As water cooling is getting more and more popular, dare I say “mainstream”, you start to see more products marketed for PC water cooling. With pumps I can't really say that they are made for specifically for PC water cooling, since none of them are, but they are marketed that way, and in some cases modified a bit to be more PC-friendly. Two years ago when I first got into water cooling the most popular pumps were from companies like Ehiem, Hydor, and Via. They were all pond or aquarium pumps that enthusiasts tapped for duty in their PCs. Additionally, almost all of them were 120v AC powered, meaning that they needed to be plugged into the wall along with your PC and monitor.

This sometimes caused problems when people would forget to plug in, or turn on, their pumps when they turned their PC on. The first solution to this was to use a relay switch that was tied to the PC's power. This evolved from home made switches to products like the Criti-Cool Powerplant. You still required 2 plugs, but at least you knew that if the PC was on, the pump was on.

The next evolution, and logical step, is a pump that runs off the same DC current and voltage as your PC. A computer power supply has 3 voltages that it outputs: 12v, 5v, and 3.3v. To ensure that the pumps would be powerful enough, companies targeted pumps that could be run at 12v DC. These pumps have a molex connector added to them and plug directly into the PSU. The pump will turn on and off with your PC when you press the power switch. While there have been 12v pumps available for some time, especially in Europe , they were always viewed as underpowered or unreliable when compared to their 120v cousins.

This all changed about 18 months ago when Swiftech introduced the MCP-600. This 12v pump was a workhorse as well as reliable. It gave the 120v AC pumps from Ehiem and Hydor a run for their money. Danger Den then stepped in an introduced a smaller, more powerful 12v pump, the D4-12v. What was most interesting about this pump is that everyone knew that it was a Laing pump with a molex connector. To make matters even more interesting both Swiftech and PolarFLO introduce pumps based upon the identical Laing pump, the MCP-650 and TT Pumps.

This was, and still is, a great time to be a water cooling enthusiast as the pumps just keep getting better. With the MCP-650/D4/TT pumps you saw small, powerful, reliable 12v pumps that were geared towards the 1/2ID crowd. But what if you wanted something a little smaller, or for use in a 3/8ID system? Both Swiftech and Danger Den answered that call with the MCP-350 and DDC pumps, which again were essentially identical pumps, made by Delphi , that simply had different brand stickers. This is a very small, about the size of an 80mm fan with 3/8ID barbs, and claims to be just as powerful as its big brother, the MCP-650.

One of the more asked questions in the water cooling forums here at GruntvillE is “What pump should I get?” We start to answer that question today with Part 1 of a 2 Part series that looks at the MCP-600, MCP-350, and PolarFLO TT pumps.