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First Retail Water-Cooled DDR2 Memory Tested

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everything-is-better-wet dept.

Twistedmelon writes "We've all heard of water cooling for processors and even graphics processors, in today's high end PCs. However, a water cooled memory module is something that hasn't been done until now. OCZ Technology recently announced their line of Flex XLC Water-Cooled RAM, with its integrated heat-spreaders that can be connected to any standard water cooling system. The memory operates much cooler under load with tight timings at DDR2-800 speeds. For those with water-cooling setups, these DIMMs could easily be tapped into an existing system allowing for quiet and robust cooling for your system memory as well."

3 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. zap... by mastershake_phd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ive heard of water cooling CPUs, GPUs, and even the Northbridge, but never RAM. Still I guess they are getting hotter too. The only thing I got against water cooling is it uses water, no thanks. Though I would consider using a non-conductive fluid. There is this stuff called fluorinert made for just such an application. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert Its extremely expensive though. Ive heard Mineral oil works, then if you get a leak you just get a mess, instead of a fried PC.

    --
    Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
  2. But how much does it really improve things? by JoeD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Every time I see something like this, I wonder how much real world improvement you will see.

    Sure, there may be a small improvement on a benchmark, but those rarely translate into something that's noticeable to the end user.

    Or is it really more about having the shiniest toys?

    1. Re:But how much does it really improve things? by penp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To a lot of people, water cooling isn't only about the possible performance increase, it's also about the sound (or lack thereof). Personally, I haven't tried water cooling yet, but I would definitely like to get the sound of a buzzsaw out of my PC.

      As far as performance goes, I recently upgraded from RAM that had a CAS latency of 3 (Corsair XMS) to some that had more aggressive timings (OCZ performance ram) with a CAS latency of only 2. They were running at the same speeds (DDR 400 / PC3200), but at the faster timings the improvement was vastly greater than I had expected. After reading up on it some, a difference of 1ns can mean a lot when you're talking in terms of tens of millions of data cycles.