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Asetek's Extreme CPU Cooler Tested
VL writes "Do-It-Yourself Phase Change Cooling Systems are built and used by a few folks, but they can be complicated to build, mostly messy, and dangerous; certainly not something you should get into without knowing what you are doing. But as with anything like this, there is always a turn key solution brought to market you can buy. Enter asetek, and their VapoChill series of Phase Change Cooling systems. What we have on the review bench here specifically is the asetek VapoChill Lightspeed [AC], a case separate enclosure containing a Phase Change Cooling system for your PC's CPU."
... that's COOL!
Some "tech" site, populated by 13 year old overclockers who know shit about how a computer works, and it shows (ie; they think they need to cool their CPU to sub-0 temps to make it work), reviews a product thats been around forever (and is nothing but a repurposed sushi bar cooler).
"Nothing for you to see here" indeed.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
That this was just posted now.. hell, these have been arround for years. i remember them being mentioned on techtv back when it was Zdtv and a pentium 3 900 was a fast computer.
i mean give me a break..
I thought this was supposed to be a cooler.
ok yet another seperate cooler, what makes this one so special than the ones created before it. looking at the article it doesnt seem that new and great.
CPU cooling - among other things - is done by liquid nitrogen.
This is the most widespread method of cooling.
Looked up on Wikipedia . If I read the article right, most refrigerators use this awesome phase change cooling technology. Lame publicity stunt..
newbie(stupid - newbie can use it if he bothers to read and understands what the thing is and how it works) friendly? probably not.
definetely cool shit though. but a bit out of budget for most of us(you need the best rig you can get for it to make sense to get a vapo for oc'ing it to the maximum, because vapo's aint cheap with non-top-of-the-line components the money is better spent buying a faster cpu, more memory and such).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
They could certainly use some stronger cooling on their servers...
My favourite part of this oh-so-professional review is when they try to deduce the "fact" that "CPUs work at higher efficency when running at lower temperatures" by comparing the time some video-encoding takes @stock speed, and the vapochilled setup acchieving a result better a whole TWO SECONDS than the default one (with the complete encoding-job taking about 400secs or so).
Now that surely justifies a maybe 700US$ investment, and is by no means an effect called "measuring tolerance".
Great job. -_-
I prefer the nitrogen/oxygen mixture myself. I plan to move on to using a dihydrogen monoxide based system in the future, though.
Back when modding was almost the best thing to do since eat sliced bread these things were out. I once heard that you can actully dunk your whole pc into a coolant that is not conductive and then make that cooling liquid sub zero. I also had a freeon based system with forced air going once. I mean really these units are expensive. Anyone know of any low cost high grade cooling?
http://www.cushingproductions.com
The reviewer believes that cooling a processor makes it run faster...
They say on the site that the system is nothing new. But their piece of equipment is certainly a lot easier to install than any other system of that type.
1) Go and look at your fridge.
2) If you want your chip REALLY cold
a) Host in deep-space
b) Rotate winters in the Artic/Antartic
3) If you want your chip REALLY REALLY cold
a) Get your wife to stand next to the box, then tell her you've forgotten her birthday.
4) And for the ultimate in cold, you just need to create the conditions where Bill Gates admits publically that he prefers Linux.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I haven't RTFA in full, but I know that they get their compressors from a well known Danish company Danfoss making refrigerators, thermostats etc. IIRC one of the founders had worked at Danfoss at sometime.
Seems to me that the author of the article tried to do some homework but missed the mark.
by "Sure it is", i ment you are right. :D
Need to sleep now.
What are you going to do? Start your own website in your treehouse and get all your little friends to come? I'd like to see that!
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Site seems a bit slow.. Coralised link.
Despite how people are mostly not posting (less than 50 comments) and are generally regarding this as not innovative, for some reason, I think the link got slashdotted anyways.
For 1500 dollars I can buy a better CPU,mobo and graphic card to get my computer as fast or faster than overclocking my current one.
http://www.viperlair.com/images/reviews/cooling/mi sc/asetek/vpls/in_hole1.jpg
That picture looks like they used an axe to cut the hole ...
