XD6 vs XD5 RGB Elite: What's the Difference?

You might have noticed that the newly released XD6 ELITE RGB pump/res combo is ostensibly identical in form to the previous XD5 version other than the name. So what is actually the difference? Did we just like a higher number or has something actually changed - let's explore!

With the XD6 RGB Elite we are introducing a new pump type to the market. Where the previous units used the Xylem D5 pump that has been loved by the water cooling community for years, this new pump is based of our tried and tested TITAN AIOs.

The XD6 RGB Elite use what we call the FlowDrive MAX pump, and has been optimized for custom cooling systems.

It should not be a surprise to anyone that PC components have become more power hungry over the last few years, with CPUs drawing upwards of 300W and GPUs doubling that at 600W with the RTX 5090.

This has forced blocks to have a higher fin density to better cool these power hungry monsters, but adding fin density also adds resistance to the loop.

When shopping for pumps, these are the two specifications you will run into. Now, you might think that whatever pump states the highest flow rate will be the better pump right?

Logic says yes, but reality says no. An example is a balloon pump vs a leaf blower.

The leaf blower can move vast amounts of air, but if you try and fill a balloon with it you will quickly see that while it can move a lot of air with no resistance, it will struggle the moment it meets any resistance.

So when you are shopping for an air pump to be the highlight of the next balloon party, you need to not just take the pump with the highest airflow volume.

Alright, enough balloon talk, what does this mean for water cooling?

If we compare the specifications of the XD5 RGB Elite and the XD6 RGB Elite we can see that the XD5 has a higher maximum flow rate, but it is very important to know that this "max" value is measured at near zero pressure head (system resistance).

In any real world scenario there will be blocks, radiators and tubing creating resistance. Typically this would be at around 3m pressure head which is why we also provide a Hydraulic performance number that states what the flow rate is, at a specific resistance.

If we look at a typical system with two 360mm radiators, a CPU block and a GPU block we can directly compare the XD5 and the XD6 units.

Looking at the picture above, the white line represent the loop resistance, while the yellow and blue lines are the performance of the pumps.

You will notice that the XD6 has a lower max flow rate than the XD5, but that this in no way is relevant since in order to get anyway near where the two pumps performs the same we would have to use a system with a single 120mm radiator and a low resistance CPU block.

If we look at numbers from the above chart, it shows that in this scenario the XD5 @ 100% speed gives you roughly 3.8Liters per minute of flow, while the XD6 moves almost 5Liters per minute.

If we look at a high resistance system with four 360mm radiators, one CPU block and two GPU blocks the story is the same. The XD6 has the advantage thanks to the higher pressure head of the unit.

Turning the speed of the XD6 down to 3500RPM (out of 4500) will give you slightly better performance than the XD5 running at 4800RPM at the same noise levels, so you can think of the extra headroom (3500->4500RPM) in the XD6 as a boost function - it's there if you want to utilize it, but you can also enjoy running the pump at 50% speed while still getting amazing performance.

As shown in the above picture we can set the XD6 RGB Elite to 75% speed and it will still outperform the XD5 in a loop with typical resistance.

Adding to this, a personal opinion is that the XD6 has a more comfortable noise profile than the XD5.