LiquidCooling
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Shuttle XPC goes 1337 with custom-painted SDXi gaming rig
Flame jobs on a PC most certainly aren't new, but we fear it's a fad that will always burn on in some regard, and its companies like Shuttle that keep on fanning it. While the rectangular-shaped box has made its way into a many of homes, gamers looking for some serious horsepower in a mobile rig can find a quite a potent system in the firm's forthcoming 1337 SDXi series desktops. While all the specifics aren't nailed down quite yet, the machine will boast an Intel X8600 or QX6700 quad-core processor, liquid-cooling system, unmistakable custom-paint job on the case, keyboard, and mouse, ATIs X1950 Pro CrossFire graphics cards, support for up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, gigabit Ethernet, and a hint of that early 90s vibe to boot. Unfortunately, such a flashy rig sports an equally stunning pricetag, as these bad boys will be "starting" at $4,999 when they land later this month.[Thanks, Marshall W.]
OCZ kicks out liquid-cooled PC2-9200 FlexXLC Edition memory
Sure, liquid-cooling your gadgetry is oftentimes done to prove your 1337-ness, but in cases like Apple's oh-so-toasty Dual G5 PowerMac and Microsoft's notoriously warm Xbox 360, we consider the task quite appropriate. In OCZ's case, however, we're leaning towards the unnecessarily flashy side, as the company's PC2-9200 FlexXLC (Xtreme Liquid Convention) Edition memory touts both air and water cooling possibilities. Dubbed the "world's fastest DDR2 RAM" at 1,150MHz, the modules feature an eight-layer PCB which hinders crosstalk and improves signal integrity, and sports a "fin-like heatsink" to waft warmth away from the components. Moreover, it also boasts liquid-dispersing units that pass water across copper lines to cool things off when taxing your system. While we're not sure how much this showstopping memory will run you, it does feature a lifetime warranty in case the liquid decides to boil over and create a bonafide disaster.[Via Electronista]
Koolance's pricey Xbox 360 cooling kit
We're not sure what type of person would spend as much on cooling their Xbox 360 as they spent on the console itself, but the folks at Koolance must think they're out there, buried under bags of Doritos and aging laptops in dank cellars; probably why they're releasing a heavy duty liquid cooling kit for the hefty sum of $394.99 US. The kit (available in silver or black) includes Koolance's Exos-LT cooling system, CPU and GPU liquid blocks, an AC power adapter, and mounting hardware for the Xbox. However, Koolance is quick to warn that performing the necessary modifications to your Xbox is "not for the faint of heart" and that it will certainly void your warranty, meaning that there's a good chance you'll inflict more harm on your console by messing with it than a little over-heating could ever do -- and you'll be stuck without a way to return it. Par for the course though, right?[Via Joystiq]
More liquid cooling goodness
Liquid cooling is the new black it seems. The boys at Xbox-Scene give us the first glimpse at a do-it-yourself liquid cooling kit for the Xbox 360. While it may not be as "cool" as the internally cooled 360 we covered last week, this kit from Koolance promises to keep your 'box frosty for the incredibly affordable price of US $394.99. An undertaking of this magnitude can be very difficult and Koolance warns that it is "not for the faint of heart." Let me ask all the modders out there: for that price, how cool does your 360 need to be?
IBM, GIT overclock chip to 500GHz
If you were wowed by those Japanese modders who overclocked their stock CPU to 7GHz, wait till you hear about IBM's latest foray into the world of ultra-fast computing: together with researchers from the digital camera-hating Georgia Institute of Technology, Big Blue has managed to overclock a chip to an unheard of 500GHz. Granted, the model they used already had a blistering native clock speed of 350GHz to begin with, but we're still floored that you could actually coax a small silicon wafer into operating at an incredible half-terahertz. As you probably suspected, there's no way to achieve speeds like this at room temperature, so the team froze their high-performance silicon-germanium chip to a super-chilly negative 451-degrees Fahrenheit, which is just eight degrees above absolute zero. Unfortunately, after learning about this breakthrough, electronics giant Sony apparently felt that consumers would no longer be impressed with their much-hyped Cell processor, so they've once again delayed the PS3 until IBM can make the liquid helium-cooled CPUs suitable for mass production . Expect the 500GHz PS3 to hit stores sometime in 2011.[Thanks, bento-san]