Don't they just make a perfect match with this Frankenst_in_ piece of ricer crap? Last week I drooled over a Dual G5 silence. Is it on? Oh yeah, the disk spins and, ah! that Panther desktop. Sweet, come back when there's some computer to match.
The hype machine always has some new crappy potion to sell. Shame that those perfect designs, turning points set in stone, only happen every so much; quality is not for the masses (not that they can't afford it... this fridge isn't exactly cheap).
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
I swear I keep thinking they're called Asstek
Would an editor think that this article was "news" by any definition.
Why not put your PC in a transparent case and fill it with two colour oil? Then you can boast about 20th century technology - way better than the 19th century technology these guys are flogging.
Oh well, what the hell...
Doesn't it bother anyone that these types of extreme measures are necessary in the first place?
Isn't it about time Intel, AMD et al developed CPUs that don't get hot enough to cook an egg on?
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Come on, if were going to have slashvertisments can we at least have them for new products, not things which have been araound for so long theve been reviwed by virtually every overclockers forum and site.
They should have measured the sound somehow. 5 years ago PC noise wasn't a major concern, but now days you'll never read a review of a CPU cooler that doesn't give you a pretty good description of how loud the system is.
my grade on the review: F
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
There's no need for anything more than a decent heatsink/fan.
I think I paid somewhere in the $30s for my HSF, and I probably spent too much money. Hell, before I had this one, I just used the stock HSF, and only switched because my new motherboard wouldn't recognise my old fan.
The only reason you'd need anything more is if you're an overclocker, and overclockers are stupid. Only a moron would destroy their CPU's stability in return for a tiny gain that isn't even detectable to humans.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
$750?! You'd have to be incredibly stupid to buy it then. For that sort of money you could probably get a dual CPU system with decent cooling instead.
It also weighs 50lbs. Enough said.
They say that semiconductor physics means lower temp = higher efficiency. But I'm pretty sure resistance goes up as temperature goes down(in semiconductors), hence lower efficiency?
They DID talk about noise in the conclusion. It's loud, but you can alter the speed of the fans. Most of the noise apparently comes from the compressor, though.
i have a phase change water cooling system designed for photo baths. its got a huge insulted resivour and a heat exchanger.
i had to axe the program after our house electricity bill kept climbing, sans the project even getting off the ground.
phase change is one of the most expensive prospects out there. sure its badass cool, but you might as well spend the money on a faster chip and not have to pay again and again for your speed (in electricity bills).
phase change has one and only one use as far as I can see (well, aside from those of us without metered electricity). i think phase change would rule in an office environment.
as cpu's keep getting hotter, we're going to have to water cool. centralized phase change computer cooling begins to make sense.
i dream of working in a office with no white noise. water cooling seems like a fine first step for doing so. of course, we'd have to use those silly projection keyboard things, quieter AC systems and do half a million other things to keep noise down, but most office i've been to, computer noise is one of the largest factors.
Myren
No one has mentioned Peltier cooling yet? It looks like that works on the same principles.
For the rest of us with hot CPUs or want silence... there's the Thermalright SI-97 for Socket A (AMD) boards, and Thermalright XP-90 for sockets 478/775 (Intel) and 754/939 (AMD).
I'll state this from the start, I don't overclock. I do however seem to remember reading that lower temps increase stability.
Everyone always talks about sticking their comp inside a 'fridge, but I've never seen it done. Most refridges cant cool enough quickly to and it will just run constantly.
..........FULL STOP.
Many of you have problably seen thoes coolers that have no gas or anything, just a fan. This technology, called thermo electrics was first used by the military to cool FLIR systems. The IR CCDS of the time weren't as sensitive and needed to be at liquid nitrogen temps to work. The one time i had a good look at one was at the MT tech sale. It was really cool, a heatsync with one side getting hot and a fan, and on the other a freezing cold heatsync. Something like that could fit in the case of the computer quite easiley. Mabye the dual 3 GHZ G5 3.5 mabye. ;)
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
Well the more expensive fridges come with Internet displays and what you now anyway, so what about one that supports liquid cooling of PCs?
:) The LCD could be used to render extra information like CPU and case temperatures, plus pump speed and water levels. This would be one nerdy fridge.
I would really dig a unit that has a built in pump and reservoir. Think about it.
The pump should be strong enough to support long cabling, so that it could support the PC in my home office.
