Gamers Nexus told me I needed this... so here it is!

you guys remember when Steve was talking

about the new EK loopholes and he said

this so Jay please we need you to build

a pc4 exhibit to complete the meme yo

dog we heard you like water cooling so

we water cooled your water cooling well

we got them right here never mind the

condition at which EK sent them to me in

though for those looking for a high-end

custom gaming experience look no further

than Falcon Northwest Falcon Northwest

has been building PCS made for gamers

for over 30 years with a focus on a true

high-end gaming experience custom cases

available only through Falcon Northwest

feature state-of-the-art testing and

design to ensure that every component is

performing at their best through thermal

imaging and rigorous lab testing

designed and overseen by the Falcon

Northwest founder himself with a

complete lineup of systems ranging from

small to large every Falcon Northwest

system includes a three-year warranty

policy and a year of two-way overnight

shipping coverage providing the ultimate

peace of mind to see all that Falcon

Northwest has to offer follow the

sponsored Link in the description below

to be fair it does say sample but I

swear to God if anything ever arrived to

a customer looking like that from Ek I

would uh well I'd pretty much lose my

stuff cuz no nothing should ever arrive

to a customer like that uh this is the

silver one this is the black one so

here's the thing the loophole is a

product that absolutely has

no discernable reason to exist to be

honest but neither does a lot of the

water cooling crap that we all use

anyway because water cooling as a whole

although becoming more necessary these

days because of the high heat that

components tend to generate these days

um it's kind of fun to customize your

loops and do fun stuff so anyway I've

never seen anything like this it's kind

of like a take on Dro plates that's like

hey you know couple of ports aren't

probably in the right spot for most Dro

plates depending on the graphics cards

and stuff that you're using the height

of your fittings there's to there's too

many different variations and EK can

only account for their own products and

how high their fittings are and all that

sort of stuff

so they basically said you know what

let's give them 32 options let's give

them 32 options on a Dro plate but let's

also complicate it as much as we

possibly can by not making it just a Dro

plate where fluid goes in it where it's

a Dro plate where fluid can go in it and

you have to tube run inside the disto

plate so this is a

$490 US option

for uh a Dro plate SL distribution block

BL it really is like a distribution

block rather than a plate D it's weighty

though it is super heavy um as you can

see right here on the mounting holes

there there there and there it's

designed to basically meet up with any

case that gives you Provisions for two

140 mm fans if you have a case that can

also fit two 140 mm fans on the back

I'll like fantex Elite you know big

cases like that you could run two of

these bad boys if you want and in fact

that's what I told Steve I was going to

do I wanted to run two of them the

problem is is it sent me a silver one

and a black one which I guess to be fair

it's fine because that's that were the

two options that they that they have um

I would kind of would want them to match

anyway here's all the hardware that it

comes with they're Torx instead of okay

that's a first normally they use Allen

so that's a Torx so that's you could you

have to take the cover off anyway to use

it so as I mentioned there are the 32

ports now these are just plugs and I

don't want to scratch this up so let me

get so these are just little covers that

are just on top of the actual will Port

so they're they're nice they're nice

plugs they're not the El Cheo plastic

ones they're literally nickel plated

like brass so and you'll notice how it's

kind of like hollow inside you're just

like dude what the freak is the point of

all of these now I kind of wonder if

this would work if I were to sort of set

this up as just a giant manifold if you

would I kind of wonder if dude I just

realized all of these EK ones are nearly

perfectly placed so the EK is the right

way so if I were to put like one like

that would it bother you

Phil it would totally bother me that's

for sure because the side with all the

black covers what you're actually going

to be looking at but anyway because like

I said it's not a Dro plate in the

traditional sense of being a Dro plate

you have to tube run inside of it so

let's say for instance I wanted to come

in one of these ports down here and I

want to go out with one of the ports up

there I have to use two 90° fittings

inside and run a tube up to it so it's

not really simplifying a whole lot

except for the fact that I guess you're

making it a lot of these runs kind of

contained into one area so let me show

