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Gigabyte adds a splash of ingenuity to new watercooling system

by Steve Kerrison on 11 October 2006, 17:16

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376)

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Manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards - and dabbler in all sorts of other products too - Gigabyte, has announced its newest watercooling solution, with a selection of features that'll make you say 'how handy!'

The company has cunningly named their update to the 3D Galaxy watercooling system the '3D Galaxy II'. Mind blowing. Still, the selection of clever tricks and tools provided give it the 'OMG' factor.

Firstly, the radiator is designed to fit on the back of most PC chassis, above the motherboard I/O panel where on a 12cm fan mount. Easy peasy, but it doesn't stop there. Gigabyte's reservoir contains both flow and water level sensors, so if something goes tits up, it can kick up a fuss, hopefully avoiding catastrophe.

Upgradeability is also built into the 3D Galaxy II cooling system. Gigabyte has manufactured chipset and graphics card water blocks as well as a CPU block, so these can be added to the loop. This is really easy to do, thanks to a pair of three-way splitters with taps on them. Plug in a new block and open up the tap. Again with the easy peasy.

Trying not to sound like Barry Scott here, but wait, there's more! Gigabyte are topping off the whole shebang with a CPU water block that's got a fan on it. It sounds weird, until you consider the MOSFETs and other hardware sat around the CPU that would normally get 2nd hand air from a heatsink-fan solution. With a waterblock there's often next to no airflow there, so props to Gigabyte for thinking of that one.

The 3D Galaxy II then, on paper at least, looks like it could be one very nifty, easy to use cooling system.

3D Galaxy II



HEXUS Forums :: 13 Comments

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Looks good, any word on pricing yet?
Seconded any news on the price. If it comes to something sensible I might grab one out of curiousity. Bout time I played with water cooling. I'm too cheap to spend a few hundred quid on a proper setup though.
I was more thinking of a cheap but effective cooling system for my server - so I can get some sleep at night…
Wasn't the earlier revision of this a complete flop in terms of cooling performance? Running hotter than the lower-price Gigabyte HSF released at a similar time, for less, or something.
Daft question.
Can these type of coolers cope with very hot ambient temps? e.g. last July in England - room temps over 30C - only way to stop 5 minute overheat was to position a 15“ desk fan 6” away from side panel removed box.
I was thinking about sourcing the worlds smallest aircon, but water might be a slightly more sensible solution.