Mayhems announced a new radiator this week that also came with some rare drama! We’ll talk about the drama later, but here are the details on the radiator:
“Painted Matt Black
- Quad reflow chamber
- Triple Tubed
- Split fin between tubes
- Medium FPI (9)
- Anti Piercing Plates
- Copper Core
- Brass End Tanks
- 125mm x 63mm x 410mm (Width x Depth x Height)
- Weight 1.36 kg
- Matt Black Coated
- 2 Port
- RoHS Compliant
- 180 Degree Logo
- Includes a Mayhems Mini Blitz kit (part 2 only)
Mayhems Havoc Radiators utilises a triple tubed split fin system that allows for a much more effective air flow to aid in the removal of heat. The Havoc range of Radiators also incorporates our quad reflow chamber allowing the coolants to remain in the radiator for a longer period of time for excessive heat to be dissipated. Both of these technology’s help remove upwards of 25% more heat compared to standard radiator’s and upwards of 10% for more advanced systems. “
The drama started because XSPC accused Mayhems of stealing the design from the RX v2. XSPC like many other water cooling companies don’t manufacturer their radiators themselves, but oursource to a company in China. The accusation is that the company who used to make the RX v2 (since replaced by the RX v3) are selling the same design to Mayhems. Whenever you don’t control your manufacturing of course then you risk the original manufacturer using your design or IP to produce something very similar for another company. Of course in China there is less protection of IP anyway. Mayhems of course claim that they didn’t steal the design and that it’s different. Certainly the style looks similar to the XSPC which Martin measured to be 8FPI, a very close number to 9FPI. They both have triple tubes, and the dimensions are very close:Dimensions: 124x63x400mm (WxDxH) vs 125mm x 63mm x 410mm. Here’s a pic of the RXv2 courtesy of Martin’s Liquid Lab:
Now of course we don’t really know the details – we don’t know if the same manufacturer was used, nor do we know how the design process was handled by Mayhems. Even if Mayhems did copy the design it may not necessarily be illegal even though it would be “ungentlemanly”. Indeed how far does a new design have to be different from an old one to be acceptable? After all most new radiator designs are very similar at the high level. Whether or not this was copied this is however a call to manufacturers to protect their IP particularly when outsourcing manufacturing, while knowing there is very little that can be done at the end of the day. Indeed XSPC’s v3 is claimed to be significantly better than their v2 design, so if XSPC is confident that this is copied, then at the least they shoudln’t feel threatened by the performance of it. Luckily ExtremeRigs has a huge radiator review roundup arriving shortly that will feature amongst others the XSPC RX v2,RX v3 and Mayhems Havoc. So we’ll get to see what the real deal here is!
More pics of the Havoc in the gallery below:
