A lot of information is available, but so is a lot of misinformation for the D5 pump options. It is incredibly important to know your stuff before you begin. You need to know what components are crucial and what role they play. A water cooling pump is one of these. As the name suggests, this device controls the speed, flow, and volume of water throughout your loop. We also have a guide for the best coolants for custom water cooling which we recommend checking out.
The Best D5 Pump – Our Top Choices
A pump can either make or break your system in the long run. We usually don’t recommend skimping out on this, but we’ll go through some decent budget options as well. With all that said, here are five of the best D5 pump options for custom PC water cooling in 2021. If either of these choices turns you off, you may also look for easy-to-install and manage AIO liquid coolers for your gaming PC. EKWB is the top brand when it comes to enthusiast water cooling components. There’s a good reason for that too. They happen to excel in terms of quality, and their products have a longer life overall. Their EK-XTOP Revo D5 Pump is no different.
Recommended Read: How Wrong AIO Mounting Orientation Could be Damaging to Your CPU As the name itself implies, this pump uses the popular D5 model. The D5 pump is tried and true, and many professionals swear by it. If you’ve lurked in online water cooling communities, you know that D5 and DDC are two of the most popular pump styles. Suffice to say, this is a high-performance pump that comes with black sleeved cables. It has a maximum flow of 1500L/h, which happens to be more than enough for most enthusiast-grade rigs. The maximum pressure head is rated at 3.9m. It uses a 4-pin PWM cable for the signal. The fan connector has a length of 60 centimeters. If you want to hook up the RGB, you’ll need to find a 4-pin 12V RGB header on your motherboard. Recommended Roundup: Best CPU Waterblocks For Custom Water Cooling: 2021 The lighting isn’t all that bright, but it does look good if your case already has a lot of RGB. Performance, as expected, is phenomenal. We’ve come to admire that EKWB always focuses on performance first. Hence, this pump is no different. It pumps a lot of water and is also very quiet. It might be a bit pricey, but this is hands down, the best overall D5 pump out there. Having the pump and custom reservoir set up separately is a common theme among water cooling enthusiasts. However, it creates a bit of hassle and requires some patience. Well, Corsair has a good solution for that. The Hydro X Series XD3 pump is the most versatile option on this list. It’s also one of the better-looking ones. If you need something flexible, this is the one.
First off, we need to address the elephant in the room. Yes, this is a reservoir/pump combo, but hear us out. The reservoir part is actually so small, that it sits snugly on top of the pump. This is why we said that this pump is so versatile. It’s the perfect solution for ITX cases. Corsair just made water cooling in a small case much easier. This product uses a high-performance Xylem DDC PWM pump. As we mentioned before, DDC pumps are one of the best OEM D5 pump options out there. The integrated reservoir can hold up to 180ml of liquid. As for power, this pump can push water at up to 1000L/h. Not bad for such a small device. Related Read: Air vs Water Coolers: Which one is better? To the surprise of no one, this Corsair product has some unique RGB lighting. It’s always good to see water cooling components get some love in the design department. The 16 addressable RGB LEDs at the top give this thing a unique look. Combine that with the black exterior, and this pump ends up looking very pleasing to the eye. A common complaint among Corsair components is that they need to be controlled by proprietary RGB controllers. The same remains true here, which is a sore disappointment. EKWB finds another spot on this list, this time with a DDC pump. This particular EK-XTOP is a pump-top style device. This means that the reservoir can sit right on top of it. As you can probably guess, this makes the pump compatible with a wide range of reservoirs.
Clever design and understated looks make this an excellent option. The entire footprint is quite small and doesn’t take up a lot of space. It’s also quite silent, with a rated noise level of 25dB. However, don’t let that fool you. This is a high-performance DDC water cooling pump. The maximum flow rate is rated at 1000L/h. Apart from that, the max head pressure is about 5.2m. It uses a 4-Pin PWM fan connector and a 4-pin Molex connector for power. The dimensions are about 63 x 68 x 55 mm. Apart from that, the core unit uses acetal for most of the construction. Helpful Roundup: 5 Best PC cases for Custom Water Cooling The PWM controls allow automatic speed regulation, depending on the CPU temperature. This means that both thermals and noise stay in their ideal ranges. Furthermore, it has a 5 year lifetime. While it may not have any exciting RGB lighting, this is by far the best DDC pump for DDC available today. Just know that it is a bit pricey, but we can’t complain since the performance easily lives up to it. The YaeCCC DC 12V CPU Cooling Water Pump has one of the most obtuse product names of all time. However, let’s not dwell on that fact too much for now. While this pump isn’t going to outperform the high-end DDC or D5 pumps, it’s a great entry-level option. If the overall value is what you’re looking for, this pump makes a strong first impression.
This pump is small and weighs in at about 280g. As for the materials, it uses a combination of both plastic and metal here and there. The top part has a clear transparent coating, while the bottom has a glossy black painted finish. The actual pump model is known as an XHC8. It consumes about 10W of power along with a rated voltage of DC 12V. Related Read: 5 Best RTX 3080 Waterblocks As for performance, it is good enough for entry-level and mid-range systems. However, if you’re thinking of cooling a Core i9 or Ryzen 9 processor, I would look elsewhere. The pump does have good efficiency and a low noise rating. It is also quite affordable. However, there are a few problems here and there. The pump isn’t as powerful as the more expensive options. If this didn’t have the low price tag, it wouldn’t be on this list. The lack of automatic speed control is also a major omission. This might certainly not be the best D5 pump for you, but will get the job done in most scenarios. Next up, we have an excellent budget option. If you’re looking to get started in water cooling, the Mavel Star pump is an interesting option. This submersible mini water pump is extremely versatile. It’s the type of pump you’d see in a small aquarium or a fountain, rather than a PC. However, it works surprisingly well for entry-level PCs.
When it comes to performance this pump can move about 240L of water per hour. It works well with 5/16 ID vinyl tubing. The pump is rated at a DC voltage of 12V. It consumes about 4.2W of power at 0.35amps. It can be powered by a battery pack or a 12V DC power adapter. Helpful Guide: Custom Water Cooling: Soft tubing vs Hard tubing As for the design, well, it’s not the most fascinating pump out there now is it? Well, most of these cooling components are inspired by industry machines, and that technology trickles down to our use. However, that doesn’t mean we can really excuse the design for this thing. Overall, this is a decent replaceable pump if your main one stopped working for some reason. However, we can’t easily recommend it for people who need a lot of power. Perhaps this might be the best budget D5 pump for a handful of enthusiasts
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