OCZ Hydro Pulse 800 L/h Pump

One of the most important parts of a liquid system is the pump, because without a pump the water isn’t going to go anywhere. Today we have OCZ’s high end water pump.

Introduction

Liquid cooling never really comes out to be cheap, and if it does you are probably picking bad components. Today we have what can be considered a mid-range pump. This is plenty if you are running just the CPU in your loop, or maybe a single graphics card. This pump is also competitively priced, which puts it in the same price range as some 500 L/h pumps. This is certainly great news for someone looking for good deal on a pump. Lets take a look at how it performs!

Features & Specifications

The OCZ HydroPulse Water Pump is the ideal accessory for the enthusiast’s water cooling system. It’s compatible with the latest CPU and VGA water cooling system setups. The HydroPulse 800 will seamlessly integrate with the latest waterblocks and moves 800L / hour with its powerful low-noise design.

Highly reliable and ultra-quiet, the HydroPulse will work silently to ensure your cooling system is operating at it’s peak. Making the most of your overclocking potential.

These stats look pretty normal for the average pump. The pump is rated for 50,000 hours, which amounts to about 2,084 days of non-stop pumping. Even if you keep this pump running 24/7 it should still last more than five years. There won’t be a need to replace it for a very long time.

Pictures & Impressions

Lets start off with the box the pump comes in. On the front we see the name and some quick facts about the pump. The box looks solid enough. Let’s see how OCZ packaged it.

When you first open the box you are greeted with some styrofoam cutouts. These were the first two things to fall out. To the left is the manual that will explain all about the pump and the install, in detail. To the right are the barbs and clamps. The barbs are what your tubing attaches too. The clamps ensure that nothing comes loose.

Here we have some of the included accessories. The thing in the bag is an adapter. You use it to power the pump from a Molex connector. OCZ states that you must run this pump from a Molex connector. This is probably because the pump will draw too many amps from the motherboard, and potentially damage it. To the right of this is a pad that you can use to mount the pump. This will reduce vibrations, and allow the pump to run quieter. Below this is a few brackets that will help steady the pump.

Now we are on to the main attraction, the pump itself. The design is pretty basic, which is fine with us since all it has to do is move the liquid.

As you can see here the water goes into the top and out of the side. It is important to hook up the pump properly, or you will get increased temperatures. Now that you’ve had a good look at the product lets see how it performs.

Methodology

The pumps were tested back to back on the same liquid loop. The loop includes a D-Tek Fuzion V2 block with a custom acrilic top and a Swiftech MCR320 radiator. The comparison pump used was a Swiftech MCP655. To determine the idle temperature, I let the computer sit idle for 20 minutes and then recorded the temperature. To determine the load temperature, I booted up Prime95 and let it run for 20 minutes. Then I averaged the highest temperature reported by each core. A detailed list of the system is listed in the chart below.

Results

Right out of the gate the OCZ pump almost matches the MCP655. This is to be expected with the Fuzion block, because more water flowing through it does not significantly increases it’s cooling.

When we raise the speed and voltage of the CPU we see the temperatures go up some. The OCZ pump manages to close the gap, but still comes up short.

Again the OCZ pump is close, but still doesn’t have enough to match the MCP655.

Conclusion

The OCZ Hydro Pulse 800 is a very respectable pump. While it may not move as much water as the MCP655, 800 L/h is still a pretty respectable amount of water. The pump easily moves enough water to run a CPU as well as a video card in the same loop. Combine that with the price of this pump and you have a pretty great combination for a mid range liquid loop. Of course this somewhat depends on your liquid block. If you have a block that doesn’t respond well to higher flow rates like the Fuzion you are better off saving some money with this pump. On the other hand if you have a higher flow block such as the Swiftech GTX you are probably better off getting a higher flow pump.