Soak It to Me: Inside Liquid-Suspended Gaming PC @ Wired–
Looking for a beefy gaming rig, and don’t mind getting your hands a little wet? Hardcore Computer’s Reactor might just be the 100-pound computational monolith for you.
Crafted from 2.5mm-thick aircraft aluminum and packed with powerful hardware, the Reactor is already a fairly striking and competitive machine. But there’s a secret weapon sloshing around in that unassuming tank: four and a half gallons of cooling oil.
PC enthusiasts looking to get the most power out of their machines have often turned to overclocking — pushing key components to perform faster than the manufacturer intended. This generates quite a bit of heat, which is traditionally fought using an array of fans or a maze of tubes pumping cooling fluid to select components.
20 thoughts on “Liquid-suspended gaming PC”
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this is not a mod, or anything “made” by a person.
this is an overpriced Prebuilt system you can buy.
i thought this site was about….Made things. not bought things.
@scarr – you don’t believe this was made by robots right? someone assembled this, by hand. it may have been hands far away, but it was not just “pre-built” all the things that went in to it (check out the photos) are useful for makers to not only learn from, but to remake themselves…
So, Phillip, can we post pics of concept cars, or perhaps a new model of microwave? I mean those things COULD be built by hand, provided you had the facilities and the know-how. This liquid cooled PC?
I’ve been working with PCs for close to 20 years, and I am at a loss as to how to accomplish something like this. Non-conductive cooling oil, that the components are submerged in? Huh…Wesson? Maybe olive oil? I doubt that much in that system is ‘off the shelf’.
The ability to program an Arduino for whatever purpose is a long ways from prototyping something like this liquid-cooled PC. The design of the heat-exchanger alone would stop most hobbyists cold.
@Tengu – yup! concept cars and models of theoretical devices have appeared here and always will – MAKE is more than ardunino projects, it’s meant to inspire. perhaps someone will come along and share details on how this PC was constructed, or maybe someone will just like the look and do a mod on their own. maybe someone will get some of this coolant and build their own, that’s why we put stuff here on MAKE… and sometimes it’s just cool (no pun intended).
while i agree that the “The design of the heat-exchanger alone would stop most hobbyists cold”- i also know for a fact there are readers here that work for NASA, in nuclear plants, on aircraft carriers… MAKE is more than just for hobbyist too. surely a post that is more than just a simple project can be tolerated :)
is this theoretical? no. it is not a concept, it is a thing you just buy.
it is not complex. the entire concept has been done for years (using simple mineral oil= nonconductive to electricity, but very conductive to heat)
actually after i talked to my brother (that is a chemist) simple mineral oil, is one of the best fluids for this type of build (hence why modders have been using it for years))
what i would have preferred is if this article, had not been misleading into making people think this is a mod.
IT SAYS : “Excellent mod” as the first 2 words of the article.
it is not a mod, anymore than buying a Dell XPS is a mod.
have the article be about cutting edge cooling goes mainstream…that would be cool.
but saying it is a mod, is just retarded.
that was my beef.
heck, just reading the article, tells you the company that sells it.
@scarrr, the title is “Liquid-suspended gaming PC” – it’s a mod and culmination of what’s out there – these are not “mass manufactured” – the company builds them one at a time per customer.
there’s plenty of stuff posted on here that does not interest me, but I am sure rocks someone else’s boat just fine. it’s a blog, pt can post whatever he wants, so if you see something you don’t care for, skip to the next post, make your own blog, or so look at an arduino website. good grief.
well in that case, when are you going to put dell on here? they make them to order.
there is a difference to a mod, and to a “buy this unit with the these options”
nothing was modified. it is as unique as a PT cruiser. no, other cars do not look like it, and yes you can get it with what configurations you want when you order it form the factory. same amount of mod there.
all i am saying is please, don’t lead people in the wrong direction, just because something is cool, and you (MAKE) don’t know what it is.
i love this site, but many times things are misrepresented, due to little research, and presented with false information, that can found with 15-30 seconds of googling.
i would like to trust this site’s info, as much as like the site itself, but in cases such as this, instead of even admitting fault on a misrepresentation, you play semantics…and are still wrong.
go here:
http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/ProductConfigurator_productReactor1.aspx
that is the ordering page.
it is just like a hardcore dell. you select form options, and get what they have. not a mod.
this article, SHOULD be about how oil immersion is entering the mainstream with these guys, becoming NOT a mod, but a simple to own (expensive though) computer, as easy to get as a dell.
select your options, and tada, you gots a PC.
you can play little word games, about how this is a one off, mod, but you will always be wrong when you say that.
@scarr, just because -you- can order it doesn’t mean it’s not a work of art or something a person has to make. the science and the tech behind this PC is very interesting, a lot of people like it – we’ve covered the oil PCs here many many times. just search on MAKE and you’ll tons of articles.
we put how-tos here as well as thing that will inspire people, while you can “configure” a car online and buy one, we have also posted tours of car plants and how cars are made, that’s good stuff.
when you say “many times things are misrepresented” – can you give any examples? i don’t think you’ll be able to, and if there are issues with something we post we comment and correct things.
i don’t mind changing the post a bit to make it more clear what something is, check it now.
i am happy now. it is not misleading.
but for a second reference to misrepresented articles (i am not going to search for it but it was an article here)
there was a post about a steampunk looking PC that could also brew beer. well, it couldn’t. the origianl site it was taken from was (i think) a russian forum. that PC was all over the internet. and a few (after it was posted here, but they may have referenced other sites) said it could brew beer. it was just a neat, home cooked, copper tubed, extra awesome water cooled PC.
back to this oil immersion PC:
it is the perhaps the best looking, manufactured oil PC ever. it is a work of art in it’s own right, and i would love to RE-make one to the quality this company is making them…. and the perfect remake would be with AMD/ATI parts. the yin to this yang.
a remake would be wonderful (becasue heck i am not paying over 12,000 dollars for the fully loaded version… even if it does come with 6 monitors)