- Tuesday, 17 November 2009
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A processcor is the brian of the computator - Tamealian on ze Kave
Thermaltake turns PC case into a fridge
WE'VE DISCUSSED the high performance alternatives to water cooling many times on these pages - from Asetek freezers to Biohazard cascaded engines.
Thermaltake is among the first Taiwanese vendors to enter the 'advanced' cooling arena. The firm's new Xpressar RCS100 is not a mothers' breast milk expressing aid, but the first fully integrated affordable 'fridge' PC CPU cooling case.
Why fridge? Well, if Asetek VapoChill LS is a 'freezer' not dissimilar to kitchen freezers with cooling temps deep into the minus chart, Thermaltake Xpressar cools your CPU more moderately to the typical kitchen fridge temperatures or somewhere between ten and twenty degrees C, which of course is still quite a bit of improvement over a, say, high end water cooler.
We witnessed the early units hit 30C when running the CPU on near full load during benchmarks, the final implementations should do even better than that.
Thermaltake said is uses the world's first DC inverter type micro refrigeration
cooling system (spelt "DC Incerter" on this cute slide). The Xpressar also has a
temperature stabilising IC controller to monitor temperature and condensation
levels.
As you can see, the configuration inside the case seems to be very simple, in fact simpler than many water cooling systems - without the leaks and associated liquid cooling mess.
The initial configuration is focused mainly on the LGA775 socket platforms (i.e. up to Core 2 Extreme) - we guess they will have to provide a LGA1366 socket adapter for the Bloomfield Nehalems too. We'll look at such a version of Xpressar soon.
Beyond this, the firm said it's figuring out the support for dual CPU mobos as well as GPU cooling.
The real challenge is creating mass market version of a -40 C freezer. Vapochill and its likes are still too heavy, bulky and condensation-causing - did we also mention the price? ยต
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Remember the now-defunct company Cryotech that used to sell fridge PCs?
most efficient design ( cheaper / less materials) 

http://i34.tinypic.com/fp11t5.jpg



The one problem I see with this is condensation. How do you funnel the condensation out of the case without leaks onto the electronics?
I'm curious as to how high much this will affect your energy bill. If it has a 200W draw, and a kW/hr is .10, you're looking at $175 or so over the course of a year. A water cooling setup would cost a few dollars a year--the pump, and the fans.

At what point would you better off buying a higher binned chip?

Just a bit of curiosity on my part.
Where does the condensation go? 

Combined with the ordinary case fans, this is effectively a room-dehumidifier. It could produce a litre a day in humid weather ?
Um, actually, no, you didn't mention the price. So what would one of these doodads actually go for?
I always did like the idea of using either a compressor and/or peltier, but they do have one major down side. They both produce heat of their own. Couple this with one of the new 125w CPU's, 150w+ graphics cards (+SLI?), motherboard chipsets, MOSFETs, and RAM, PSU exhaust, and pocket change from other devices like HDDs, and you might have to start looking for a A/C system dedicated just to the room the computer is in (even after the main home A/C system). 

Even if that compressor is only rated for 100-150 watts, the condensor coils will still be adding a fair amount (let alone from the motor it's self).

I don't mean to pock fun or shoot the idea down. In theory it's great.... but I'll never own one.
Interesting. I buy it when I hear that I cannot hear it.
For those asking about the problems this unit would have, a quick look at the website will put you minds at rest.

Condensation is controlled by an 'intelligent IC' I'd think it would be like the heating element on the vaopchills etc and it looks well insulated which also helps.

The Condensor wont affect the case temperature as the outtake fan is monted in front of it blowing the air out of the case and as for the invertor, well we have to see for ourselves

http://www.xpressar.com/product/rsc100/rsc100-features.html
People have been turn SGI machines into bar fridges for ages.
Its an "above dew point" cooler, and being an "inverter" style compressor means you don't have to run it in duty cycles, you can slow down or back-off the compressor as needed.

In effect it will be likely be more efficient than any of the others simply for the above points.

Damage.inc
my computer only uses their products! Ive read some ware that you can apply petrolatum jelly"messy"but non-cunductive.it should fix the condensation problem but that leaves your psu exposed best bet would be to go external ^.^.my two duo cores crash at 23c air cooled lol my max orb kicks this things butt,i do it by having two 80mm fans crossing their flows towards it.
I used to be into Phase Change cooling - There are ways round the condensation as long as you fit the cooler properly the humid air can not get to the cold bits. Then you just need to keep the rest of the PC above room temp and it works quite well. 
Unfortunately I did once accidentely leave a cooler capable of -76 running with the PC turned off overnight ... Lots of ice in the pc which thored and killed the mobo and CPU