Interesting discovery about different versions of the D5 pump

http://www.lainginc.com/pdf/LTI D5 basic, vario and strong - 6pages.pdf

Check it out. There are a few important points to be noted here.

1. The D5 Vario is stronger than the current D5 Basic (cheaper one without speed control)

2. The D5 basic is equivalent to the #4 setting on the D5 Vario

3. The D5-Strong has more head pressure at both 12v and 24v.

4. The threaded "top" & 3/4" "top" seems to be a bit less restrictive.

Anyone know where to buy a D5-Strong? Swiftech, Danger Den, etc have the basic and the vario but not the strong. If it costs the same as the Vario, the better choice would be the Strong for sure.

Edit:

Check out this forum post over at swiftech's forum. Looks like some gains can be made with the stock top by smoothing out the lip on the opening. I'm going to do this when I move my stuff over to my new case.

Hey - great find!

I'll be making that mod, too, when I switch over to SLI. Now where did that Dremel go ...?

Looks like the D5-strong uses (when at the maximum setting) uses 55 watts-a lot more than the 30-35 of the D5-variable. The more power a pump uses=the more heat it will dump into the loop. That's probably the reason we haven't see this before; the flow-rate and pressure gains of the D5-strong won't compensate for the increase in heat dump, making the pump worse for computer watercooling.

It might balance out OK if the pumps have some air flow across them. I've seen at least one of us that put heatsinks on the back-plate and it actually helped a little. That's another little mod I'm planning when I re-plumb my main rig for SLI. It was my first WC loop and I've learned a lot since then thanks to OCF ...!

I'll be moving my D5 closer to the intake in my case, just for the peace of mind of active cooling on the pump.

Interesting finds