H2O waterblock manufacturer surfaces

A CREW THAT IMPRESSED me with four millimetre waterblocks for graphics cards worked for Alpha Cool at the time (CeBIT 007), German H2O-cooling manufacturer - but they decided to jump ship and find a protective environment under Rombus, the German distribution giant. Not to be confused with Rambus.

Under the newly founded brand Xirex, these talented lads are currently designing and already manufacturing water-blocks that are targeting best price/performance ratio, and a product or two that will bring unique twist. At least, that's what Xirex is now hoping for.

The guys are now set to bring several products onto the market, with the most interesting products being ultra-low profile waterblocks for graphics cards. The idea of a water-block that is only four millimetres thick, brings shivers to motherboard designers of today. Even if you put two, three or even four graphics cards onto the motherboard, you can always use each and every expansion slot that has remain free and there would even be some airflow to these components, not blocked by fatter water-blocks of today.

GeForce 8800GTX mock-up with WB prototype

The second product is a universal affordable CPU cooler. This waterblock sports support for almost every socket on the market, while the price should be bit less than the competition. If Intel dares to answer, this waterblock will even support Socket 771, and this is something that both Intel V8 and Xeons need.

Universal CPU cooler

The third and last of the drawings we got was a liquid reservoir that mounts on top of the Laing pumps, lowering the vibrations and keeping the cabling at minimum. There are several variants with different capacity, but overall idea is the same.

Reservoir for Laing DDC1 series of pumps

All in all, it's promising stuff. Now, all that Xirex need to do is deliver the products onto the market and achieve promised price/performance ratio, but even more important - deliver performance. µ

L'INQ
Xirex homepage (work in progress)