Introduction
HardwareLabs SR-1 360 Radiator Review
The intention of this radiator review is to provide information and performance data about the HardwareLabs SR-1 360mm radiator for inclusion in the Extreme Rigs Rad Round Up 2015. I’ll be keeping the review section short and factual, focusing on presenting the performance data compiled through the numerous tests carried out.
Note: The SR-1 series is now “optimized for sub-800 rpm ultra-stealth fans”. The SR-2 is instead optimized for high flow and I hope to have an SR2 360 in hand soon for reviewing and testing. Although the SR-1 is not yet EOL, it is being “phased out but will remain available as per any demand by the channels”. In other words it’ll keep being available if it keeps getting ordered by resellers.
What’s in the box?
The SR-1 sample being tested was pulled from storage for the review/round-up. It appears to be in as new condition and was stored in original packaging complete with screw sets.
The front of the outer sleeve leaves us in no doubt as to what is inside. On the back we find some tech drawings and list of features.
Removing the outer sleeve we find a sturdy shipping box with a sticker seal that gives us a warning about using correct length screws.
The lift up flap at one end for the screws is perfect, keeping them away from the precious core.
Extent of Delivery:
1x Radiator
12x M4 x 28mm black Phillips slotted pan head screws.
12x M4 x 5mm black Phillips slotted pan head screws.
Onwards to technical specifications!
Technical Specifications
Technical specifications as listed by HardwareLabs:
- Two-pass u-flow configuration utilizing high-flow tubes for up to 40% increase in internal flow rates.
- Custom compressed core width to maximize airflow and enhance heat exchange.
- Optimized custom 9 FPI (Fins Per Inch) 45 micron copper fins.
- Yields up to 30% more heat exchange capacity than the Black Ice® GTX in ultra-stealth operation mode up to 2000rpm.
- Built-in 15mm deep plenum for equalized core air pressure distribution.
- M4 Threaded Screw Holes for easier mounting and greater adaptability.
- Standard G 1/4″ female threaded fittings.
- Full high-temper brass structural construction for weight reduction and superior corrosion resistance.
- High performance compact radiator compatible as an upgrade to the Black Ice® Xtreme III, Black Ice® GTX360 and most 3x120mm fan form factor radiators.
- Uses 100% Non-corrosive water-soluble fluxing process.
- Fully RoHS compliant.
- Full electrostatic polyurethane painting finish for uniform coating with high temperature curing for increased finish durability.
- Carbon Black Finish.
- Renowned Black Ice® quality.
- Patent Pending Design.
Width 133 mm, Height 397 mm, Thickness 54 mm
Dimensions Measured on the radiator tested (retail unit):
Radiator Core Dimensions:
Core Details;
The SR-1 has a low density core with a fin count of 9 FPI (fins per inch) which was measured in numerous places on the core. The fin spacing is very even up and down the tubes. The thick tubes and low fin count should equate to a high flow / low restriction radiator which favors lower fan speeds. At 53 mm thick it classifies as a thick radiator for the round up, however it does have a thin core (33mm) relative to it’s housing thickness. That leaves 20mm of internal shroud depth which is split 13mm/7mm.
Finish and Features
The SR-1 has matte black finish and my used unit was in excellent condition, a tribute I suppose to HWLabs renowned reputation for build quality and finish. All the visible joins look perfect. The housing is solid with no flimsiness or flex on the side panels. It has some weight to it when holding it and to put it simply the SR-1 looks and feels like a high quality radiator. This sort of quality is what HWLabs industry leading standards was built upon.
There are just the 2 ports on the SR-1, inlet and outlet. There are no alternative port options nor a bleeder/fill port on the return tank. The use of M4 threads for the fan mounting screws is excellent.
Let’s see how it performs…
Flow Performance
The Data
As all the testing in this round up was performed with the exact same equipment, using the exact same methods I have decided to keep each radiators page uncluttered by posting 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 back to the RRU’15 Test Equipment Page.
Restriction Test
It’s 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:
Note: The picture above of the test set-up is for reference only, the SR-1 is not loaded so please disregard the readings.
