Here at Computex and over at Noctua‘s booth, the Germany-based company famed for its cooling solutions was showcasing something remarkably interesting: a water-cooling solution. Now, we ourselves initially thought that it was AIO cooler and in turn felt the company had gone back on its word on never making a water cooler, but the brand assured us that wasn’t the case. In fact, the brand told us not to call it that.
One of the core components of an AIO is a pump to…well, cycle the water through the radiator and radiator. With the Noctua prototype, it lacks a pump and relies primarily on gravity to push the water through the loop.
This method of cooling is called the two-phased thermosiphon cooling principle, and basically requires the heat from the CPU to vaporise the liquid and from there, pushing the vaporised liquid through the radiator that is cooled by the two fans (Noctua’s, obviously), and back down the into the evaporator or cooling plate. Basically, and as one person put it, you’re looking at a desktop-sized vapour chamber.
The one downside to this pump-less liquid cooling solution is that, because it depends on gravity to push the liquid, there is only one mounting option or placement: at the top of the motherboard or more precisely, it has to screwed at the top of your PC’s casing.
As to when we can expect to see Noctua’s prototype liquid cooling solution, the representative I talked to said that the company is currently looking to enter mass production for it and that the brand’s best estimate is to get a fully functioning and working unit out on the floor by next year earliest, or as she puts it, Computex next year.
