Posted by Morry Teitelman | Feb 26, 2014 | Cases and Cooling | 5

Antec is an established company and brand-name in the computer component space, offering quality solutions for everything from cases and power supplies to thermal paste and case-mounted fan controllers. Their latest foray is into the world of liquid cooling. The KUHLER H20 1250 is their flagship liquid cooler, featuring an all-in-one dual pump design, a 240mm x 120mm x 25mm aluminum radiator, and hardware monitoring support via the integrated USB cable and the included Antec Grid software. The KUHLER H2O 1250 comes standard with support for all current Intel and AMD CPU offerings. To gage the performance of Antec's flagship cooler, we set it against several other high-performance liquid and air-based coolers. With a retail MSRP of $109.99, the KUHLER H2O 1250 cooler comes at a premium for all the premium features it has to offer.

The KUHLER H2O 1250 liquid cooler was designed for a single purpose, to keep your process as cool as possible. Antec includes two pumps with the unit, one integrated into each fan. The top pump pulls liquid through the radiator and pushes it to the CPU block through the radiator outlet, while the bottom pump pulls water from the CPU block through the radiator inlet and pushes it through the radiator towards the top pump.

The water block is composed of a plastic shell protecting the PCB and copper innards of the block. The top of the block containing an RGB LED that changes color based on block temperature, going from blue to red as the temperature increases. The base plate is a machined and polished copper plate with 12 hold down screws holding the plate to the block body. The hold down screws are arranged around the outer edge of the base paste and are counter-sunk into its surface to minimize block contact issues with the CPU. The base plate is polished to a mirror-like finish for optimal surface mating with the CPU.

Technical Specifications (taken from the Antec website)

Model: KÜHLER H20 1250

Hardware Editor at PC Perspective. Main focus is on motherboard reviews, but does branch out to other areas of interest from time to time (read that as water cooling). Morry has been building his own systems since the mid-90's and has a passion for PC modding and watercooling. If you've been to Quakecon, there's a chance you've seen one of his builds.

Nice review. Thanks for not Nice review. Thanks for not caving and giving it an unwarranted award. Now I know I can trust when you, Morry, give an award, it is warranted. Unfortunately, I cannot say that about many reviews on the site, though I generally think the reviews are excellent, nonetheless.

a small mistake on final page a small mistake on final page of the review. under pricing you guys talk about pricing of silverstone tundra aio rather than the antec unit reviewed here. please correct that. a good thorough review as usual.

Thanks for the feedback, this

Thanks for the feedback, this has been corrected…

When I first saw this design, When I first saw this design, I thought it was pretty clever. Then later, I’ve been thinking about it and now I’m not so sure. Having the fans locked to the pumps isn’t really an advantage, you can’t regulate the fans alone, you can’t switch fans, really bulky etc. Not having the pump in the CPU block, you actually loose head pressure at the critical part of the system, the CPU block. I think this is the biggest part of it having worse performance compared to the Corsair unit. I haven’t seen the pumps taken apart (hint hint) but I suspect that they have had to take some short-cuts in the design there. For example, are they using a common axle for the pump and fan? Or are they compartmentalized (using permanent magnets) to prevent leaking seals? Pretty big in considering the longevity of the unit.

And the mounting thing is just poorly done on such an expensive unit. Inexcusable.

Have one of these coming in Have one of these coming in the mail now. Going to replace my push/pull FX cooling. Hoping I get some improvement on my 8120 Black Edition.

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