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Extreme Cooling
hakkikt writes "Icrontic brings us a review about a CPU-cooling device every self-respecting overclocker and cpu-speed freak must get. The device is called MX-EVA3. With a price of US$500, it's not for the faint of wallet, but the performance is awesome."
For 500$, can't you just buy a faster CPU?
for that price couldn't you just buy 2 1.8 or so processors and a dual processor MB?
sig - .
the site is down. Will this get me to 20 seconds/ Yes. I believe it will.
Athlons.
Who needs performance anyway? I already get 120 fps.
Windows will always be one step ahead of performance.
Overclocking is stealing.
Any more?
ahh, the good old "faint of wallet".
e x p e c t d e l a y . c o m
Go mysql, one comment and already overloaded!
/.ing will teach them different!
On the other hand, I do like mysql, but it seems nobody configures it to have a load on it. Oh well, a good
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
A beowulf cluster of these on a beowulf cluster!
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer/
--m
and it's completely hosed already?
Sheesh.
Perhaps they should've used the $500 dollar heat sink on their server and kicked it up a notch.
For five hundred bucks, that thing sticking out the top BETTER be how it reproduces.
We all get along together like tornadoes and trailer parks.
Why pay $500 for a cooling device when the next-step high mHz CPU can be purchased for less than that? I mean, the appeal of overclocking is that it allows people to extend their hardware far beyond the intended lifetimes. So say you've got an Intel 900, and with this device, you can overclock it to 1.4 gHz. So what have you gained? An unstable, extremely expensive CPU. The equivalient "real" 1.4 ghz chip could have been purchased for less than the cooling device.
And nevermind those, "I have my Celeron 300 running at 2.3 gigahertz!" folks. CPU speed is so overrated - remember, fast RAM, and lots of it, is the best thing you can do to increase system performance. Don't fall victim to the overclocking madness - spend that $500 on a gig of RAM.
whoever it is who's buying these, can i sell you my new super-conducting speaker cables, and a liquid nitrogen supply contract?
But that heats women up, not cools them down!
their servers obviously don't have them installed now do they? how much does it cost for liquid nitrogen coolant?
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
other customers who bought this item also bought:
2500' suspension bridge: $19.65
pet rock (polished granite): $14.95
enron stock: $87.23
--m
yep, anything is cool if EXTREME! (you have to gutterly yell it out) is added. Of course now, the fanboy term is 'uber', go figure
But not when you're at the top of the line for consumer processors (XP 2100+, for example.). But then, really, why would you overclock that 2100+? For 243 fps as opposed to 230 fps in quake3 with full detail? It's not that useful, in reality. sk
First Moderation!
It's 1 am here (2 am east coast, 11 pm west) and this place seems to be down. At least, I keep getting an error message about a failed mysql connection. Anyone with the page in their cache want to post it here?
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Overclocking has become a modern-day, geek equivalent of spending 5,000 hours working on some old [insert venerable American car type here] when you could just go out a new Acura NSX for less than your time was worth, and get way more chicks.
The thing's the size of a fucking hand vac. Good god make these people stop! Make it stop!
Vote Technocratic! Government by killer robots!
For a lot less, I can put an air conditioner right next to my box.
Works wonders, and we're obviously not worried about aesthetics, so hey..
Someone had to post it:
Google Cached Page
Most people would be out of their minds to pay $500 for a fan/heatsink, but $500 for a cooling system may not be out of line. I don't know just how much cooling the CPU would bring down the total system temp.. probably by quite a bit.
:)
The reason for this is that there are some cases/places where the ambient temperature may be too high for a computer with a normal fan.
For example, Texas, in the summer, when the AC goes out (or if there is no AC to begin with.)
Most people would just say, "Hey, turn off the computer then." That doesn't work if you're away
Just a note, the link is not a mirror of the article, but rather a link to information on vibrators.
That device is not marketed for your average user--it's aimed at the people who make overclocking CPUs and hardware their hobby. Sure, you might mock the stamp collector or the model train builder for spending thousands of dollars a year on things you would consider 'crap', but do they care? No. So what if the stamp collector spends $300 on a mint-condition stamp from the year 1917--it's to support HIS hobby, for HIS enjoyment, not yours. All the same--so what if the overclocker who buys a $130 Pentium 4 1.6A and a $500 phase-change cooling box (still a bit overpriced for a R-134a compressor, IMHO)? For him, that $500 is well-spent if it lets him clock his 1.6 GHz chip to 2.8 GHz. He doesn't care what the person who is content running a PII 400 MHz chip thinks.
