New Mac G5 computer liquid cooled?

Theres a story on amdzone.com talking about the new Mac G5 at 2.5ghz being liquid cooled, which the author hates everything except AMD, the liquid part is interesting. Anyone know what kind of liquid cooling it is? Something from an OEM company, well Apple, to regular consumers could drive the future of liquid cooling... maybe.

If anyone has a pic or tech details on how its setup, I'd like to know.

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=687

ewwwww

The 2.5GHz model packs so much power into tight quarters that Apple designed a liquid cooling system, resulting in a cool tower that runs Photoshop nearly two times faster than a Pentium 4-based system. In fact, for most creative endeavors, the Power Mac G5 simply has no competition in its class.

Click to expand...

<topic detour>
Just curious, but does anyone actually have any speed issues in photoshop, using their Overclocked 32 bit based system, that justifies shelling out the exorbitant price tag of the new Macs?

I don't understand the Macster obsession about video editing speed and whatnot, when in my experience, my machine runs such software as fast as, if not faster, then high-end Mac setups.
</topic detour>

I wonder who makes the cooling setup though? The thing is, to justify liquid cooling in commercial machines, you need to see *signifigant* gains over air cooling.

So, two things; The cooling system needs to be more effective than a copper-air cooling setup in order to be justified, and, the IBM chips must be having terrible yields in order to need water to reach a "commercially stable" 2.5 GHz.

By "commercially stable" I am implying that the chip needs to remain stable when it reaches 80C, and is left running 24/7 in someone's hot office, right in the sun all day. And keep working after five years without being opened or touched, the fans all clogged with dust and cat hair.

I also wonder how big the radiator will be. And also if this is actually true, and not just an insubtantial rumour.

Wow. Well, I guess if any of the OEMs were going to start liquid cooling, Apple was the best candidate. Supposedly IBM has been having even bigger heat problems than Intel with their 90mm process, so in order to keep up the impression of continual progress, you have to resort to water. I'd be interested to see what kind of setup they're using to cool that rig. Two high-heat processors are in there, so there should be some fairly good hardware in there. I'm betting it's nothing like a good DIY rig, though. Still, this is a good sign that water cooling is becoming accepted as a safe, quieter, more efficient alternative to air.

Now for the angry editorializing.

That's quite a bit of spin that Apple's applying there. Two times faster in Photoshop than a Pentium 4 system. That might be in some small part due to the fact that there's two processors. I'm not saying that a dual P4 system would be exactly even, but a factor of two seems a little exaggerated.

Also, how much do you want to bet that the Mac freaks are going to brag about the liquid cooling on their G5 systems, claiming that the advanced cooling is just more proof of the superiority and innovativeness of Macs? Actually, I can't wait for that to happen, because then I can point at my rig and say, "PCs have been watercooling for years. Where was Apple then?"

Okay, no more ranting.

WC is too high maintence for the average user, who in mac's case is oftn commcercial clients.

Have a look at it

http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

Umm.. is it just me or doesn't this look like a heatpipe?

Yes, it looks conspicuously like a heatpipe..

i have been saying 4 the past year that comercial machines will start to get wc Voodoo AlienWare and now Mac....how much longer until other OEMS jump on this? (allbit though that Mac G5's and Voodoos and alienwars are THE TOP OF THE TOP end comercial systems that u can get....and they r getting MAJOR premium 4 them at that....)

But the hole 2x faster part...is Photoshop SMP? And i notice NO needed power to run photoshop at all we have it on old cellys at school with only 256 of ram....granted it does runn better on the dually G5's and G4's but still.......

I would bet the H20 is more about silence than about necessity... Apple's are known to be very quiet. Most run with passive sinks, or very slow 120mm fans. I have no doubt they could be aircooled, but if they were perhaps the noise level is unacceptable to the mac designers. That is my guess. I'm just waiting for Apple to say they are the first to ever you water cooling

Hmmm... Are AMD chips at 3 gigz? no...

I think it depends on what u are doing with photoshop... If your doing all kinds of advanced effects and working with very high resolution images u need a lot of processing power right?

I believe the AMD chips are only up to 2.4 maybe 2.6.

I have to admit that the case looks very nice to me. I have found that the Lian Li V2000 looks very similar. That does look pretty sweet but more like a pseudo water cooled more heatpipe setup.

Then why is that guy complaining apple chips dont go to 3 gigs? Anyways, I have heard the IBM processor used as the G5 is hot hot hot! Evidently behind the covers there lurks a giant copper HS for each chip (at least in the old model).

Also, dont expect the water cooling in the apple to need servicing... My dads 5 year old mac has never been in the shop and i bet apple will continue its policy of zero maintenance...

A few years back i saved a batch file including many common tasks I use in photoshop everyday including image resizing, filters and such for benchmarking our macs at work to compare to our pcs.

3.8ghz HT P4 against Dual 1.8ghz G5.

The PC in my sig finished the batch in around 45 seconds, my mac at work finished it in 1 minute. Although when working with files over 1gb in size the Mac 'feels' a lot less sluggish than my P4 system does.

I'd say the G5 is an awesome machine for a stock 'out of the box' computer and is virtually silent as well, unlike my pc.

Also if you haven't had a close look at the case design and construction, you ought to, it's a work of art. These things are made of thick alluminium and are real heavy, it's a shame apple still can't make a decent mouse though.

For doing my work, my mac is great but for my fun and games I have my PC

bt

You have to give apple props for their thermal zoneing layout. I also love the slick designing of apple products...like my new 20gb iPod.

I would much perfer a liquid cooling setup then what I already have just for the silence. As you can see Im capable of air cooling yada yada yada but, with the ability to run with virtually no noise and no maintence as well is a plus.

I welcome all the big wigs to invest there Time/money in creating new and better ways to liquid cool.

God knows the smaller companys we have been buying our WC supplys from don't have that kind of cash and man power to.

Ya... The way apple does things thier gonna do it from the ground up. I bet they make thier own pump, block design, radiator, everything...

As for the thermal zoning and internal airflow, that's pretty much what Intel is trying to push towards with BTX. It's just that Apple has the luxury of being able to design everything to work together, right from the beginning with no worries about reverse-compatibility, whereas PC OEMs and component manufacturers have much more rigid form factor and compatibility standards that they are hampered by. Every case designer out there wants to make a case with that kind of airflow, but then they'd have to have a motherboard with the right layout, and a cooling system to go along with it, and peripherals that fit the custom form factor, and the list goes on.

So yeah, Macs have innovation and excellent design, but they make you pay through the nose for it.