Liquid-cooled Asetek prototype redefines our all-in-one expectations (video)

We've been moaning about middling AIO performance for a while now, and outside of Apple's spendy iMacs, not many have stepped up to the plate with equivalent grunt to what you might be able to splice together with a separate case and a bit of elbow grease. That won't stay true for long, however, if Asetek's prototype gets picked up by one of your favorite vendors. This liquid-cooled beastie -- which proudly proclaims it has the same profile as the iMac at 58mm in thickness -- is capable of powering and chilling both a 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and a GeForce GTX 280M. That's a total TDP output of over 200W, which is handled by a proprietary radiator design that's integrated into the stand and some pump-assisted action convecting the heat away from the chips. It both sounds and looks like a winner to us -- check it out after the break to see what you think.

[Chris Leither Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:06AM]

The iMac 27" with a 2.8GHz i7 and Radeon 4850 has a max. total TDP of 365W...

I mean, heck, we ALL love liquid cooling and everything, but the way I see it it is certainly NOT needed for a powerful AiO design. (Although I would welcome Apple to include one… the good ol' days of the liquid cooled Power Mac G5...)

[ad Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:07AM]

@Chris Leither
whether we need it or not, it looks sleek :)

[mojo8472 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:09AM]

@Chris Leither
4850 =/= GTX280

[tobsmonster2 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:32AM]

@Chris Leither
Water cooling means you only need the fans on the radiator which makes things quieter. Also all the heat is directed away from internal components so they remain cooler is well. The same reason why im using a corsair h50 in a sff build.

[grouver Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:34AM]

@Chris Leither well the g5 was liquid cooled but there was no pump and the design is a lot less problems prone. Considering that Apple tries to build computers that last long and are easy to assemble there is a lot of work to be done before Apple decides to include a liquid cooling system. Plus Intel actually says that you don't need liquid cooling for any of their CPUs … Oh and I'm sorry but that AIO design is not all all the same profile as an iMac. Have you ever seen and iMac base? Asetek like many others underestimate the amount of work that Apple puts in designing efficient cooling. Ofc they have their screw ups too ( cough older MBPs cough ).

[weedy Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:35AM]

@mojo8472

Yes, 4850 > 280M.
Note it has "M" in it and is not the same chip as 280.

Sources:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-geforce-radeon,2646-7.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_graphics_processing_units#GeForce_200M_.282xxM.29_series

[jasonhaley Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:09AM]

@mojo8472 They do look sweet. I love how they look but are there any All-in-ones that can be upgraded? That seems like a more pressing issue before I buy one.

[TinWard Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:19AM]

They may have overlooked one important aspect. When you weld a display to a computer, you better make sure it's an IPS screen. If not then you're stuck with fast, expensive machine and sh*t viewing angles/gradients, which is bad for any creative work like 3D rendering.

[drange Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:46AM]

@tobsmonster2
The 27" iMac with the core i7 is already almost dead-silent under normal use. Only when you start playing a game or put 100% load on CPU for more than a few minutes the secondary fan kicks in. And even that isn't particularly loud. Only on maximum fan speed it comes close to a regular tower case, and you have to really tax the machine to get it to that point. I regularly forget to shut the thing down when I go to sleep, even though it stands literally 20 cm's from my head.

Water cooling sounds all 1337 badass, but you don't actually need it at stock CPU speeds, and you're only making things unnecessarily complicated (and more expensive) compared to normal air cooling.

[TehSilentWolf Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:02AM]

@weedy

The 4850 in the imac is probably downclocked (to keep temps low) and has 512mb of graphics ram...

[j o q Posted Jul 2nd 2010 10:54AM]

@weedy

the video says nothing of an "M" that's a typo of engadget it seems

[Bearpowers Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:07AM]

GTX 480M would be nicer, maybe even the GTX 480M sli

[FAP FAP FAP Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:28AM]

@Bearpowers
I'm not sure if they can fit a nuclear reactor in there.

[Mr w00t Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:12AM]

I feel bad when I see an engineer speaking on a video.

"In this... *sigh*... prototyp we have... *sigh*... cutting edge"

[Gandalf20000 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 9:16AM]

@Mr w00t
Yeah, that sounded like what he was probably doing: reading from a teleprompter or cue cards.

[jamiepgs Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:18AM]

I would still get an iMac if I wanted an AIO with a fairly decent spec, but nice to see a real PC alternative that doesn't run on soya beans.

[grouver Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:37AM]

@jamiepgs You do get the fact that this is just a prototype and not a *real* pc right? considering the cost of water cooling the complexity of putting it together on a conveyer belt and the fact that most windows users don't care that their desktop looks just like it did 10 years ago getting this into production is very unlikely. But you do have AIOs like the ones from HP and they most certainly don't run on soya beens.

[sys3175 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 9:55AM]

@jamiepgs I don't think being able to set fire to any papers I happen to leave sitting on my desk.. "running fine"

[JWest08 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:22AM]

Not sure why this is considered so revolutionary. Heck, look at any gaming laptop. The Alienware M17x has dual 280M's, and an i7, and it manages to run just fine without any fancy water cooling. Pretty much every gaming laptop has more power than this, and they don't need water cooling... sorry, I fail to see why this is news.

[Bender the great Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:01AM]

@JWest08 Put that heat directly behind a LCD panel and see how long it lasts...

What's more the likes of the Alienware make insane amounts of noise when they're running..

