In October last year I reviewed the Asetek WaterChill KT12-L30 Kit. It was Asetek’s top-of-the-line kit at the time and it was a nice step up from their first generation kits. You can find the original review here. If you don’t want to read the review, I’ll sum it up for you. There wasn’t a lot that I didn’t like about the kit. The WaterChill kit showed excellent build quality, good performance, reasonable price, good looks, ease of assembly and far better than average documentation. It’s about as close as you’ll come to a “plug-and-play” water kit. The new offering promises the same high quality.

A few months ago I received an email from Asetek announcing the release of a new CPU block. If you’re a water cooling aficionado, by now you know the new Antarctica block from Asetek is racking up some very nice numbers in recent tests. Joe over at Overclockers.com has it tied with the DangerDen RBX in his testing. I’ve been itching to get my hands on one ever since. I jumped on it when I was offered the chance for a review. I was asked to pick out the kit I’d like to review and I didn’t hesitate to go for the new high-end “power kit”. Ungh-ungh…more power! I was anxious to see what the folks at Asetek had improved to warrant the new “power” designation. Today we check out the WaterChill CPU/VGA/Chipset Power kit - KT12A-L30/115V/Dual Rad. 1/2".

Package

The packaging is a definite improvement over the plain brown box the last kit arrived in. Nice graphics adorn a “snow” white corrugated plastic box lined with “snow” white foam rubber packing material. I think the “snow” white is intended to represent Antarctic conditions. What will those clever advertising people think of next? Unfortunately, “snow” white couldn’t keep the radiator from harm. One of the fittings was badly bent opening up a large gash where the fitting is mated to the radiator. Perhaps they should have included The Seven Dwarves to guard it as well. Groan. Testing was delayed somewhat as I had to wait for a new rad. I can't blame this one on Attila the UPS guy, the shipper was TNT. Not exactly an inspiring name for a shipping company. "When it absolutely, positively has to be destroyed overnight...think TNT."

As you can see this is a complete kit. The only thing you’ll need to run to the store for is distilled water.

Included:

• WaterChill CPU cooler Antarctica block supporting
- Intel P4 S478, AMD Socket A,
- AMD S754/S940 (AMD 64)
• WaterChill VGA cooler block supporting Nvidia/Gforce ad ATI/Radeon AGP cards
• WaterChill Chip set cooler block supporting Intel, AMD, SIS and VIA chip sets
• Dual Black Ice Pro Radiator with push on fittings
• 2 x 120 mm Low Noise Papst Fans
• 1200 l/hr (320 gph) Hydor Pump with push on fittings • WaterChill Plexiglas Reservoir
• WaterChill 1/2' Tube Set (3,0 mtr.)
• ALL fittings and mounting accessories are included
• Anti Algae Fluid - 25 ml bottle
• Heat Conduction Compound - 2 ml tube
• Installation Manual and a Insert for the Antarctica