Thermochill PA Radiators?

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mwin

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I was looking at the Thermochill PA radiators, after hearing how they were supposed to be so great. I was getting ready to add the 120.2 version to my shopping cart, when I realized that these things cost almost $120!! Good Lord! Why are these things so expensive? I've had pretty good results with the Black Ice radiators I've had in both my previous builds, and I guess I'm going to try them again. Are these things really worth all that money?
 
Simple - they're made in the UK, rather than China or any other slave-labour country. Exchange rate for GBP:USD... nothing anyone can do about the exchange rates of currencies.

Best way of putting it that I've seen in a long time...

Marci and I have a lot of similarities, but at the end of the day, I'm only a hobbyist and only need to look after my own interests, which are not driven by money. Thermochill is an actual company, and employs people who have families to feed and bills to pay, and make a living that is hopefully somewhat above the $2/day living-in-a-shanty labour force that fuels the cheap items that some people who don't care about anything but the final cost wish for.

Thermochill is one of the few companies left in this market that is making a moral stand against the use of near slave-labour to manufacture cheaper items. They are doing their best to ensure that the manufacturing workers in a first world country aren't put out to the dogs like what is happening almost everywhere.

If I were running a company, I'd be doing the same thing for as long as I could afford to do so as well. It might not be the "smart" thing to do in a business sense, but when you're dealing with real people who you work with and trust, it's rather hard to look them in the eye and then shoot their livelihood in the head and hand their job to an anonymous off-shore slave-wage worker .... *snip*.... I openly applaud Thermochill for sticking to their guns in a difficult environment. Not every customer at the end of the day appreciates it though. All some (most?) want is to buy the cheapest possible item, even if it's sub-standard, and even if it means that in doing so they're putting that guy down the street who works in the local manufacturing industry out of a job.
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(Source: Cathar - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1781791&postcount=94)

We could produce the radiators much much cheaper, but it would involve laying off a factory of staff in the UK, leaving a handful of office staff... and having the entire range produced in China / India / Romania or similar. I'm not prepared to have our loyal workforce screwed over. I'd rather they were made where we can physically oversee and control the process, instead of having them made thousands of miles away in a land where copyright is non-existant.
 
Marci's quote covers the supply side of the equation.

That's only half of it though. If Black Ice or Swiftech tried to do the same thing, and sell their products at double their current prices, they would fall out of the market pretty quickly. The reason Thermochill is able to keep existing when they have prices so much higher than everyone else is because their product really is a lot better than all the others. They have less pressure drop, more cooling capability, and require less fan speed/noise to acheive their phenomenal results.

Now, Thermochill's performance may not be that(3x) much better, but it is enough that there are people willing to pay for it. For most mortals, I'd say Thermochills aren't worth it. But when people are contemplating SLI builds close $400 I usually start to mention them as an option. There is a (high) price point where the PA radiators start to make sense. It's usually after you have the best or close to the best of everything else already.
 
And we still make less profit per radiator than any of our competitors... :eek: so who's ripping who off? :confused:
 
i have a thermochill 120.3 (part of my very first watercooling build) and while it was higher in price(you do get what you pay for) it was well worth it. I know i have the option for expandibility(i am only cooling one 1900xtx right now and an oc'ed 165) and have 0 concerns on the heat delta i would get from adding more devices to the pa 120.3's heat disapation capabilities.
 
oh and...


yes they are the best. costly, yes, but when you finally add that one extra component to your sys, and your BIP rad starts to get warm, exhausting hot air and all that and you are like, "damn i done overloaded my rad", well thats where the difference is. you can't overload the PA.

they say never skimp on the PSU. all the awesome components in your system will get handicapped if you skimp on a shitty PSU. i think the same goes for a W/C loop. dont skimp on the RAd if you can.
 
I'm sorry to break the news to everyone...but there's not a whole lot of 'slave labor' that goes on here in China anymore. Most of those news stories you read (esp. the Apple fiasco) are simply propaganda NOT from an evil Communist government but from self-serving capitalist competing companies.

If you would like to talk more about this, you can come over to China and I'll give you a tour :D

All that takes nothing away from the fact that the build quality of the PA's are second to none, and the performance has been proven time and time again.
 
