Friday, June 10th 2011

PCCooler OC3 W120 Combines Tower-Type Air Cooler with Water Block

What happens when you mash up a CPU tower-type air-cooler with a water-block? You get PCCooler OC3 W120. This innovative cooler combines a tower-type air cooler design with a water block. First, there's a typical heatsink that has a polished copper base and heat pipes originating from the base, conveying heat to a aluminum fin stack; next, at the top of the stack are fittings that connect the cooler to a liquid-cooling loop. The water tubes pass through the aluminum fin stack just like heat pipes, before reaching the base of the heatsink. At the base, a micro-fin plate and block chamber makes direct contact with the heat pipes and the base below.

The aluminum fin stack holds one 120 mm fan to ventilate it. The fins are of irregular shape and are dimpled to increase surface area and turbulence. With its unique hybrid design, the PCCooler OC3 W120 can handle thermal loads of up to 500W. PCCooler OC3 W120 is made by Chinese company Shenzhen Fluence Technology, its products are exclusively sold in the Asian markets.
Source: Expreview
Add your own comment

50 Comments on PCCooler OC3 W120 Combines Tower-Type Air Cooler with Water Block

#1
mlee49
So, I wonder when it's connected to a 120mm rad if it preforms better than a dual 120mm rad.

Interesting design.
Posted on Reply
#2
xsever
Very interesting and innovative design indeed.

We need some benchmarks to see whether that translates into practical results or not.
Posted on Reply
#3
scaminatrix
Why is some if the craziest looking stuff for the Asian market only? We like teh crazies too!

Clever idea, and looks nice too.
Posted on Reply
#4
freaksavior
To infinity ... and beyond!
scaminatrixWhy is some if the craziest looking stuff for the Asian market only? We like teh crazies too!

Clever idea, and looks nice too.
because the asians are awesome. Simply put.

I like this design, I can see it leading to much lower temps. Has anyone else created anything similar to this?
Posted on Reply
#5
arterius2
START rant

I'm sorry to rain on the parade... but

1. Too bad its a PCCooler product, Mainland Chinese brand, situated in my local city (Shenzhen). Horrible brand, tried a couple of their "top end" HSF products, when I first came to China(2 years ago), was the most expensive HSF in the store, my first (called "Red Sea3") warped (and destroyed) the motherboard and CPU due to lack of back-plate bracing in their retention mechanism, and each of the spring-loaded screws would continue to tighten without you knowing how much you've gone or any indication of a maximum pressure reached, 2nd one reached 95C load on a i7 920 causing it to down-throttle (re-pasted several times with IC Diamond/AS5 etc. not pasting issue, just horrible HSF), at this point, I stopped buying their brand. 3rd one was purchased by a friend of mine, its humid here, and after 2 month of use, the copper fins was all rusted (turned brownish-green) due to lack of (nickel-plate) coating on the fins.

2. Watercooling in a HSF is gimmicky, if you are in business for watercooling, you would of purchased a real watertooling setup(less noise, less dust). If you wanted a good air-cooler, you would of purchased a reputable air cooler such as Prolimatech SuperMega, or TR SilverArrow, or Noctua NH-D14 etc. Not this third rate junk.

3. Their coolers aren't the cheapest considering their horrible performance, you could easily get imports (foreign brands, meaning non-Chinese) cheaper and better performance.

4. PCCooler tends to blatantly clone other brands, notably Zalman, so a breach of copyright issue here.. So I wouldn't be too surprised if this was copied from somewhere.
this is PCCooler "BlueBird" (my company uses this in every machine):
www.pccooler.cn/en/proview.php?pro_typeid=248&pro_typeid2=250&pro_id=1653
this is Zalman CNPS7000:
www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=311

looks familiar??!?

/rant
Posted on Reply
#6
Cold Storm
Battosai
Makes me want to buy one of the Hw lab stealth 120mm rad's and see how it would do stuck to my tower..

If that design does well, I bet it'll have a good market.

Here's to hoping.

:toast:
Posted on Reply
#7
pantherx12
Pccooler I think haev stepped up their game recently.

I've got two pccooler gpu heatsinks, and the one I have on at the moment the k100 is easily the best GPU cooler I've owned.

Although it's a bitch to install lol

Excuse the poor photo, just grabbed my phone to take it.



Also check out my ghetto mod ;) didn't have any copper mosfet heatsinks so chopped off the mosfet cooling plate :D


2x 100mm fans for those who wonder.

The cpu heatsink looks like fun.
Posted on Reply
#8
scaminatrix
arterius2START rant

I'm sorry to rain on the parade... but
.....

looks familiar??!?

/rant
Spoilsport :p thanks for the info though :)
pantherx12Pccooler I think haev stepped up their game recently.
I've got two pccooler gpu heatsinks, and the one I have on at the moment the k100 is easily the best GPU cooler I've owned.
Although it's a bitch to install lol
Excuse the poor photo, just grabbed my phone to take it.
img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/mopatop/IMAG0169.jpg
Also check out my ghetto mod ;) didn't have any copper mosfet heatsinks so chopped off the mosfet cooling plate :D
2x 100mm fans for those who wonder.
The cpu heatsink looks like fun.
Nice, looks like a beasty-ish, where did you get it? Was it a UK source or did you have to fandangle a way of sourcing it?
Posted on Reply
#9
Hayder_Master
The idea is great, and they can do many new ideas too from this like combine it with ready made water cooler like H70 or H100. It will be awesome.
Posted on Reply
#10
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
Are those pre installed barbs? Because if it is, its already a fail on my part. The water tube passing through the fins looks like have a small id as well.. bad for flow. And I doubt if the base is on par with modern cpu blocks today.. it looks like it doesnt even have a jet plate (no mention of it) which is the norm for todays cpu blocks. Having just microfins just wont cut it. And how about maintenance? Can the block be opened up?

