What with all this ultra high speed hardware, and the various (and often hilariously huge) cooling solutions to tame it we’ve seen at this years Computex, a company could be forgiven for throwing in the towel.
Keeping all these hot chips cool is a problem everyone seems desperate to solve, and it seems most are throwing heatsinks and fans at the problem in increasing numbers.
In Intel and ASRock’s case, however, a towel may be more than appropriate. At the ASRock booth, I spotted a PC immersed in what looked like a fish tank—with two GPUs merrily bubbling away, looking for all intents and purposes like they’d been the victims of a mafia hit.
Of course, what looks like conductive water is instead a dielectric liquid (in this case, a “perfluorocarbon coolant”), so while the components may look like they’ve been give a slow death, instead they’re transferring all that heat into a cool bath.
The project is the result of a collaboration between Intel, ASRock, Thermaltake and Taimax. Supposedly the system is so efficient that wild overclocks are achievable, or in the case of modern Gen 5 SSDs, presumably sustained speeds over long periods without thermal throttling.
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
(Image credit: Future)
After some of the heatsinks and cooler designs we’ve seen this year, throwing your hands up and dunking the whole thing in a fish tank might actually be the most elegant solution at this point. Plus it’ll look great in the background at a dinner party.
Speaking of “screw it, go big” cooler solutions, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this beauty that our Jacob found at the Seasonic booth:
(Image credit: Future)
Yep, that oughta do it. If in doubt, chuck a huge radiator outside the case and cover it in high-powered fans. Job done, we can all go to lunch.
