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A cooler with no fans? Zalman says 'Yes'!Zalman is planning to launch a pair of CPU coolers in the second quarter of 2013, one of them a closed-loop liquid cooler unlike any you've ever seen before, the company told us at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It's called the CI Water Cooler, which is an updated version of the company's CNPS LQ Series of self-contained liquid coolers. The other is a fanless block.
Starting with the CI, the cooler is rated at up to 400 watts of cooling capacity, has composite heatpipes, and features lots of surface area with two layers of fins. Both the C.I. and the fanless FX100 Cube won a CES Design & Engineering award.
Speaking of the FX100 Cube, this passive cooler has no fans and is massive, belying the fact that it weighs less than 500g and fits in a standard ATX case. If the thought of going fanless scares you, or you simply want more cooling performance, you can remove the top plate and add a 92mm fan in the middle, though it's entirely optional.
Check out the video below to see both coolers up close and in action.
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PDX-1337
January 14, 2013 at 11:22am
Wow, that closed loop cooler is bad ass, certainly the nicest looking closed loop cooler I have seen.
kiaghi7
January 11, 2013 at 4:05pm
While the sealed "all in one" liquid cooler looks interesting, when he says it will cool up to 400 watts, which sounds impressive but it leaves out the most important statistic...
It will cool up to 400 watts, to what temperature? The ability to cool a heat source is of course measured by how much heat is it able to counter, and simultaneously how much does it reduce that heat.
Also the hoses seem fairly short unless you're mounting it exactly as they have it in the video. Corsair's "H" series all in one coolers recently had an update/revision to provide LONGER and more flexible hoses precisely for that reason.
The "FX CUBE" is very interesting, but it's been done, both old and new... Currently there's the NoFan CR100A and CR95C, and passive cooling goes way on back even beyond the now aging Scythe OROCHI 1000 which is -capable- of running passive as well. Obviously they are not intended for a LGA1366 or 2011 chip, but on lesser wattage setups it is possible, particularly with good case ventilation and air-flow.