It used to be we all overclocked to get a little extra performance for little or no cost. Now its a tweaking hobby. You do it to show off to your friends. You do it to get your name in the top ten on Mad Onion. You do it because you can.
listen, i'm extremely drunk right now. why aren't you? it's fucking friday night, for fuck's sake. why the hell aren't you at a club?!?!
I overclocked. Got a pair of 300 Celrons at 500. Yay. Cost of the heatsink/fan was cheaper than the faster CPU, at the time. And 500 was notably more useful than 300.
I guess an exotic cooler can push a 2.2Ghz P4 to 3G, or something. Is it worth $500? I don't think so. I met my basic need back with the Dual 500's.
Since you're clearly be into this only for the fun factor. You could buy a $130 5000BTU AC unit and built it into a wicked antifreeze fluid cooler. Then, at least, you could locate all that noise outside and pipe the fluid.
You have to admit that they look identical though.
This cooling system seems to be doing wonders for their mySQL server. Lovely how descriptive the errors are. I'm sure no one would have guessed PASSWORD.
Am I the only one who found that disturbing?
I think I'd probably lose a lot more self-respect if I shelled out $500 for a fucking cooling device!
This guy's existing setup with a peltier cooler would run at 2160 Mhz. With this he was able to run it at 2200 Mhz - a 2% gain.
$500 for a 2% gain? I can think of better things to spend my money on.
Good things
As you can see the MX-EVA3 can take care of some very high heat load. It is by far the best extreme cooling solution on the market today. I've used all sorts of cooling to get to the top and I was under the impression that my 220 pelt and chilled water cooler was bringing my chip to its limits. I was wrong.
With the MX-EVA3 you can eliminate the use of pelts, extra power supplies and water. Now you use just one simple evaporator hook up.
It also is pretty good for space. It fits under your case so all you're doing is adding about 9 inches to the height of your case. As far as the noise level it is very tolerable for any Xtreme Overclocker. This can only be written up as a good thing.
Bad things
I'll start with the instructions. They are very good for condensation proofing but that's about it. There are no instructions for adjusting the Digital Display as far as setting the boot temperature or setting what ever it is you can set with the 4 buttons on the Digital Display. This would be nice to know.
They have no recommendation on moving your 4 AMD CPU tabs which in my opinion is a critical must.
Mounting is a bit tough but if you take your time you can get it right. It's always a scary moment when it comes to risking frying your CPU. I'm sure the Intel 478 mounting may be a lot easier.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Its not like you need it anyways.. spend the money on acid and n2o.
Heh. Am I right in thinking "She's falling in a slow descending funk" is from the Dar Williams song "As Cool As I Am?" Very nice reference. I wonder how many Slashdotters will get it?
I've been an icrontic reader since its inception as apushardware.com (for the guy in the simpsons) its always going down and really didn't deserve the slashdotting it just got. Poor ol Mortin (the site op) is always getting bashed. In case you didn't know he got his door kicked in and his computer confiscated last year because he posted a link to a new version of Counter-Strike on his filespace at his ISP. They were some pissed and called it an deliberate network DOS attack (by millions of CS fans). I think that was well beyond the slashdot effect.
Can I hook one of these things to the bottom of my Jolt Cola can? -Bingo
Wow...for that kinda of money i could put small desk and computer in a walk-in refrigerator.
It does look pretty cool though ;-)
how old is the review, a MONTH or two? the product certainly has been available for that time at least. and other similar products have been around too. now, you can't go out and buy a 3ghz p4, can you? also, if you buy evap. cooling like this it will last longer than your cpu remains current.. so it's not just 500$ out of the window, and it's still cheaper than kryo's equivalent. of course, a true enthuasist could go out and buy a huge used fridge for 500$ and rip the compressor and other diddoo's out from it.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
RAM is a nice thing to have too much of, but if you've got $500 to burn, GET A FAST AS HELL DISK SYSTEM. ATA is garbage, go with SCSI, you will not regret it.
