VapoChill.. Wild supercooling

[MsNath]

Well I couldn't believe my luck. Our local hardcore computer store is selling VapoChill cases.

I wen't down to the shop, "ByteTrack" yesterday to have a look around and see about picking up some toys. The owner says if you really want to get things cold you should buy a VapoChill case.

I scratched my head for a bit becuase I had never heard of suck a thing.

He then offered to take me in the back and show me a working unit.

This setup is very sweat! It has mini super cooling fridge <and I do mean mini> which contains the case's power supply + the actuall cooling unit and sits where your power supply would normally go. It runs super quite and pipes a constant stream of cold air down onto your CPU via an enclosed and air tight sealed tube.

He had his Athlon 1Ghz OCed to 1.333 and it was sitting at -13c. I watched him run some benchmarks and the whole system was rock stable!

I decided to find out more about this unit. To my supprise he is the only guy in North America that has actually bought, built and sold the units. One other guy down in Texas claims to be a dealer, but they have never built a unit and by the sounds of their e-mail have never actual ordered one yet.

What luck! The only shop in North America to sell these puppies and they are located only 5 minutes from my place.

Now where am I going to find the money to buy this new toy

Here's a link

http://www.bytetrack.com/home_IE.htm

Though he took some extra pics while he was building his Athlon system, I wish he would have taken one of the case from the open side looking in so you could see how small the cooling unit is!

So I have a question, do you think the $700 US price tag is a bit steep for such a case?? Ya it is but, but... How did I end up going from dirt cheap super cooling to wanting the most expensive rig around...

Has anyone heard any other stories about this cooling system? I guess they are manufactured in Sweden....

 

[AKDUDE]

I beleive this case has been out awhile, I think they were using them to chill K6-2's to 100% overclock when you couldn't even get one to 50 mhz over with air cooling.
The price is a little high ( well dammit, its REALLY HIGH), but at least could see it as a investment. Its something you could always use.
Is 1.3 as high as he could take the TBIRD ms Nath? I would think with -13c it would go higher, or does he just want it to be stable?
AKDUDE

 

[Colin]

To make things tougher Ms. Nath, a Vapochill for SMP will be out at the end of the year. Try and resist that for your VP6!

 

[klosters64a]

While the Vapo-Chill will make you the baddest OCer in town--or perhaps even North America! the set of initials that I try to remember are: Keep It Simple, Stupid. This certainly doesn't imply that you, or anyone else is stupid. I'll take the blame! K.I.S.S. and the Vapo-Chill just don't work together.

You can buy the fastest AMD CPU that doesn't need to be overclocked (Gasp!) and have a lot of change left from that $700. I know, I know. Just too dang simple.

As you seem to live in the far North, drier hose can duct mighty cold air into or around your PC many months of the year. True, Better Homes and Gardens will not shoot your manse for their April issue. But it's certainly K.I.S.S. !

 

[Xerin]

Tom over at Tom's Hardware used the VapoChill in his Power Box to reach 1600 with his Thunderbird. No doubt it's a killer cooler but at that price I'll pass.

 

[Metaxas]

Well, not only that, but gee, you can easily achieve that type of cooling WAY cheaper with watercooling / high powered TEC setup. I would not buy this unit. Its just not worth it, since I already have my cooling rig (well most of it anyways...sigh) and when the palamino's get here, I will be switching to supercooling, or at least a limited version of it. Does look pimp though.

 

[OpenFriday]

I'll admit Ms.Nath that case looks super sweet, in fact my friend says it rock0rz. But unfortunatly, not many of the forum goes have 700$ U.S. to spend on a case. Metaxas is right, why not get a watercooler and peltier, even the best units i can think of would run you under 250$ U.S. Next year im going to take advantage of these cold Canadian Winters and rig up some kind of dirt cheap cooling like yours Ms.Nath, Again nice case but a little too rich for my blood.

 

[Metaxas]

You know, I just have to say, MsNath, your cute. Cycling super cold air throughout the case sounds dagerous to me, but there again, I live in the midsouth of the US, so we have a booty load of humidity. DOH...too bad too. I would just be scared of condensation killing my rig.

 

[Colin]

The big disadvantage to the Vapochill is lack of drive space. I looked into one and adding an extra drive cage in the bottom front of the case as Lian-Li does. The other problem with the Vapochill is once it’s done, that’s it. No more tweaking with the cooling system fun.

 

[Metaxas]

I guess you could say its the "OEM" of the supercooling world...heehee... ;D

 

[MsNath]

As far as stopping at 1.333 I think he was just being safe.

The drive bay space seemed more than enough. He was running a raid set up in it plus cd and burner yada yada.

There is not worry of humidity with this setup becuase the cooling unit forms an air tight seal around the cpu.

True water cooling is cheaper and gives you more to tinker with.....

I didn't know there was a dual cpu vapo chill coming out... Hmmmmmmmm

If you got a link to an any articles on the dual vapochill send it my way.

 

[dimmreaper]

Wish I had a VapoChill. Then I could put a peltier under the evaporator and do some real OCing.

The only person I know of that owns a VapoChill is Daniel (our good ole forum moderator).

Wonder if I can convince him that he needs to put a peltier under the evaporator to satisfy my curiosity of its effectiveness. I bet someone could get a CPU down to -40*C easy that way.



But I'm a cheap bastard, so I'll stick with liquid cooled peltiers until I happen to win the lottery (it never hurts to dream).

 

[MsNath]

Yes admittedly for $700 US I was a bit disappointed in the mere -13c that this system could produce. After all I got my CPU to –20c for exactly zero dollars.

I would spend $700 US if it could take my CPU to between –50 to –100c.

