Reviewed by: Jason Hambly
Date: August 22, 2006
Manufacturer: Danger Den
Model: Mag II-LE Pump
Supplied by: Danger Den
Category: Enthusiast/Water-Cooling
Price: $39.95
Grammatical and Spelling Editor: Sean May
Once again, Danger Den has graced our test bench with another one of their water-cooling products. This time around we are looking at their newest pump model. The Mag II-LE is designed to save space and compete against the highly recommended D4 and D5 models that have been used by many over the past few years. Danger Den has always shown high quality and high performance to us in the past, so I expect the same this time around. But can a pump this small really hold up in a fully water?cooled system with four high performance components being cooled on the same loop? Let?s try it out!
{mospagebreak title=Specifications and Features}
Specifications:
- Nominal voltage: 12 VDC
- Motor type: Brushless DC*
- Nominal power: 8 W
- Pump bearing type: Polished Sapphire
- Maximum head: 2.5 M (3.5 PSI, 97" H2O)
- Size: 2.1?W x 2.1?H x 1.74?D
- Maximum flow: 567 l/hr (150 GPH)
- Weight: 241 g (8.5 oz)
- Connection size: G 1/4 BSPP
- Warranty: 30 Months (2-1/2 Years)
- Power connector: 3-pin (fan header style)
- 50,000 Service Hours MTBF
Features:
? Extreme Service Life : This pump is designed with extreme service life (50,000 hours*)
? Bearings : The MAG features dual in fluid bearings, using the best material available: gemstone. These bearings are made of highly polished Sapphire. This is an extremely hard and long lasting material, often found in expensive watches, high precision instruments, and gyroscopes used in the aerospace and military industries.
? Leak Proof : The MAG has no shaft seal, eliminating the possibility of leaking occurring due to long term seal wear. The stator assembly has a plastic barrier between the rotor and the fluid operating on magnetic coupling. The drive and impeller housing is plastic, to reduce the chance of long term fouling.
? Brushless DC motor : The MAG features a brushless DC motor designed with an operational component life in excess of 50,000 hours. All heat generating components are thermal conductive bonded to the thermoplastic case. This provides a large heat sink area allowing the motor to run under constant high efficiency.
? Small Size : The dimensions are 2.1? x 2.1? x 1.74". This is the smallest most relieable pump available to customers.
? Direct RPM : The pump features a hall sensor that directly reads the rotation of the impeller.The impeller RPM can be monitored using your standard fan motherboard utilities via the fan port.
? Power Suppy : This unit requires 12V DC and is equipped with a Tx3 connector.
? Ultra low noise : The pump operates at a very low noise level due to the sealed motor compartment and improved pump housing design.
? Easy Installation : Purchase the industrial velcro to mount anywhere in case.
? Flow Direction : The MAG features a side inlet and top outlet for flow direction. The pump is now available with 3/8" OD or 1/2" OD High Flow or Perfect Seal straight fitting.
? Ports : The MAG features a top outlet and side. The pump is now available with G 1/4 BSPP straight fitting ports.
? Finish : The MAG features a new thermal plastic housing to ensure long term corrosion protection and motor heat transfer properties.
? Multi-Unit : The small size and low power consumption of the MAG allows multi-unit installs. Though it will not increase the flow beyond a single pump unit (150 GPH) but it will help obtain the maximum flow rate possible in the system.
{mospagebreak title=Appearance}
Appearance
The Mag II-LE is a sharp looking little pump. When the box arrived I thought Danger Den sent the wrong item because the box was so small. I opened it up and sure enough, there was this tiny little pump. Compared to my previous pump, the D4, the Mag is about 1/3 the size. The pump comes all dressed in black with a touch of silver and the Danger Den logo on the end. There is only one short wire that comes out of the pump and a small bracket extends beyond the bottom for easy mounting.
Appearance: 4.5/5
{mospagebreak title=Installation}
Installation:
Like any (almost any) water-cooling installation, there is a bit of work involved. The first thing that had to be done after taking the pump out of the box was to insert the two ?? connectors to the pump, for the tubing to attach to. Each connector came with a rubber o-ring to make a tight seal on the pump. Also in the box were two pieces of double sided tape for attaching the pump to the case. The two pieces both fit on the mounting bracket side by side but I am pretty sure that only one would be needed to hold this little guy in place, you can save the second for another install, later. Next up comes the decision to power the pump via a motherboard three pin fan connector or using a 3 pin to 4 pin molex adapter (not included). Either method works as well as the other, but the second method allows you to power the pump without the PC being turned on, during the initial setup and filling of the system. It would have been great for DD to include this adapter even if it was just meant for this reason. All that is left for installation after that is connecting the rest of the system and filling it up.