I've found that 'responsiveness' as a subjective UI metric has always been greatly enhanced by a good high-speed spindle. Just get a smallish super-high speed disk for your system disk, put all your data (mp3's pr0n) on a cheap and slow IDE drive.
(sorry for the Chris Rock reference) ;)
But at that price, it better generate its own liquid helium!
It would have been better to call it the MX-EVA2 (Asuka's) , since the EVA3 is the black one that goes a bit mental and strange.
graspee
You be the judge . Oops, I'm -terribly- sorry. The site's dude has a little mark for his chin and the eyebrows are thicker. :-)
Anyway, here's some info on the series.
. . .
At work, people I know are more interested in the water cooling scene, hoping one day for quieter machines. . .
But now, with an external *piped* cooling device on the market, we're just waiting for the advent of building facility CPU cooling ducts, just like the air - con.
Yup, rent new office, bring in desk, plug CPU into cooling duct (obviously with your case and machine coming standard with a nice clean bit of plumbing), connect cat5 (or fiber, come on this is an _ideal_ office :) and go . . .
Final thought, is there any reliability gain to be had from using such a cooler and _not_ overclocking? Okay, I could probably answer that one if I tried, but it's breakfast time and I'm hungry . . .
It's a freon pressure pump (likely not pumping freon though) and if you ever 'looked-inside' your parents refridgerator with the help of a screwdriver and a few 8-12mm keys, you have already seen one exactly like this. Although this one is likely to function better that your parents frigo after your 'autopsy'
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Yes, bell curve sounds okay, but
if you plot the number of people vs. annual income, do you really think you get a gaussian distribution? Having serious doubts about this one.
I've quit buying AMD altogether because they can't get their act together and produce a CPU in the 20-30 W range. Instead they churn out processors that need an enormous fan that makes a jet engine noise.
On the other hand my new, dual 1.13 GHz Pentium II-S (512 Kb cache) is quiet as a whisper... that P-III sure is a sweet CPU.
Short answer No with a but... : Long answer Yes with an if...
Running the chip at a reduced temperature will prolong the life of the chip. The silicon will be less prone to surges in power supply rails and will degrade more slowly as the atoms will move around less. For optimum lifetime you should also store your CPU at low low temperatures. There's absolutely no doubt that reducing the chip temperature will extend it's life.
Our real issue here is with the reliability of the cooling systems.
A shaped lump of aliminum or copper without a fan just isn't going to go wrong. Ever. (OK.. maybe it'll fall off the chip). But those cheap fans they insist on bolting on... 12 months normally.. 4 years tops.
Let's go for 5 years as the figure to beat.
Keeping that compressor running will probably not be much of a reliability issue. Compressors are old-tech well-known, well constructed and easily have a lifetime of 10-20 years in most refrigerators. In spite of the fact that there's moving parts, the design of the coolant gasses and lubricants means that the compressor is not exposed to corrosion or built up of any residues inside. It remains clean and smooth running until the motor burns out, or the metal breaks. The compressor itself is very reliable.. that's not our problem.
Our problem is almost certainly going to be with the hoses that connect the compressor to the cold plate. These hoses are under very high pressure. They have to carry compressed gas to the cold plate so it can be pushed through a pinhole (at which point it expands and cools) and then circle it back to the compressor. In a refrigerator, these hoses are all solid metal, and soldered together. 90% of the airconditioning system in my car also uses real copper tubes. Our problem if any is going to be with those tubes...
With good maintenance and care, they could last 10 years. In reality, I'd give 'em around 3 years before a razor sharp bit of case pierces one of 'em whilst you're bolting your chiller onto you AMD Pentathlon4 @4.5Ghz
There's lots of parts inside the compressor, flexible rubber tubing and lots of gas moving around under rather high pressures. In terms of reliability, I'd figure that the chiller unit could match a standard refrigerator (10 years? more?).
A lot of you people missed the point..... not everyone can have liquid nitrogen cooling (impractical for continual use) and a peltier setup with water cooling can be too messy too look after.
This system is great as a "bolt on" performance upgrade that will last not just this sytem but the next as well. If any of you follow "folding" then you will know how much competition there is between people for doing the most.... lots of folders build small home server farms just to help their folding team. Although spending money on a dual system means more folding time available, it also means you have two of a slower CPU compared to one CPU with this that is at its almost absolute limit. Naturally one would buy the latest and fastest CPU and put this on it to get even more out of it. It all a matter of speed and pride.