you what I mean they sent over a bunch

of fittings too and you have to use

their low profile fittings because

standard 90° fittings won't work in

there I don't know if bits power will

fit that's another popular fitting bits

power/ Corsair um we'll we'll do a test

to see but you can see right here if I

go ahe and take one of these and open

them up they've got this low profile 90°

swivel

fittings here so that's a standard

that's not a standard but that's that's

their low profile 90° fitting allow me

to show you what their regular ones look

like so here's the torque micro 90° and

there's a standard torque so you can see

why those are not going to fit in there

however if we look at the overall height

the uh bits power is SL course there cuz

they're the same odm is a little bit

taller so we're just going to have to

see now on how that's going to work so

you got the the torque that are going

all the way around the outside so you

have to take it apart so there's our

o-ring careful with that guy and then

this is just a cover so we'll put that

out of the

way you can see right here we have one 2

3 four output options anything within

this little channel right here is an

output from the um pump and then the

pump just feeds from this one fitting

right here I guess which you could have

going back into it

technically or I guess you could put it

you can't even put a fitting down in

there so you're still stuck to having to

go into it at this at one location so

you can't even really customize that as

far as I can tell okay so it is

absolutely a reservoir on top of being

an internal tube thing so I don't know

how else to describe it so you can feed

the pump right here from the reservoir

you could fill it from any of the top

ports you can return to it from any of

the top ports or the bottom I guess

you'd want to return down here probably

just for circulation reasons and unless

you want a waterfall I guess you could

have a waterfall going in there I'm now

wondering how well the fittings will

hold up over time and the tubing being

fully

submerged I guess it should be exactly

the same as tubing with fluid on the

inside on the outside so there just

going to be an extra level of

complication in my opinion on trying to

figure out the loop order so let's just

talk about what happens on the inside

shall we okay so let's say I had one

right there

yeah that's cool that's actually pretty

cool this this is nice cuz now you know

that fitting is getting all the way down

in there this is a weird

tool

oh okay well I just broke the

tool is it in there it's a one time use

now okay don't overtighten like I just

did but as you can see these rotate in

there now right I don't think bits power

will work cuz look that barely clears

the O-ring so if I put a bits

power/ Corsair in there yeah it's

sticking up higher than the than the

surface so that's not going to work you

can see by looking at their fitting too

it's like perfectly set to the height to

work inside this thing okay so now if I

were to say I want to have another like

that's an in and an out like basically

this is just a pretty way of getting one

tube to another area by going to another

area of the case so you'd be like from

let's say from CPU to loophole through

the loophole out to GPU or

something this just takes place of going

direct from CPU to GPU so it's extra

tubing fittings and complication but it

also looks extremely like premium if you

will there's that so I would do a 90°

Bend and they are they have to use 12 mm

outer diameter by the way these are 12

mm um tubes so it'll be fine if you were

to use 12 M mm say inside of this and

then 13 or 14 elsewhere in your system

it won't be a problem um unless it just

bothers you knowing

like these are not the same to tub that

are elsewhere in your system if you're

using 13 or 14 so it' be pretty easy you

just do a 90° Bend right and then trim

it where you need and we'll do that in a

second here but then with it you have to

use their torque micro hdp or hide um

hard pipe hdp for hard pipe which is

kind of

weird and then you have to attach this

on there as well and then this is just a

little bitty microf fitting so it

doesn't even have like a this is the

thing that's a little concerning about

it is it does doesn't even have a like a

clamp or a compression It just fits in

there so keep that in mind but you can

see with just how low profile they

are that's what it's going to take to

fit in there because if you go with

something that's larger and you probably

should put this on before you put them

in by the way if you go with something

that's larger it's not going to clear

the the top right there so this is

actually pretty convenient too cuz I can

just hold it right on top and then I'll

be able to mark my uh my

cuts and then be able to put it in there

but we'll we have to see how to get the

tube in there too once it's done it's it