If id want to go liquid, I'd buy a cpu block. If i want to go air, id buy a normal tower cooler.
Posted on Reply
#11
pantherx12
scaminatrixNice, looks like a beasty-ish, where did you get it? Was it a UK source or did you have to fandangle a way of sourcing it?
Got from ebay, cost £30 quid delivered from china, it's worth the money.

1000core 1.2v +furmark with all the extra options to ruin your card turned out the card won't go over 60 degrees.

That's about a 30-40 degree difference :laugh: ( vs stock cooling)
Posted on Reply
#12
entropy13
PCCooler doesn't have that much of a presence here, mostly small GPU heatsinks, one of the few 92mm case fans available, and cheap CPU HSFs.


Deep Cool, on the other hand...can't wait to see the Assassin (or maybe even the Fiend Shark, which is apparently available here already at a good price, still not reviewed though).
Posted on Reply
#13
Unregistered
I'm assuming that part of the idea behind the combo is so that if your loop dies, you have enough cooling with just the fan and heatsink that you don't get a thermal fault. If that's really their intention, and it works, I think it's genius. It's the sort of thing you look at and wonder why no one ever came up with this before.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as trying to do too much and doing everything poorly. If you need absolute fault tolerance 24/7, then I can see going with this, but how many people does that actually apply to? Maybe it will work well as a stand alone air cooler, but as was already mentioned, those look like some awfully tiny pipes for wc, at least compared to any of the rigs I've seen here. But if you look at a Hydro 70, that has pretty small diameter hoses too and works really well (as far as I'm concerned anyway), so IDK.
Posted on Edit | Reply
#14
pantherx12
I came up with this before, I'm sure a whole bunch of people have.

We just don't have access to work shops lol
Posted on Reply
#15
theJesus
pantherx12I came up with this before, I'm sure a whole bunch of people have.

We just don't have access to work shops lol
Yup, I've thought of this as well. Or at least slapping a heatsink on top of a waterblock and seeing if it makes any difference :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#16
Disparia


Yup. Back in the day overheat protection didn't always protect your CPU if the pump died.
Posted on Reply
#17
PopcornMachine
Brand aside, it is an interesting concept. Might be great for small cases where adding a 2nd radiator could be difficult or impossible. Don't think the fan would have to be loud to be effective.

Looking forward to how it works.
Posted on Reply
#18
mstenholm
If you want to sail, buy a boat, if you want to drive, buy a car.
Posted on Reply
#19
scaminatrix


Some people want the benefits of both...
Posted on Reply
#21
WarraWarra
scaminatrixWhy is some if the craziest looking stuff for the Asian market only? We like teh crazies too!

Clever idea, and looks nice too.
Yeah like the 3 and 4 sim quad band phones that eats iphone5 up for breakfast for USD$124 + has a tv and 5G etc.

Topic:
Bloody marvelous concept. Small footprint large cooling effect.
Posted on Reply
#22
scaminatrix
mstenholmSure and they got a bad boat and a crappy car....
I see the benefit of having the air back-up but any claim about 500 Watt heat disposal makes me wonder about the engineering quality. We are talking about + 1 m/s in these tiny pipes and thats led me to make the car/boat statement.
I was just joking, don't take me seriously :p

I agree with you on worrying about the quality, and there's the fact that certain types of solder and other materials aren't allowed to be used in products that are aimed at EU (and probably US). Probably why some of these things (aswell as all these cheap arse PSU's from Mexico, etc.) are never sold here - they don't pass certain safety tests I suppose.
WarraWarraYeah like the 3 and 4 sim quad band phones that eats iphone5 up for breakfast for USD$124 + has a tv and 5G etc.
Yea they really interested me, some of them are bloody epic!!
Posted on Reply
#23
Yellow&Nerdy?
Might not work very well as it is, but the idea itself is interesting. Further development is definitely needed, but this could turn out to be pretty neat. They will no doubt have to make thicker "heatpipes" for liquid transfer in the "air cooled" part. Plus they need to modify the base to something that is similar to a CPU-block in a water-cooling loop.
Posted on Reply
#24
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
scaminatrixWhy is some if the craziest looking stuff for the Asian market only? We like teh crazies too!

Clever idea, and looks nice too.
They are chinese, they do crazy stuff like.. umm.. claiming sovereignty to a place thousands of kilometers far off from their land.
Posted on Reply
#25
Mistral
Yo Dawg, I Heard You Like Water Coolers So I Put A Water Cooler In your Cooler!..
Posted on Reply
Add your own comment
Apr 24th, 2024 10:55 EDT change timezone

New Forum Posts

Popular Reviews

Controversial News Posts