Zack Fanning New Media Marketing

Questions of the Month-September 2011

“Questions of the Month” is a blog feature that addresses some of the questions that come to us about our products and technology. Feel free to submit your own questions to questions@asetek.com.

Why does the PNY GTX580 Liquid Cooled Graphics Card require a fan on the GPU?
The fan mounted on the liquid cooled GTX580 cards from PNY cools graphics memory, VRs and MOSFETs. This slow moving, quiet fan allows the liquid cooler to focus on the hottest part of the card, the heat of the GPU. The resulting graphics cards run much quieter and faster than noisy stock cards. Moving the GPU cooler to your next generation card is easy and doesn’t require waiting for a water block or interposer to be designed.

Asetek is no stranger to liquid cooling GPUs. We invented the interposer solution and manufactured full coverage water blocks (among other designs). We frequently found that full coverage blocks and interposers end up costing more to manufacture than the rest of the liquid cooling system combined. Our years of experience have shown us that the liquid cooling technology used on PNY’s GTX580 allows us to bring you a product that is both better performing and less expensive than other designs.

How does Asetek liquid cooling work?
The liquid cooling system has three basic elements: an integrated pump assembly (consisting of pump, reservoir and cold plate), a radiator (heat exchanger) and tubes to transport the liquid. The integrated pump and cold plate unit is a direct replacement for the standard CPU air cooled heat sink. The radiator is mounted behind the rear chassis fan(s) with the tubes connecting the pump and radiator together.

The cold plate transfers heat from the CPU into the cooling liquid. The integrated pump assembly pushes warm liquid to the radiator and draws cool liquid back to the cold plate. Finally, the system fan(s) blow air across the radiator exhausting CPU heat totally outside of the chassis, benefiting all of the other components on the motherboard.

How much power does an Asetek liquid cooling system draw?
We realize how important it is to conserve energy and we pride ourselves on the total power draw of an Asetek water cooler being less than 3 watts. That is roughly the equivalent of a case fan. In addition, because you are likely removing an air-cooling solution from your CPU in the process, the net usage is actually 0 watts.

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