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 SR-1 is a very low restriction radiator. However numbers in isolation can only tell half the story. By plotting against other components it more easily shows the whole story. I have decided to use a HeatKiller 3.0 CPU block as the reference in these plots for two reasons. Firstly there is no 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. For radiator to radiator restriction comparisons please see the RRU’15 data pages. As with all the radiator restriction plots I have limited the maximum flow rate displayed to 2.0 GPM as I 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.
Now that we’ve seen how the SR1 performs vs flow, let’s take a few of those data points and compare to other radiators:
As can be seen the SR1 is a very low restriction radiator and there will be no problems connecting multiple of them in a loop.
Onwards to Thermal Performance!
Thermal Performance
The Thermal Data
Moving on from the restriction test bench the SR-1 radiator was loaded into the thermal test chamber for a series of 9 tests – consisting of 3 flow rates, each having 3 different fan rpm rates tested. I felt the thermal test data was most important and which you as the reader would be most interested in.
Below is the final data results gathered from at least 2 data logging runs at each 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 were used in the thermal test chamber (8 air in, 2 air out, 3 water in, 3 water out) each take a reading every second and logged via a CrystalFontz unit. The data in the table below is the result 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 cold ambient air temperature in to 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 is the amount of power required to raise the coolant temperature 1C (or 10C which is more useful reference point).
Like the vast majority of the other radiators tested, the SR1 cares little about flow rate, particularly above 1.0GPM. Here are some plots to show the variance:
For those who love the curves, I have plotted a chart and added a poly-line to extrapolate the data. Note that the extrapolation of the curve is much more sensitive to error than in between the tested range.
So the performance is not greatly affected by varying flow rate. However Delta T is not always helpful when thinking about how many radiators you would need to cool your system. Instead it’s more useful to know the delta/W, or more usefully, the inverse metric of W/delta C.
The metric plotted below tells us how many watts are dissipated by the radiator when the coolant rises 10C above ambient temperatures. (10 Delta T):
As expected increasing fan speed and therefore airflow through the radiator is the primary determinant in changing the radiators performance. This data can now be plotted as a pretty curve 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.
This makes it easier to see that at higher fan speeds that a low flow starts to impact the cooling performance. This makes sense if you take it to the extreme and think about a very low flow rate where the coolant is already cooled 99% of the way to ambient with 10% of its journey through the radiator. In this example the radiator is not being efficiently used. 90% of the radiator surface area would then be wasted and you could have used a smaller radiator.
Having said all of this in this next plot all three flow rate results were averaged together to produce one curve. This works well because the radiator was so flow rate insensitive. Averaging reduces test error of course so this helps further to be sure of our data and is more useful therefore for comparing to other radiators.
Now let’s compare the Push data vs Push/Pull only:
This shows that there is a small gain by moving to Push/Pull.
Now let’s analyze that data.
Data Analysis
Using the data compiled from the SR-1 thermal testing I have compiled the following tables in an attempt to show another way how the SR-1 performance varies against itself at the flow rates and fan speeds tested.
We can then use these to show percentage gains relative to a reference point. It’s an interesting way to show gains/losses while changing a variable. This first table shows performance gain or loss relative to 1.0GPM flow rate:
This shows that increasing flow rate matters in some cases, but not a huge amount.
We can also focus on 1300RPM as our reference and see how much gain or loss in performance we get by changing fan speed:
As expected the change is dramatic. Unexpectedly this rpm based plot shows up quite well how little the SR-1 is affected by change in the flow rate. It got me to thinking how a reference point of 0.5 gpm and 750 rpm would look when plotted.
It wasn’t quite what I was expecting; it does however show again that increasing flow rate has a small effect on increasing performance. At the same time it shows percentage increases of the different gpm/rpm combos tested.
Lastly we can combine both and choose 1300 RPM and 1.0 GPM as our reference point to show both effects concurrently:
So from the data above we can get a very good idea of how the SR-1 radiator performs relative to itself. But there is a large selection of 360mm radiator models to choose from, released from numerous manufacturers. So, we need to start comparing performance between them. To see how the radiator performed against the other radiators in this group I have included the averaged flow rate comparison charts from the Round Up. We know that the flow rate has little impact on thermal performance so averaging of the 3 flow rate results gives us a good look at head to head push/pull performance at the rpm speeds tested at with even less error.
