Alphacool NexXxos UT60 280 Radiator Review

UT60 280mm Technical Specifications as listed by Alphacool:

The following Technical Drawing is courtesy of Alphacool.

Dimensions Measured on the Radiator Tested:

The +1.5 and +3 are to be added if the supplied port plugs are fitted to the ports on each side/end.

Radiator Core Dimensions:

At 60mm thick the UT60 280 is the second thickest of the 280mm offerings from Alphacool.

The 43.5 mm thick core is made up of 3 layers of 14 tubes arranged in the standard U-Flow configuration. The fin arrangement consists of single serpentine fins which are louvered and have a 10 FPI count. Our first thoughts are that the core package seems ideally suited for medium speed fans. We’ll find out in our performance test analysis if this was an accurate assessment or not.

The following picture is a reference which shows a typical U-Flow coolant flow path, where the coolant travels up all the tubes on one side (left in pic) of the rad and then returns down the other side. U-Flow is most easily recognized when the port end has 2 separate tanks, such as those on the UT60 280.

The louvered fins are spaced very evenly between the tubes and our sample had the specified fin count of 10 FPI.

Finish and Features

The satin black paint finish on the UT60 280 review sample did have a few very minor imperfections, but nothing that detracts from the overall finish. Generally speaking, the finish on the latest revision of NexXxos radiators (including this UT60) has been very good and only under close scrutiny such as we do for our reviews, that minor imperfections have occasionally been noticed.

The steel side panels give the radiator lots of support and the whole thing feels very solid.

A small Alphacool logo is present on each side. The painted blue logo represents the latest (4th, maybe 5th) generation of the NexXxos series radiators. Due to the multi-port nature of the UT60, it can be roof mounted or floor mounted and the logo will be the right way up now matter which end of the case the ports are located.

Screw protection plates are fitted under each fan attachment hole on the UT60 280.

The Protection Plates are standard on all Alphacool radiators BUT are particularly beneficial on the UT60 280 as the mounting holes are located directly over the tubes.

As noted earlier the supplied 30mm screws are actually a bit too long for use when attaching a standard 25mm thick fan directly to the radiator. The thread bottoms out on the screw protection plates before the fan is secured. Therefore in most instances the 30mm screws would be an ideal length for mounting the radiator with a fan to a case panel.
However, for mounting fans directly to the radiator, some form of “packing out” is needed under the screw heads.

From this we conclude that for a Push/Pull fan assembly you would need to acquire another set of 30mm long screws.

We’re not sure how much use the supplied 35mm length screws will be with the UT60 280mm radiator, because the 35mm just seems too long given the ~4mm depth to the screw protection plates.

Alphacool have chosen to use a 16mm spacing between the central fan attachment holes. The industry “standard” is 15 mm, so why Alphacool have chosen this spacing size is somewhat of a mystery. I have seen build logs where users have had to “unnecessarily” modify the mounting holes on their cases to accommodate the screw locations on the 140.x Alphacool radiators.

Recently we have seen some irregular spacing for the fan hole mountings, so we have begun showing these measurements. We hope that by highlighting design or manufacturing issues manufacturers will tighten up on their quality control.

I am unsure if there is an industry standard that the width 140mm fan mounting holes should be, but I am certain that all the 140mm fans I have, are made with a 124.5 – 125mm spacing.

On the UT60 280 review sample we were pleased to find that all the measurements, both across and lengthwise were within expectations.

We had no issues in mounting fans to either side of the UT60 280. (apart from the length of screws as mentioned earlier)

The UT60 280 is fitted with a total of 6x G 1/4 ports on the tank end of the radiator. We love multi-port radiators, so this just makes us happy.

Each inlet/outlet tank has 3 ports in total, with one port on each side of the tanks and one on the ends.

Either tank can be used as the inlet or outlet side for the coolant flow path, and any of the 3 ports on each tank can be selected to install the fittings for tube attachment.
So long as one tank is coolant in, and the other is coolant out then everything will work just fine.  One example is this “traditional” fitting placement.

Having the option to route tubes in and out at different angles offers opportunities for cleaner or even hidden tubing runs depending on the installation orientation.

Let’s not forget about possibilities to add a drain tap and temperature sensors. Mulit-Port radiators add so much flexibility to users in virtually every installation scenario.

In the following photo a Bitspower 1/2″ x 3/4″ compression fitting is installed with a fan attached. At 25.5mm wide these are perhaps the widest fitting available. Therefore the UT60 280 is compatible with almost every fitting on the market.

On the return and of the UT60 280 an ancillary port is fitted which can be used as an air bleeding port, fitting a temperature sensor, fill port, or a drain port depending on the orientation that it is mounted.

One of the only criticism I have with the current NexXxos range including the UT60 280, is that the threads of the G 1/4 ports have been painted black.

It is unavoidable that paint will chip away or get scraped off when screwing fittings into the threads and where will these paint chips end up ? In the micro channels of your blocks most likely, possibly reducing the flow rate and overall performance of the system.

Internal Cleanliness:

Before moving on to the performance assessment I want to mention the internal cleanliness of the UT60 280 sample. This is not something I normally do because cleaning new radiators before use is just one of those chores which we all have to do.

Alphacool radiators have been consistently among the dirtiest which have passed over the ER test benches and has been noted in numerous reviews we have done on them in the past.

Well, things have changed and the good news is that the latest revision of NexXxos radiators (with blue logos) are coming out with a different cleaning process after manufacturing. This new process has resulted in unexpected and surprisingly clean internals. I recently flushed/cleaned 5 different current version Alphacool radiators including the UT60 280 reviewed here, and all were within reasonable expectations of being clean and free of excess amount of debris after the first rinse.

We still strongly advise cleaning all new radiators prior to use, but it is great to see that what was a terrible problem has now been rectified.

So here we have a 60mm thick radiator with a low density core that has protection plates fitted. It has 6 ports plus an ancillary port. The paint finish had a few very minor blemishes which were within reasonable expectations however we feel that the paint on the inside of the ports could lead to unwanted problems.

Let’s see how it performs…