>But now, with an external *piped* cooling device on
>the market, we're just waiting for the advent of
>building facility CPU cooling ducts, just like the
>air - con.
Its getting f*cking stupid really. X86en should simply die off in a cold dark room.
There are CPUs like XScale (ARM) which will do 1GHz with almost no heat output at all (not even needing a heatsink).
If he wants to calculate Pi to the one-billionth digit (using Super Pi or something like that), it would be a good idea to use a 3600rpm ATA/33 drive, and then he can make the CPU a little better... (Assuming the system does not need to swap, of course)
For the price of $500 this thing better be able to cool your room too. That would be nice.
No thanks I'll wait for the coolchips no moving parts http://www.coolchips.com/
This thing is hardly practical with a dual-CPU system.
FWIW(2c)
Split the box so the drives and PSU are in a separate compartment, then use Peltier on the CPU(s), and duct cold air from a small industrial air chiller onto all the heatsinks and areas that need local cooling.
You might need some form of discharge brush system to stop static (there's a bit of a Van Der Graaff effect). I've never tried it on a PC but the version we built in the 80s got the main board down to -5C, allowing the memory and IO buses to run rather faster than the makers intended.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
People up until now have used air-water-air coolers and called them liquid coolers. Such systems cannot significantly improve over the efficacy of air cooling since they still depend on getting rid of the head by radiating it to the air.
But now we're talking. A true refrigeration system. Just like a R-12 or R134a A/C system.
Note that despite this system using evaporation, it isn't actually a "evaporative cooler" (swamp cooler) in the actual sense of the word. Such units work by evaporating water into the air to dispel heat. Such units require water refills (or a constant fresh water supply) and raise the humidity of the area they evaporate into (i.e. your computer room).
No, this unit is an air conditioner. Still, it's a great idea and a true advance.
But since I don't O/C my machine, I won't be trying this puppy out any time soon.
they might have a really overclocked and fast compooter, but their web serfer totally sucks it would not even respond as if it did not exist...
Will the upcoming Pentium Pentium (Pentium V) require one of these ?
I think that this is a great deal as compared to the competition - this is basically a carbon-copy(A legally ambiguous one, too) of the VapoChill system(Their website uses the same flash animation of the phase-change system). The Vapochill retails at around 750-1000USD, so this is a good deal. One does not pay 250-500USD more for a midtower case.
People in Soviet Russia, however, appear to be afflicted with amusing juxtapositions of the aforementioned situation
This is simply a vapochill ripoff, personaly I would rather buy a vapochill case, with everything already setup, plug in the board and attach the cooler and your done.
Vapochill
For $695, you get the unit inside a mid/full tower case with a full warrenty on it, atleast vapochill knows what they are doing, after all they've been around for a few yeras.
Om, nomnomnom...
This set up reminds me of kryotech. They broke the 1GHz barrier if i remember right. I wonder what they are working on nowdays...
Well, if the overclocking business continues to grow in this direction, people will soon be giving tips in how to overclock the cooling equipment! I can imagine the discussions:
Q: "I just got this new 'UltraCooler 5000' and was looking for tips in how to make it cool my processor more effectively. Currently it has an cooling effect of only 250 watts."
A: "Yeah, there's a mod chip that overrides the thermostat regulator and enables the 'Ultra Cooler 6000' mode."
title says it all
put some heavy duty fans on it too, you wont hear them since they'll be enclosed in the nicely insulated refidgerator. You can keep beer/Mountain Dew inside too
Plus it'll be cool to show your freinds this AWESOME CASE MOD. Kinda freak them out when you open the 'fridge to pop a CD in
..........FULL STOP.
More potential uses for this cooler:
Overclock your graphics card.
Buy two and overclock a Dual G4 Tower.
Use several to cool some RDRAM.
Cool the Northbridge on your motherboard.
Overclock your Pentium 60.
Make your old 2GB Seagate Barracuda more reliable.
Clamp one onto an unsuspecting sleeping victim.
Overclock your brain.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
But will it keep your beer cold?
-bpl