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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."
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.
The article itself says that it's the same technology as your fridge. They're not trying to pull the wool over your eyes -- they're applying the technology to your computer.
Personally, I think this is a giant step in the wrong direction seeing as many people are opting to go fan-less just to avoid all the usual noise a PC makes. This unit is gonna make your PC buzz - like a fridge.
Flamebait? He's right. They seem to have benchmarked a CPU at THE SAME CLOCK SPEED with or without the Vapochill. Now, how the hell does temperature effect performance when the thing is running at the same clock speed (feel free to correct me)?
Man those sites are the bane of computer science today.
If I hear one more 13 year old talk about how the fancy new copper heatspreaders on his DDR RAM gave him 5 more FPS in Doom 3, I swear I'm going to snap his greasy little neck.
Then again, big ups to the makers of all this "extreme PC gear". For instance, this vapochil deal, bought as a sushi bar cooler (which is what it is), would cost about 75 bucks. They turn around, mod it a little bit, jam it in a 20 dollar case and sell it for hundreds.
Or taking the heater core for a car, anodizing (or just spraypainting) it black, and selling it for 100+ plus as an "Xtreme PC radiator".
Or taking a 50 dollar aquarium pump and selling it for 100+ as an "Xtreme PC cooling pump".
Or, the piece of resistance, 50 cents worth of milled copper being sold as an "Xtreme PC waterblock".
Fools and their money..
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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.
They seem to have used only one trial, as well. Anyone who didn't sleep through their junior high science class should know how to design a better experiment, and that a ~0.5% difference is typically experimental error, not a significant difference.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Redo this on a slower P4 or an athlon{XP,64} and I don't think that you will see a difference. That said, if they did not do several trials of this test ..... 0.5% difference is likely less than the margin of error.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
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
yes but if you're just writing crap to get free stuff then it doesn't matter apparently what you write.
what's bad about is that now dozens of idiots without clue are going to use this as 'proof'.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
OK, most of what you said is both true and insightful, which is why I bought the heater core for a car, the aquarium pump and scientific tubing instead of the Xtreme stuff most sites sell. The one mistake you made was the waterblock remark.
Yes, it is only 50 cents worth of copper, but you kind of need that thing that mills it out. I certainly don't have anything here in my toolbox that can mill out a piece of copper. I also don't have ready access to a machine shop that would be willing to do it for me. They also have been making the designs better from an iterative process (not a scientific one), so I'd have to take the time to find a good design (and make sure it doesn't leak when I put it together). The waterblock is the one thing I couldn't do by myself when watercooling, and I really did research to see if I could. So I don't think $40 is too much to pay for a piece of milled copper if it is something I couldn't do by myself without hours and hours of work for a probably bad result.
IANAL, but I play one on