CES 2006: OCZ’s Cryo-Z Phase Change Cooler

The OCZ Revolution: Phase Change Cooling

For years now OCZ has been targeting products with one of a kind niche products aimed at overclockers. It all started out with enthusiast memory which eventually churned out the OCZ Voltage Booster and then high voltage memory that required active cooling. It seems that OCZ Technology likes to stay in this market and have put together a single phase change cooling system with the hopes of getting it into the consumers hands for $350 at launch then lowering to the low $200 price range if sales pick up.

What makes the Cryo-Z different from the other phase change coolers on the market is it’s economical price point. With most entery level water cooling kits going for $200 this phase change cooler should blow them away in terms of raw cooling power if OCZ is able to get prices in the $200 range like their marketing team hopes. It should be pointed out that OCZ did have to “reduce” some features on the phase change cooler to keep the prices down. One is example of this is that the model is a sealed unit. This means that end users can not buy the Cryo-Z and change the coolant right out of the box.

Although the OCZ Cryo-Z uses a compressor that has a label that says R134a that is not the case. OCZ didn’t want to comment on exactly what coolant is used but did mention that they picked the best price versus performance coolant for what they wanted. We spoke with Tony (Big Toe) from OCZ who has had one for a lenghty period of time and he was seeing -22C at idle on an AMD FX-57 overclocked to 3.3GHz and around -10C under load. If these numbers are correct the Cryo-Z is inline with other more expensive phase change coolers on the market.