Marci said:
And we still make less profit per radiator than any of our competitors... :eek: so who's ripping who off? :confused:
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Do you mean Thermochill makes a smaller percentage profit, or fewer profit dollars per unit? I'd be scared if it was the latter. (Of course case 2 implies case 1, but not vice versa.)
 
Wha. What happened to the Thermochill prices? The PA120.2 used to hover around $100 USD now its $20 more. Anyone have any info when they will drop back down in price. Gah, I was hoping to grab one but cant come to terms with paying that price for which I got my PA120.3 1 month ago. :mad:
 
You get what you pay for. Thermochill makes the best rad's I've ever seen. Best performance. The price is a bit higher, but it's worth it for those willing to squeeze every last drop of performance out. I would buy one in a heartbeat.

Erasmus, the 160 fits perfectly in a p180? I do'nt see where it could fit..
 
Take the ThermoChill Challenge, hold and look over the competitor and then pick up and inspect a ThermoChill Rad. If you don't see and feel the difference then spend your money on the "Other Guys". :eek:

The construction and performance has not been matched at any price, heck I recently read where a company (not mentioning any names) came out with a 120.4 rad that almost, just might, kinda, sorta equal the ThermoChill PA120.3. ;) :D
 
Woah.. No mods or anything? I might have to get one for that spot. I don't have drives in there either, woot.
 
The PA120.2 handles my odd-ball system perfectly, but to be honest I don't have anything to compare it too.

My only complaint is the paint finish could be much better, the slightest scratch and the finish comes off, although I heard they fixed that too. Many don't care about the paintwork anyway, and those that do paint them.
 
Great build and performance also at very low noise levels. Even with SLI'ed 7900GTX's plus a 2.60GHz X2 the coolant temp is only a couple degrees above ambient and thats at full crank (fans at the lowest possible speed btw, just so you feel some airflow).
 
Mysterae said:
The PA120.2 handles my odd-ball system perfectly, but to be honest I don't have anything to compare it too.

My only complaint is the paint finish could be much better, the slightest scratch and the finish comes off, although I heard they fixed that too. Many don't care about the paintwork anyway, and those that do paint them.
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Well painting them with any ol' paint wlll diminish the thermal characteristics of the radiator. But feel lucky that its only a paint job problem. My PA 120.3 came with two dings on the fins themselves
 
So, witholding size. For a similar 120.2 Rad are thermochills drastically better than let's say a Heatercore? All I can guess is cooling potential is similar but Heatercore is larger and maybe causes a larger pressure drop and requires higher air pressure? I can only guess that since heatercores have auto waterpumps and large fans that have plenty of power to run them.
 
headala said:
I'm sorry to break the news to everyone...but there's not a whole lot of 'slave labor' that goes on here in China anymore.
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Hmmm, probably should read that quote again. The reference was not that China employed slave labour at all, but rather that the employees get paid the equivalent of slave-salaries (in comparison to various other countries).

I know that I was very careful not to imply that Chinese workers are slave labour, just the equivalent salaries being paid.
 
silverphoenix said:
So, witholding size. For a similar 120.2 Rad are thermochills drastically better than let's say a Heatercore? All I can guess is cooling potential is similar but Heatercore is larger and maybe causes a larger pressure drop and requires higher air pressure? I can only guess that since heatercores have auto waterpumps and large fans that have plenty of power to run them.
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I've been hoping to see a comparison between something like a Bonneville heater core and the field of specialty watercooling rads. The large PDF comparison done by Bill Adams made heater cores seem like an afterthought, imo. How about a comparison of the PA rads with and without shrouds as well? I've only got room for one 5.25" drive in my 17" case thanks to my Bonneville core, shroud, and two 25mm thick aluminum fans (and I had to mod my standard-length PSU for the wires to clear). Would sure be nice to have some more data to make my next build easier, without having to default to a CM Stacker case just so I can have some room inside.

I've got NO problem shelling out extra (even being in Canada, suffering from border fees) for a solid product (which I know TC makes) if the performance is that much better than what I'm currently using.

Big thanks to Cathar and Marci (et al) for making the PA rads happen. :)
 
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