Interview with Hardcore Computer: The quest for a full immersion cooled desktop PC

Posted at: Tuesday 14th October 2008 by Mark Mackay

Thoughts of full-immersion PCs still fresh in our minds from this years Dream PC competition, a new, more accessible embodiment of the technology hits the market. Custom PC interviews CTO of Hardcore Computer to find out more.

CPC: Is it going to be long before you have a motherboard for Intel’s upcoming Core i7 chips?

Chad: We'll be on par with the rest of the industry as far as availability goes. We definitely have our eye on the new offerings coming out of Intel. Right now our main offerings are the [Intel Core 2 quad] QX9650 and the QX9770 Extreme Editions. We’re shipping the QX9770 running at 4.2GHz. We’re also looking at potentially offering the Q9550 and then maybe some CPUs down a level, as they have very high levels of over-clockability.

CPC: What kind of temperatures are you getting under load at that speed?

Chad: At 4.2GHz, with a 25°C ambient, I can say pretty confidently, we’re in the 42°C to 45°C range. That’s with the current configuration. We actually have some other things in the works where we’ll be running significantly cooler than that. I can’t really talk too much about that yet.

CPC: How much does the system weigh when it’s all filled up?

Chad: We’re at roughly 100lbs [approx. 45kg] right now. It depends on configuration and some other things, but roughly about 100 pounds. It’s not just a cooling system that we’re offering. Everything we’re doing is custom.

CPC: What kind of cost are you expecting for the whole system?

Chad: Right now, our initial offering, probably something that’s reasonably equipped with a single board and a decent processor, probably in the range of $3,999  (CPC: that’s approximately £2,289). That’s a good starting system. We’re trying to keep the pricing reasonable on it and competitive with other people. The beauty of our system is that it’s actually a very modular system, so it’s very upgradeable.

CPC: You mean for people to do themselves, at home?

Chad: Yes, actually you can open up this system fairly easily. What we call the core is attached to the lid, so there’s a tray that everything is attached to: power supplies, video cards, motherboard, everything is on this core assembly that’s attached to the lid. To access it, you unscrew the lid, detach that from the main tank chassis, and lift it up. And it locks in place above the tank, fluid drains into the tank, and you have hands free access to both sides of the board, so you can add memory, change and upgrade video cards, processors, solid state drives. Those are all internal and then we also have two external hot swappable 3.5in drives.

CPC: Who is it that makes the case like that? Are you guys manufacturing the case as well from scratch?

Chad: We do everything, yes. We designed the entire system from ground up. We had a system set up in a suite for people at Nvidia and some of our suppliers to actually come and see the product up and running, and to let them know that we're getting ready for launch. It's been great; we've had really solid support from everybody we've been working with. We've been very lucky to have truly the A-team of suppliers. For a first start-up it's kind of unheard of to have this sort of support from suppliers and from people in general that we've been working with, so we've been really blessed.