The boys over at Hardocp seem to have a lot of experience with these units. Maybe we could talk them into trying out the peltier combination.

 

[Colin]

Wouldn’t you know Jeff would come up with the idea to put a pelt in a Vapochill! It might be worth hacking the temperature control for use with an Athlon. Maybe Daniel would volunteer?

The cost is not out of line for what you get. Its possible to spend $600 on a new water cooled case if you use first class parts. I still think drive space is a problem. My box has five HDs, two CD drives, a Zip and a floppy. That’s a tight squeeze for the current Vapochill. If I had not heard about the coming SMP version, you would be reading about my adventures in stuffing all those drives in a Vapochill by now.

 

[dimmreaper]

MsNath (Mar 12, 2001 09:25 a.m.):
I would spend $700 US if it could take my CPU to between –50 to –100c.

Anything below -50C is as bad for a CPU as extremely high temps. As I'm sure you know CPUs are made from a silicon wafer. Silicon like all solids expands and contracts with temperature change. Cryogenic temperatures tend to greatly reduce CPU life span because the layers of the wafer pull apart over time.

 

[dimmreaper]

Colin (Mar 12, 2001 10:25 a.m.):The cost is not out of line for what you get. Its possible to spend $600 on a new water cooled case if you use first class parts.

I agree that you could spend $600 on new water cooling gear, especially if you start talking SMP with a peltier on each CPU.

But ask yourself this. How much cooler will $600 worth of gear get your CPU than $300 worth of gear? The answer is not a whole hell of a lot. Maybe only a few degrees.

 

[MsNath]

Jeff Evans (Mar 12, 2001 12:07 p.m.):

Colin (Mar 12, 2001 10:25 a.m.):The cost is not out of line for what you get. Its possible to spend $600 on a new water cooled case if you use first class parts.

I agree that you could spend $600 on new water cooling gear, especially if you start talking SMP with a peltier on each CPU.

But ask yourself this. How much cooler will $600 worth of gear get your CPU than $300 worth of gear? The answer is not a whole hell of a lot. Maybe only a few degrees.

True to a point. This system is engineered very well. So much so that it has a certain amount of guaranteed performance, stability and saftey that you can't get from water cooling. You don’t have to worry about the water warming up and having to add ice every few hours or a hose springing a leak. Take my zero dollar experiment for instance; when I put my system outside when it was –20c. That’s as cheap as it gets but really its not dependable. The weather could warm up, it could snow, or someone could climb my balcony and steal my system.

Though I ran my system for 24hrs OCed to its max I didn’t get much sleep because I had to constantly monitor everything. I tried to sleep on my couch that night, but never really got any sleep because I was paranoid that the weather might warm up or snow and fry my system, or someone might spot my case on my balcony and decide they needed it more than I did.

I have since rolled my piii700e back from 1073mhz to 933mhz. This way I can use air cooling and keep everything inside.

So the really question is do we enjoy the challenge? Though I didn’t get much sleep those nights I was putting my case outside, I still had a lot of fun… If one was to buy a Vapochill case they would get guaranteed “cooling” performance and stability but then they would lose out on some of the challenge and fun... And lets face it for $700 US I could buy a 1+ Ghz chip and be “guaranteed” performance equal to or better than what Im getting from my OC 700e. However, if I wanted to buy the fastest chip out there on the market today and pay the going price, then OC it even further. I might want to invest in a case like this to protect my investment.

So to buy or not to buy a Vapochill really depends on who you are and what your true interests are in OCing and how much money you got to throw around. If your Ocing just for the challenge and fun of it then this case is not for you. If your OCing in order to have the fastest and most stable system in town and a few hundred bucks isn’t an issue then the Vapochill might be what you should be looking at.

As far as costs go just keep in mind the G Force3 is rumored to be priced at more than this case. The card will be obsolete with in a year of hitting the shelves. However, this case should be good for many years and many MBs to come. Although a few mods on the power supply and connecting hose might be required for future MBs.

Just for the record I’m not buying one. As a student I can’t afford to spend that kind of money….

Oh here's a link to Hardocp's site where they did a review of the case as well and do a better job of looking at the pros and cons of the case.

http://hardocp.com/reviews/cooling/vapochill/socket/intro/

 

[warduck]

I say until they can bring vapochil in at a reasonable price for get it. I think $350us would be as high as I would go including a nice 450w powersupply.

So u gain a few fsb. Look at the cost an result factor.

VapoChil is a nice idea but its too bad they wont be the ones to mass market the product. For most of us its just a wet dream, a glimps of the future.

For those with money to burn or write off, I say
get one. Well catch up ya down the line.

warduck

 

[Allan Nielsen]

MsNath (Mar 11, 2001 10:47 a.m.):
I guess they are manufactured in Sweden....

Nooooooooo, are you trying to offend me? - It ain't Swedish, it is DANISH, dammit! And YES, there certainly is a difference!

My neighbor has one of the new units, it's very nice! Running at -17 c CPU temp I think.

I was just offered one of the old models VERY cheap (and it had never been used), but I had to turn it down, because I really don't have the money to spend on it right now. Too bad, it was only like 350$ for a unit that works with my FC-PGA P3, and should cool it to at least -10c. Silly me, I didn't take me much time to regret that decision.

The official wepage is here:

http://www.asetek.dk/

 

[Metaxas]

You know, that's too bad, vapochill used to offer the Renegade case, and it used a similar type defice, except it was just a "cold plate" type thing, it would have been real EASY to fit a peltier over the cpu, and then mount this "coldplate" on top of the tec. Havent' seen any of those around though. They used to go for 300 bucks.