Installation: 4.25/5
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
To test the performance of the Mag II-LE I dropped it into my existing water-cooling setup being powered by the much larger D4 pump. Temperatures were monitored using Mother Board Monitor 5 during several different stages of using the computer; Idle, CPU Load, and CPU+GPU Load.
Test System
DFI LP UT SLI-DR Expert with Danger Den Maze4 chipset water block
AMD Opteron 165 @ 2.5 with Danger Den TDX water block
2x Leadtek 7800GT TDH Extreme in SLI with Danger Den NV-78 SLI water blocks
Corsair TwinX PT 2x512MB
Plextor PX-760A
Pioneer DVR-111
2x Samsung 80GB SATA 3G in RAID 0
2x Seagate 7200.10 SATA 3G in RAID 0
Black Ice Extreme II radiator w/2 Papst 120mm fans
Danger Den Dual 5 ?? reservoir
?? ID tubing
The first time I started up the PC with this pump I immediately turned it back off, I couldn?t see any water moving through the reservoir. I figured that it must need to be connected with the 3 to 4 pin adapter rather than to my mobo. It turned out that it just moves so much less water than my old pump that the dual bay reservoir was big enough that the water movement was hardly noticeable. I booted the PC back up and started to keep an eye on the temperatures, expecting them to raise way higher than normal. I waited and waited and they stayed at the same temperature as with the larger pump. I figured that it was due to it idling; under load things will probably get out of hand with the lower water flow. So I started up two instances of Folding@Home and watched the CPU temperature rise to exactly where it sat before, with the D4 pump. Ok, it was right around this time that I was getting excited – this tiny little pump, with a fraction of the water flow of the much larger D4 was keeping my temps the same as they were before, with less noise and taking up much less space in my case. I had to load up a game and see if it could handle cooling the two overclocked 7800GT?s running in SLI. After playing Battlefield 2 for about an hour, I closed down the game and checked the high temperature that MBM5 recorded. Lo and behold, it was a disappointment. The Mag II-LE let me down, as GPU temps were a whopping 1?C warmer than before. I couldn?t believe it, matching performance at a much lower cost/size/noise. This little guy is a winner.
Performance: 5/5
{mospagebreak title=Price/Warranty}
Price/Warranty:
The Mag II-LE pump is available directly from Danger Den for $39.95 but can also be found online from a few other retailers that carry Danger Den supplies. Considering the D5 which replaced the D4 sells for $74.95, the Mag is a great deal.
Danger Den issues a one-year warranty on all of their products, covering manufacturing and material defects on condition that the products are used in normal fashion.
Price/Warranty: 4.5/5
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
From the moment I opened the Mag II-LE until the moment I had it running, I was worried that it would not cool nearly well enough to keep my entire water loop intact. I expected to have to pull a couple of the water blocks out and possibly only cool the CPU with it. However as I already mentioned it kicked ass. All of my expectations were blown away. I also realized that the water flow is not the limit on my existing setup, but possibly the radiator instead. The next move will have to be a 3x 120mm rad. But that is a review for another day – we are still talking about the Mag. This sharp little pump should fit in just about any case and enable many people with even mid tower or Small Form-Factor cases to water cool effectively. There were no downsides to this pump, other than it not coming with the 3 to 4 pin adapter. I will end by saying that I highly recommend this pump to anyone looking to build or change their existing water-cooling system.
Pros:
- Can handle a full system of water blocks
- Small size
- Very quiet
- Effective water flow
- Looks great
Cons:
- No 3 to 4 pin adapter included
Appearance: 4.5/5
Installation: 4.25/5
Performance: 5/5
Price/Warranty: 4.5/5
Overall: 18.25/20
The Danger Den Mag II-LE pump receives our Best on the Planet award.
Acknowledgements:
We would like to thanks Dan at Danger Den for sending us this water block.