs : Primer $60 (USD) + shipping

 

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1 COMMENT

  1. Another great radiator review! I love the exact TDP dissipation numbers at different fan speeds.

    The GTS series looks like the radiator to beat in the thin category. I especially like the fact that these are non-louvered designs which seem to require less static pressure than louvered, and obviously “store” less dust. I have both the white GTS and GTX radiators in 280mm, as well as an L-Series which is a bit easier to fit because it has the reduced width. All have been great even at low fan speeds. I have a crossflow 280GTS and a 280GTS L-series in a modified Corsair 350D with hih airflow front panel, with push only Thermaltake Riing fans (140mm) and they cool my i7 5960x at 4Ghz and my 980Ti at 1.55ghz (I got lucky) amazingly at 1000 RPM. Highest temps on the i7 5960x at 1.20 volts are 65 celsius (except with Prime 95 AVX which goes to 75) and the 980Ti is only at 43 celsius at full bore, and my water temps are only around 6-8 celsius Delta-T. Amazingly quiet and cool. I could theoretically add another 980Ti to the loop with only a slight increase in fan speeds and not have to worry about over-subscribing the water cooling loop, based on the heat dissipation potential shown here.

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