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Editor’s take: PC hardware enthusiast der8auer recently took a closer look at a prototype watercooling block that relocates the cooling tubes for a much cleaner look. It’s not terribly practical in its current state, but it sure looks awesome.
The unique block was first seen at Computex earlier this year and comes from the crew over at Modding Café. The stealth tubing water block features a two-part design that repurposes a motherboard’s heatsink mounting holes as avenues for liquid to pass through from the backplate to the front of the block, which makes contact with the CPU.
The whole thing is done up in acrylic and looks absolutely incredible. There’s even a built-in visual flow meter so you can be sure coolant is flowing properly and an LED strip for illumination.
As der8auer highlights, however, the block is far from a commercial-ready product in its current state and could benefit greatly from some refinements. A redesign of the rear backplate would certainly go a long way to improving compatibility as the current iteration would need ample space between the motherboard and case.
Another potential concern is the diameter of the tubing the liquid has to pass through. It’s pretty narrow which will limit the flow rate and ultimately, hinder cooling. Unfortunately, there’s no real workaround here that is readily evident and as you can see in the video, performance wasn’t all that great. Poor performance could also be at least partially attributed to the off-the-shelf block from Bitspower that was used in the prototype that didn’t appear to be milled very well.
der8auer hints that the concept could be taken further and perhaps released under his Thermal Grizzly brand if demand is there. So, what do you think?
Again, this likely wouldn’t be a great fit for the average consumer or for extreme overclockers seeking the absolute best possible performance. But for minimalists or those that otherwise dislike cable clutter, it seems like this could be a viable option? What do you think would be a fair price point?
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