First, let’s look at Push only data:
At 750RPM the SR1 is in the upper half. As we know this is a radiator tuned for low speed fans, we will be expecting this to be it’s best result.
At 1300RPM the results match expectations with the SR1 already dropping closer to the bottom.
At 1850RPM though the SR1 did not go into freefall but kept scaling and indeed picked back up a few spots.
Now let’s look at push/pull:
At 750RPM the SR1 now does worse than in push. This is not a surprise given that it didn’t scale well with push/pull.
At 1300RPM nothing improves.
At 1850RPM the SR1 again picks up a little bit.
Using only the 1GPM data we can compare Push to Push/Pull in an “apples to apples” fashion:
The plots are very busy, but the color coordination can help seperate things out. at 750RPM then the SR1 in Push/Pull is nearly overtaken by it’s cousin the SR2 in push. Meanwhile at the lower end, the SR1 in Push is itself overtaking the worst Push/Pull setup.
At 1300 RPM the SR1 P/P setup is getting overtaken by more Push only setups.
At 1850RPM the SR1 just doesn’t come across as a performance radiator.
From all of these results we can create a “master performance factor”. The radiator with the best cooling ability (W/10ΔT) at each gpm/rpm combo was awarded a score of 100, and each other radiators W/10ΔT result was scored as percentage of the top performer:
This plot shows better how the SR-1 actually performs better comparatively at lower fan speeds. As the fan speeds increase it falls further behind the leaders in the test group. Indeed, testing at <500RPM may have really allowed the SR1 to shine. The linear performance of the SR-1 shows up, again unexpectedly with the percentage difference in the rpm tests.
Then all these percentage scores were averaged giving us the Averaged Performance Factor of each radiator. 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. Check in the Round Up for performance comparisons at every gpm/rpm combo for even more details and cross comparison results.
Again let’s start with Push only data:
Despite some poor performance numbers the SR1’s performance at 750RPM pulls it up to an above average score.
In Push/Pull the SR1 was never expected to do well. However it could also have done a lot worse.
Next up – Summary!
Summary
Push Performance – 2.5/5
Push/Pull Performance – 2/5
Overall Thermal Performance – 2/5
At first glance the SR-1 appears to be one of the worst performers of the group particularly when you ignore some of the slimmer radiators.
It’s not surprising really though as this is a radiator designed for very low airflows. 750RPM using high static pressure fans like the Gentle Typhoon is simply not what this radiator is optimized for. Of the medium and thick rads it has the equal 2nd thinnest core and the equal lowest fin count of all the radiators in the test group. The potential cooling power just isn’t there when airflow increases.
On a positive note, the restriction level was very low, so installing multiple SR-1 radiators in a loop will not have a major impact on flow rates.
It was not in the scope of this round of testing, and therefore not in the results, but the SR-1 was marketed as being “Optimized for sub-800 rpm ultra-stealth fans”, so given it’s comparative results were best at low fan speed in push, I believe that the SR-1’s results relative to competition would improve at even low fan speeds still.
Features & Quality – 3.5/5
Build quality on the SR-1 was among the best of the test group (along with the other HardwareLabs offerings). The matte black paint finish is silky smooth and without flaws, even after having been used previously. Thick gauge side panels are used making the SR-1 solid with no flex at all. Fin spacing was uniform up and down the tubes and all the joints look great. The very low 9 FPI count means less maintenance and down time having to remove dust build up less often.
The SR-1 is a basic design with just single inlet/outlet port option and no fill/bleeder port. M4 threads are used for installation and fan attachment; however there are no protector plates.
The deep internal shrouds assist in optimizing fan efficiency and therefore radiator efficiency. The especially deep shroud on the non-port side (13mm) could give the SR-1 the edge in push only fan set-ups.
Summary
Long praised as the king of slow speed fans the results in my push/pull testing proved otherwise. Against the competition it wasn’t able to keep up and with a relative performance factor score of just 87 it could only achieve a performance rating of 2.5/5 in the push/pull configuration of the test set-up. The build quality and finish was among the best of the group.
The SR-1 is EOL having been superseded by the newly released SR2, so some bargains can be found online at the time of publishing.
Where to buy: $79 – PPCS
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