Fall IDF 2006 Wrap-up Coverage

Asetek

Asetek – Water Cooling For OEM’s

Morten and the gang from Europe were able to make the jump across the pond to make IDF and were proud to display a water cooler aimed at OEM?s that has been in development for a number of years. While Asetek has developed extreme cooling methods in the past for enthusiasts with the likes of phase change cooling this new product has been developed to reach the masses and strictly put together for ODM’s and OEM’s alike. The Asetek Low Cost Liquid Cooling (LCLC) units are factory sealed and feature a radiator and a water block/pump unit that are connected by a thin hose (the exact size is unknown, but it is smaller than 3/8?). Asetek is hoping to get the pricing on these units down to around 20 Euro’s, which will make it a lucrative alternative for air cooling as that is only about $25 American Dollars for water cooling.

The life on the unit is 50,000 hours or 2,083 days of 24/7 use before something might fail. Since most people don?t run their computers 24 hours a day and upgrade them more often than every six years the longevity of the cooler doesn?t seem to be a concern. For those wondering about performance Asetek did have a display up and running showing two identical systems running at full load to compare temperatures between the retail boxed Intel solution to their cooler.

With the system running at 100% load the core temperature on the system with the reference fan was running a constant 71C. This isn’t an ideal temperature to have the CPU running at and is near the point where the processor will actually start to throttle at.

With their water cooler and a double radiator the average core temperature was 55C, which is a difference of 16C. The Asetek water cooler was able to improve cooling by 22%, but we also noticed that the test setup wasn’t to our liking. The water cooled system had two 80mm fans blowing the heat from the radiator while the air cooled system didn’t have any case fans. The resulting temperature difference in the case was 21C (50C versus 29C) and was sure to influence the testing outcome. Nearly all system builders these days include a fan located at the rear of the case. Overall the new cooler looks to be a winner as it will lower the core temperatures, reduce noise levels and help introduce water cooling to a whole new market that otherwise wouldn’t touch it. In all honesty if Asetek can get their low cost liquid cooling (LCLC) out the door for between $25 and $35 it seems like it could easily be the best cooling solution at this price range.