Thermaltake compressor ready to roll
THE INQUIRER was the first media outlet to cover the new compressor casing from Thermaltake. Sitting right in between water coolers and deep freezers, the simple, neat, near 0 degree fridge-type compressor has attracted our attention ever since CeBIT.
Thermaltake showed a near-final version of the setup, with more insulated and flexible pipes, as well as supposedly improved cooling performance. While it might not keep your CPU below zero, it should ensure that the die temperature doesn't go above some 30 C even at full load on quad cores. Thermaltake states an average 20 C temperature drop compared to the best 'classic' radiator-based water cooling.
The system is basically a micro vapour-condensation refrigeration contraption - think of it as a much larger and stronger cousin of the vapour chamber stuff seen in some recent Sapphire 3-D graphics cards, for instance.
All the heat it absorbs and removes from the, say, CPU, chipset and/or GPU location is then expelled out. The main components are the compressor, where the refrigerant liquid becomes a high-pressure vapour; the condenser, where that vapour again becomes cold refrigerant; a spiral expansion valve where that refrigerant drops its pressure abruptly; and an evaporator, the cooling block on your CPU or GPU or whatever. After passing through it, the stuff goes back to the compressor.
In summary, the Thermaltake compressor stuff is there, ready to roll: it is clean and neat, without massive tube mess, seems to cool well while keeping silent, and yeah some other vendors seem to now be looking at this method of cooling very seriously too. Hopefully we'll be able to bring you an early review soon. ยต
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Seems that its able to keep the CPU so cold, that its able to operate, without RAM!
Any idea what the power consumption of this cooling set-up is? While I realise that enthusiasts aiming for over-clocking bragging rights probably don't care how much energy they use, if Thermaltake intend to make this kind of solution mainstream they'll have to make it appeal to the average user in the same way water-cooling manufacturers have done.
Bring it on! I'd have this over watercooling any day.

Fantastic idea.

There's no need for sub zero unless you're doing some serious overclocking, this will be brilliant for the everyday gamers who like to overclock just that little bit.

If this comes out, I'm buying it.
Is it totally silent?
The condenser is where the vapor is condensed into a liquid. This allows it to release the heat it picked up from the evaporator.

Strangely enough, the line going TO the condenser is cold, and the smaller line that goes to the evaporator is the hot one!

As the liquid evaporates in the evaporator, the temperature drops, ready to take the heat away from your electronics so you can frag away...or OC as far as you want.
"While it might not keep your CPU below zero, it should ensure that the die temperature doesn't go above some 30 C even at full load on quad cores."

In general, processors running below zero degrees celcius aren't a good thing. There is a reason why microprocessor vendors spec their parts from 0-85 or 0-105 and charge a premium for -40dC support. Feel free to do a search on "digital logic" "race condition".