Hitachi enters watercooling market

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 12:33 am

See the link on the Inquirer:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16244

Might be an interesting contender to the Reservator, if indeed the claims are true and it all works as advertised?

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Tue Jun 01, 2004 6:41 am

nice find.

at this point in time, watercooling is a market where anyone can enter and make a quick buck (or 1000). the hitachi kit looks like no exception.

for spcr purposes it is definitely too loud, 24dba is the noise level for what i assume is the unit by itself, once you put it in a case it could be even louder (turbulence etc). also, 5 years maintenance free is a bit dubious unless they have a magic pump (on par with eheim) and a dust filter.

they also chose the poorer of the 2 most popular radiator styles, whether or not this will hurt performance is yet to be seen.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 3:19 pm

Looks nice, shuttles are renowned to be beastily loud! 24 dba is good for a shuttle although yeah by our standards its pants!

firtol88 · Post by **firtol88** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 10:47 am

a bit more info

http://www.overclockers.com/articles1036/index02.asp

Bosk · Post by **Bosk** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 3:57 am

I impressed it's so compact and fully sealed, that should appeal to quite a few people.

You'd want a pretty strong fan to get decent performance with a radiator that small though.. but I guess the pump doesn't need to be all that beefy with such a small closed loop.

I wonder how long it'll be before Intel brings out their own watercooled stock cooler. (can't be too far off if their processors get any hotter)

firtol88 · Post by **firtol88** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 11:43 am

"Maintenance free for five years"

5 YEARS!!!!!! beyond the useful life of the system so water cooling without maintenance...

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 4:13 pm

5 years!

i doubt it. i think corrosion will become a problem well before then, it's happened to brass components over lengthy periods of time so i don't see why the same wouldn't happen to bare copper. what type of coolant do they put in it? if it's just plain tap water then algae will be a problem too

Post by **Rusty075** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:41 pm

In a sealed loop its probably a soup of distilled water and corrosion inhibitors. 5 years is probably an overly conservative timespan even. Other sealed systems like that in industrial chillers vhave life spans of 10-20 years.

But looking at that HSF you have to wonder..why not heatpipes? for that distance they'd be cheaper and more effective.

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 11:32 pm

very good point. heatpipes would not only be cheaper, but they'd also be even more maintenance free and reliable as you wouldn't have to rely on a pump.

i'm not sure about effectiveness though. depending on the design of the waterblock on the cpu, moving water can do things that a heatpipe can't, e.g. jet/slot impingement heat transfer.

it's an interesting step in a good direction, nonetheless