Coolit Domino A.L.C. DM-1000 CPU Cooler

Introduction

Published: 2nd July 2009 | Source: Coolit | Price: £75.99 | Author: Graham Newton

Introduction

Water cooling has come a long, long way in the last few years. No longer is it the hobby of crazy, pasty skinned nerds hidden away in their basements making blocks out of old shoes and using garden hose as tubing. These days it's a fairly common place part of an enthusiast's' machine. And with this water for the masses, it wasn't long before a company or two decided to start producing all in one solutions for the ~~truly lazy~~ less confident among us.

Enter Coolit. They have now been producing integrated solutions in the market for a few years now. The first product we saw from them here at OC3D was the Freezone Elite, which integrated Coolit's speciality into the idea of water cooling, Thermo-electric coolers. Since then they have released a few more products designed to bring superior cooling to the everyday user and the tech savvy alike. Adding solutions for both single and dual GPUs to their product lines.

Now Coolit are back with another all-in-one solution, dubbed the Domino ALC (standing for advanced liquid cooling). They've done away with their desire to quadruple the power consumption of your PC and gone for a normal rad-pump-block setup with the Domino. Now it may seem like I'm going back on the last two and a half paragraphs, but this solution can't really be compared to a full, custom water setup. 'Why oh why?' I hear you call. Well it's mostly down to two factors, firstly the price, and second the fact that it's installation is, in theory at least, as easy as an air system. So with out further stalling for time we'll take a dive into the review.

Heading over to Coolit's own site we find a a few paragraphs about the product:

Domino A.L.C. offers the technological advantages of liquid cooling by efficiently transporting damaging heat away from the CPU as well as reducing overall chassis temperature levels. The system provides incredible thermal headroom, keeping pace with advances in processor technology and thus supporting the ability to maximise the performance of high performance PCs.

Users have the option to switch between three operation modes with the simple push of a button satisfying the need for quiet or the desire for over clocking performance. Domino A.L.C. is the only cooling solution with an integrated display providing system status as well as audible alerts if attention is required. The advanced micro-controller auto-regulates performance to ensure continuous protection for maintaining CPU reliability.

The compact Domino A.L.C. is factory sealed ready to be quickly and easily installed into the most crowded chassis. Mounting hardware for Intel 775/1366 and AMD AM2+ processors is included along with a specially engineered retention mechanism which ensures an optimum interface with the CPU and limits the weight on the motherboard to well below the maximum specified by CPU manufacturers.

This system of carefully designed and selected components will provide over 50,000 hours or worry free operation backed by an unprecedented 2 year manufacturer warranty.

Packaging

The Domino came in a medium size single walled cardboard box which was riddled with detail about it's contents. There were pictures of the product all over the box, along with a lot of text and diagrams highlighting the various selling points and features on the unit. It felt a little like they had copy and pasted most of the product page form their site onto the box, but never the less the box was eye-catching and informative.

The cardboard was looking a little worse for wear after its journey too me. This tripped off a little concern about what the state the contents were in. However after opening the box and finding the Domino to be sandwiched tightly in a formed plastic casing, though fears were swayed.

The casing was even sandwiched with two layers of white foam too add an extra edge of protection. The packaging should provide adequate protection to keep it's contents safe on its journey from an e-tailer to your door. The only niggle being that a slightly more substantial between the block and radiator, as the Domino did suffer a slight nick in transit that you can see on the next page.

Next up we'll take a look at the product itself...

Most Recent Comments

03-07-2009, 11:13:34

uchihas

I think it has a really great price. You get a fully built water cooler for a little more of the price of an IFX-14.

It's not the best, but it's the cheapest one, you can't demand the same to this than to a 500€ water cooling solution.

It's a good way for people who want to try water cooling but don't have patience to build or don't have money.

03-07-2009, 11:39:09

themcman1

At least it's not completely awful.

I don't think many people on here would go for it though.

03-07-2009, 13:20:42

Datamonkey

Nice review,

Looks ideal for someone who wants to try out water cooling, wouldnt expect an enthusiast to buy one.

hmmm wonder if it could be modded to cool a graphics card :)

Saying that current gpu's throw out more heat than cpu's at the moment.

06-07-2009, 09:39:54

mayhem

still have my doubt. the type of people fitting this wont have much of a clue about water cooling and to be honest it would surprise me if they got the temps you did inside a case.

Yup the price is cheap when comparing to other water cooling solution but would the price be worth it over air cooling not really. id say middle of the road but defiantly not a buy for me and would not recommend to any way.

I wonder though if you cut the pipes off, and put in you own pump and tubing and changed the compound to some thing decent would this improve the over all temps ...

call it modding a moders peace of kit lol.

The only problem i have as well is how accurate is the lcd.

Another thing im seeing plenty of reviews of this product and its being talk about , But what about there next version up the one that uses Tec's to cool the system and all so have Software controlled monitoring and adjustments ... There doesn't seem to be much info about that on the net or any reviews.

06-07-2009, 10:09:25

Jim

Another thing im seeing plenty of reviews of this product and its being talk about , But what about there next version up the one that uses Tec's to cool the system and all so have Software controlled monitoring and adjustments ... There doesn't seem to be much info about that on the net or any reviews.

This the one you mean: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cases_cooling/coolit_freezone_elite_cpu_cooler/1 ?

06-07-2009, 10:13:49

mayhem

LOl thks jim yeh that's the one ... didnt see that.

06-07-2009, 10:20:24

Jim

LOl thks jim yeh that's the one ... didnt see that.

Its weird because the Elite has been around donkey's years, but I think there's a slightly modified version on its way out soon that addresses some of the 'issues' of the original. I do believe we're on the cards for a look at the new one too, so watch this space :p

16-10-2009, 16:54:57

harrydavidson

Great review, I will def choose this over the Corsair when i get paid at the end of the month! :yumyum:

16-10-2009, 19:22:19

Motoman

These systems are for very basic beginer's into water cooling arena, if you have a hot running cpu I would doubt you get temps that are good enough to use it. But they are a begining into water cooling and have thier place.

17-10-2009, 06:44:50

Socks

horrible things.....:mad:

might as well stick to air cooling if buying one of these...