[Peytral Posted Jul 2nd 2010 12:27PM]

@JWest08
You fail, this is a i7 920 (130W TDP), not some little mobile i7 (45W TDP).

[JayQ330 Posted Jul 3rd 2010 6:03PM]

@JWest08 its only becauseit looks like the imacs that its news.

[pnuding Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:34AM]

Is it just me or is this "company" just a couple of geeky engineering undergrads with a gaming addiction pretending to have a marketing department?
In any case they're setting new standards for embarrassing youtube videos :-S

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:34AM]

How about noise?

One of the things I really like about mt iMac is that its virtually silent.

[Vuke Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:35AM]

That's really ugly...

[iHack13 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:55AM]

typical apple competition...
it has EVERYTHING in it except for a good panel..

TN ftl...

[sakz Posted Jul 2nd 2010 6:57AM]

This would give the modding community lots of interesting ideas....

[NeatOman Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:17AM]

GTX 280M is a weak GTX 250 or a weak 9800 GTX+

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-280M-Review.14565.0.html

I thought they had a mini-itx motherboard with a 90 degree adapter for the 16x pci-express slot... that would have been cool :) and hotter

[Geoponic Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:34AM]

D:

I think it looks ugly

[Geoponic Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:34AM]

The biggest draw back for this computer:

Windows

[B3nt Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:59AM]

@Geoponic

Biggest draw back? Seriously? I think it has been universally accepted (except by irrational fanboys) that Win7 is a great OS, on par with what Apple is offering. TH

[B3nt Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:03AM]

@Geoponic

THEN there is gaming... try it on Leopard yet?

[Geoponic Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:22AM]

@B3nt well,

as a guy with an imac
a pc running windows 7
and a computer with ubuntu

Windows 7 is by far my least favourite,
in fact the only reason i have it is due to some gadget manufacturers not supporting MAC OSX (i.e HTC)

I only converted to a mac in march.

havn't booted up my pc in 2 months

Actually try and use both OS's before calling me a fanboy

idiot.

p.s Steam for mac is great! Thanks for asking!

[jamiepgs Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:23AM]

@B3nt
I still don't understand the whole gaming argument when comparing Macs and PCs. Macs aren't designed for high-end gaming, nor are they marketed as such. It's no different to saying a mid-range desktop is bad because it can't chew through Crysis like a high-end gaming machine. If gaming is important to you, you know what not to get ;)

[tobsmonster2 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 10:18AM]

@jamiepgs I think peoples issue is that mid range spec pc's cost mid range prices while mid range spec imacs cost much more. Your absolutely right though because imacs aren't advertised as hardcore gaming machines so comparing specs you'd get with a similarly priced pc is silly.

[LeonPhelps Posted Jul 2nd 2010 7:38AM]

That looks like an engineer had his wet dream all over it. PC companies think people are amazed at trying to look like apple with extra added bells and whistles. Try again. The venting is horrible.

[dany100 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:03AM]

@geoponic may i remind you how many games were released to the mac?(chess does not count)
this system is primarily to games so,
as much as there are nobal editors and photoshop professionals there are much more gamers how just want to run the game that actually are good and came out in the past 5 years.

[jamiepgs Posted Jul 2nd 2010 8:15AM]

@dany100
I wouldn't say the system is primarily for gaming, at todays standards its not going to give you the best looking graphics that games these days can perform. I'm not saying it's bad for gaming or will be rubbish but saying the system is primarily for gaming is a bit of a blind comment considering the specs.

[kobioshi Posted Jul 2nd 2010 9:19AM]

Very nice! I wonder how loud it is when I see Sonex on the walls behind this particular prototype...

[Gandalf20000 Posted Jul 2nd 2010 9:20AM]

I certainly hope this doesn't cost as much as an iMac, or the entire point of this just went out the toilet, since you could just get a high-end laptop.

[iamdeadfish Posted Jul 2nd 2010 9:36AM]

I love the lab coat.

[cjwild Posted Jul 2nd 2010 10:37AM]

could he be any more awkward to watch?

[Gad Get Posted Jul 2nd 2010 5:46PM]

@cjwild

He looks incredibly nervous through the whole video. What were they thinking, making him do this kind of video? The poor guy is obviously not suited for it.

[PathogenX Posted Jul 2nd 2010 11:06AM]

be quite apple fanboys for a second.
Just appreciate the engineering put into this.

It's a prototype no shit it's ugly they just want to sample the technology.

-_____- and that video was hilarious.

Engineers cannot make videos.

[weinerschnitzelboy Posted Jul 2nd 2010 1:39PM]

Front is okay. Back is the ugliest thing i have ever seen. Also, with the iMac since it has desktop parts, it has desktop performance.

[weinerschnitzelboy Posted Jul 2nd 2010 1:48PM]

Also I want to say, wouldn't it be funny if you were playing a super graphics intensive game, and when the heat is going out through the pedestal, the pedestal starts to melt and the whole thing comes crashing down?

[VAreAct Posted Jul 2nd 2010 3:52PM]

Alright so the design is mehh...but its a prototype, and the specs are still not that stunning, but the engineering with a radiator in the stand is pretty impressive. Cool design and product for people that wan't a AiO but not a Mac.

[yoaj Posted Jul 3rd 2010 3:12AM]

EEK!!!

...I think Asetek forgot to consult with their Industrial Designer.