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Hardcore Computer's 'Reactor' is submerged in oil for cooling
We're still in awe of that fantastic Battlestar Galactica PC we showed you last week, but take a look at this: Unlike that custom-built Battlestar, this one's a commercially-available PC. It looks like it has glowing nuclear fuel rods bathing in a cooling pool, good reason for its creator, Hardcore PC, to aptly name it Reactor. Its case is actually a vat of cooling oil, with the entire motherboard and all its accompanying components submerged within.
Withstanding the submersion are three Samsung solid-state hard drives (don't try this with old-fashioned spinning hard drives!), along with only the highest-end components. With all this sci-fi cooling, the machine will be popular with overclockers, those who treat their PCs like hot rods and dial up the speed of their processors way higher than conventionally-cooled PCs will allow. They'll pay dearly for the privilege here, shelling out $11K for this baby. Nice.
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Via Maximum PC
By Boxerfanatic at 5:58 PM ON 10/20/08
Well, that is one way to control the dust... :D
I hope they don't have to disassemble it very often... it would be a wet oily mess. But it probably works quite well, especially with some sort of liquid/air heat exchanging system, which it almost certainly has.
By Skittle at 6:08 PM ON 10/20/08
Nice...I want one of those =).
But what I don't like about is that you have a harder time finding components that is compatible with the system. It makes it harder to do a upgrade.
By Kubiak at 7:35 PM ON 10/20/08
You need to look a little closer at the picture. The hard drives do not need to be solid state. The hard drive bay on this is NOT part of the submerged area, you can remove the hard drives from the bay without taking the PC out. If they were not seperate, the liquid would come running out after it.
By Smash2K at 9:02 PM ON 10/20/08
Um...if you actually pay attention you'll notice the drives look like they are mounted on the reverse side of the MB tray and there are separate removable drive bays in the back. So good job "looking closer" kubiak...
By Dima at 9:43 PM ON 10/20/08
Buying this you have to consider oil change every 5K km ))) oil must be synthetic of course
By Aesthier at 1:30 AM ON 10/21/08
Smash2k has a point..
If you look at the drive being pulled out of the hot swap its not an SSD drive, where the photo showing the 3 on the mb tray are definitly SSD.
These are just optional removable HDDs...
DIMA - Remember you can get syntec that last 15k ;)
By ValiumMm at 8:46 AM ON 10/21/08
This is a bit of a rip 11k??? What the hell the parts in there would not be worth anymore than 2k for the PC hardware then another 1K for the case and oil. 11k is a bit hefty, you can just build a pc and submerge it yourself. But its still a nice PC
By maas at 9:26 AM ON 10/21/08
i hope the do not connect it to the network
By Dread at 10:32 AM ON 10/21/08
Valiummm, SSD drives drive up the cost, plus a good 1k for any decent graphics card to be put into it, plus a processor, high-end being roughly 700. Then you got RAM and mobo to worry about. Then you got the case itself, the oil, and the trademark. 11k...cheap.
By Huge at 11:23 AM ON 10/21/08
oil sucks... try googling Fluorinert from 3M... 8)
By nick at 9:04 PM ON 10/21/08
how powerful is it thats what i want to know
By CoolProducts at 2:47 PM ON 10/22/08
I'm wondering how cost efficient this pc is, as well as the ability for one to dismantle it on their own!
By Flow at 11:11 AM ON 10/24/08
This has been done in a variety of ways for the past decade. I've seen mineral oil submerged rigs that use the cooling element from a fridge 10 years ago.
By Noobixide at 1:40 AM ON 10/26/08
some people need to put a foot in their mouth.
"Don’t try this with your hard drives: The Reactor uses three Samsung SSD drives mounted behind the motherboard for the primary drives. These are also submersed in oil so we don’t think you should try it with a hard drive as the read heads would likely drown."
By zypher at 4:11 AM ON 12/15/08
I wonder if I got somehow get one of these donated to my site? hmm...
By Bekkler X at 11:30 PM ON 02/05/09
By hp computers at 2:28 AM ON 02/12/09
Hope it's common easy to find the spare parts that suitable for this PC.
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