I'd be happy with something that keeps the temperature of the liquid solution from increasing as CPU load is high over time - i.e. 10c (??) or so, just on the borderline of condensation. (Please fill in what the optimal water temp would be, I suppose it is in relation to room temp so it'd have be variable).
Well, until then, I'll just have to be happy with my current Aquarius 3 water cooling solution.
ISO certified == THX certified
I've worked with plenty of refrigeration units on equipment while working at NCR, but the thing that always killed the device was the water. Even if you kept it dry enough to keep from shorting-out the equipment, you still had horrible problems with corrosion. Of course, since I worked in Houstin and in SC, humidity problems just come with the territory. So, how does this system handle condensation? The lines didn't look insulated enough to help.
Jeez, some people have WAY too much money on hand. You could buy a small freezer for a lot less than $700. Just put your entire PC case in it, route the cables outside and there you go, phase change cooling system for a lot less (tm).
"and why was there no mention of noise??"
What you said? SHOUT, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
I place my money on the Time Cooling System. Just wait a few years and you get "extreme" performance without the need to overclock anything.
Damn my K6 used to burn holes through my motherboard, and my K8, while "extremely" faster, runs at half the temp.
Time cooling for teh win !
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
What about cooling graphics and the hard drive? My new PC's CPU rarely hits 30 deg C using a Zalman cooler at low fan speed. The GPU goes to 80 deg C (passive heatpipe, granted). But the hard drives contain all of my data! Yeah I make regular backups, but losing the HD to thermal stress would create a lot of heartache for me.
Sir, all I want to say to you is...
:-)
The first thing serious overclockers do with RAM heatsinks ("heatspreaders") is take them off. This is not done in online reviews and tests of RAM sticks because it typically voids the warranty. But those thin un-finned copper plates are completely useless -- you get better RAM cooling with naked chips and then good airflow directed on the sticks.
Indeed proper cooling matters, especially with chips like Winbond's (legendary) BH-5. An overclock from 200 to 220 MHz (or higher), with the latency settings still at a tight 2-2-2-5, gives almost directly proportional performance boost. (Especially with Doom 3, which is surprisingly CPU/RAM limited, thanks to the heavy shadow silhouette calculations which the engine cannot offload to the GPU.)
Dive into competent sites like overclockers.com for the solid info
You do realize that AMD/Intel/ATI and nVidia pay people and/or give them free crap to just overclock it? Bragging rights in their respective fields.
The majority of the people here are whining because someone else had a chance to test out a 900 dollar cooler. Chances are they didn't get to keep it.
I review products for a fairly major website (not the one listed in the article) I've reviewed a few products in the high priced range and didnt get to keep them. No problem. I had my fun and shipped the item back.
Phase change isn't something you'd run 24/7. If you did you are probably rich and aren't reading these articles anyway. Some air cooling systems can perform just as well as water cooling kits, minus the noise.
I didn't read the whole article but they really didn't do a very good job in bench marking the unit. Sure showing how far you can OC it is fine, but what about running a game (half life 2) or application (prime95) for 24-48 hours?
Most of these review sites are in it for the goods and not for the true reason we reviewers do it. To spread the knowledge to the rest of the world and to give people a solid opinion on a specific product. Not to get free shit from companies.
ViperLair seems pretty reputable but this review seemed rushed and written by someone who doesn't know much about the field outside of what he googled 10 minutes before writing.
Oh well....
If you had you would have read were he explained running at the same clock won't help but you CAN see a slight difference in efficiency when running at cooler temperatures. Go to the next page and he DID overclock the machine. So dumbass, there you go.
There you go, for a few bucks more you have no condensation. And if you want liquid cooling, transformer oil doesn't cost that much. It's used in sub-station transformers.
Again, RTFA. They describe the noise the system makes in the conclusion, and offer information on how to possibly reduce or control it. Also, how the heck can you expect them to possibly quantify how loud the system is? dBa meters that are in any way accurate are NOT cheap or easy to come by, not to mention that a dBa reading depends on how far you are from the system, where you're measuring from in relation to it, etc. There's simply now way to make a quantifiable measurement of the loudness of a system that's going to mean anything to anyone outside of a laboratory setting.