might be easy because one of these can

rotate one thing I want to point out too

though is that wherever the tubing goes

on top of any other ports you lose you

lose the access to those ports so we're

going to with that 90° run we lose 1 2 3

4 five options if we needed those on the

other side so that's why they give you

32 cuz they're just like well you got 32

different abil like ways that you can

run stuff through this so nothing says

too with the 12 mm you can do some

pretty tight bends with 12 the wall

might want to crush so make sure you're

using a really good um mandrel tube

insert for it that way it doesn't have

any slack if it can wiggle around in

there then when you bend it it'll oval

out the hole and then the gaps will make

it look weird so but you might be able

to like do like an s or something crazy

in there but I think sticking to 90°

bends are probably the best idea so that

should work and like like I said these

are

not they're not compressions so I just

have to try and twist them in there

without making the O-rings get cut okay

there's

one here we

go I think I did it wrong though I think

I have to flip it cuz it's

all I might have actually trimmed it a

little too short

too okay I mean I mean

there's there's there's that but you get

the idea okay you get the idea of how

that would go

inside

so yeah I I wish that these were

compressions cuz I just have a better

piece of mind with compression the the

the good news is if one of these pops

off inside it's still contained your

Loop will just stop flowing it'll just

bypass itself whatever the lease

resistance is back to the reservoir once

it gets pumped back out again but at

least it won't leak in your system or

whatever um but yeah just 90° bends is

what is all you need I think that would

still actually hold just it's it's in

both O-rings oh no it's not dang it I

mean it slightly Too Short what I think

is interesting though is there silver

fitting this is their

titanium the it's exactly the same thing

for black but only it's not this nice

neural shape but I mean you get the

power of the D5 the D5 pump is excellent

at overcoming um long tube runs and a a

lot of so they're really good at flow

they're not the best at um pressure the

DDC I don't think this doesn't even have

a DDC version the DDC is really good at

pressure but doesn't have the best best

flow rate because it's like a higher RPM

impeller it's a smaller impeller spins

faster good for pressure but it's like

horsepower with no torque well this is

all torque with no horsepower if that

makes sense so I think the D5 is

probably the right move just because it

I've used d5s and everything I've never

had an issue with the D5 not being able

to overcome stuff SATA powered so that's

nice to see not sleeved just black cable

so you can't really sleeve it unless you

can somehow depin this which not really

going to happen with the sa of plug and

then same thing with the pwm and RPM

signal not sleeved would have been nice

to see these sleeved but especially for

500 bucks just some nice tight black

sleeving on there would have been nice

$490 not including the price of fittings

now here's the

kicker these fittings were like $15

each so we're already at 30 bucks and I

think they were like 10 for the

compressions so now we're at 50 bucks in

fittings just for that one so now we're

at

$540 USD before tax for just what you

see right there I'm going to use it you

know I'm going to I really want to see

how this how this looks and feels and is

to work with with having the reservoir

pump

combo also part of this Dr plate thing

with having 32 options works I want to

have two of them in a build but then

we'd be talking like easily $2,000 plus

worth of water loop for one Loop yikes

all right there you go just a quick

unboxing and kind of first look at this

thing Steve was like Jay you got to do

something with it and I plan

to just I guess I got to figure out the

case I want to use it in like guess said

I can go in anything that uses 2 140 mm

um and the thing is like once you put it

back together the the flat part that's

the part that faces out like outside

your your glass or whatever and the pump

faces in for obvious reasons and this

pump cover is also metal it's it's

really heavy duty like this whole thing

is very heavy all right there you go

what do you think I should do with it

what case do you think I should use it

with I there like the obvious 01

Dynamic right is that of course they are

5000 series cases have uh Provisions for

two 140s like in the front or even on

the back panel side but give me an idea

s off down below what case you think I

should use for this and it'll be

interesting it might actually make it

convenient because of the fact that I

only have to worry about going from

component the to this

thing and then I guess RADS to that

thing then I'm going to run out of space

in this thing real

quick