One part case, one part cooler, eight parts awesome

Posted 05/09/2007 at 12:32pm | by David Murphy

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Enough about looks; you're probably curious how this rig performs, eh? Well, seeing as I can't really compare the cooling of a quad-core rig to the coolers we strap to our standard FX-60 test machines, I decided to do the next best thing. Oh, yes. The thermal camera is making a repeat appearance. And to note: all the images are using the same color/temperature scale. For convenience's sake, we've attached it to all the images.

As you can see, the warmest portion of the case's exterior is obviously the fan hole, where a heckuva lot of warm air blows out on both sides. This shot was taken with an idle CPU, mind you; when you're playing a game, it's like a miniature rocket pack.

Taking off the case door, we're greeted with the traditional hotspots of any computer -- the damned voltage regulators. But as you can see, the ambient temperature of the case itself is solidly chilly.

And there's the Boreas. Even using its default setting, which keeps the coolant at 30 degrees celcius, the large heatsink doesn't get absurdly warm. We do love that blue color at Maximum PC.

The top of one of the 8800 cards is a lot less red than what it would look like were we not using water cooling. But, also, this is the computer chugging along at idle; just wait until I fire up 3DMark.

Underneath the paired 8800s, you can see exactly how much area the water block covers -- not a great deal of space.

While the Boreas does a fabulous job of cooling the CPU, those little voltage regulators are going to stay hot-hot-hot forevermore. But at least they make for a pretty thermal image.