Going
to LAN parties and various events throughout the years, I’ve been privy
to see an amazing amount of creativity from people in the world. I’ve
seen cases made from LEGOs, cases carved out of wood, and cases that had
fantastic artwork sculpted into them – but none of those compare to the
shock factor that will come when someone sees a working computer on
your desk submerged in what appears to be water and placed into an
aquarium.
Appearances
can be deceiving, and once you take the time to thoroughly examine this
crazy case, you see that it is not actually water in the aquarium, but
mineral oil. Mineral oil lacks the electrons to conduct electricity
unlike water, so it is completely safe to submerge any kind of
electronics into – although once something goes in, there’s basically no
way to get the oil back off of it (which as you would guess, will void
any manufacturers warranty). So then, aside from the shock value – is
there any useful reason to put perfectly good computer hardware in a
tank with mineral oil?
The
real reason to subject your equipment to this is because of just how
well mineral oil handles heat. Some people have huge fans in their
cases, but they push a load of dust which means you have to clean the
internals fairly often. Some people swear by water cooling which works
great, but one mistake and you have a shorted out piece of junk. With
mineral oil you don’t have to clean it or worry about shorting out your
stuff, and on top of that it dissipates heat five times
better than air. To put this into perspective, the system I put into
the case pulled 740W of power from the wall during peak load, and the
internal temperature peaked at 52C. That was with the fans on low. If you have a system that runs cooler – I’d love to see it.
I
was pretty much blown away by just how well it worked. I built a rig
that could handle Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 on the highest
graphics settings, and it never came close to “breaking a sweat” – on
top of that I overclocked the shit out of the CPU that I put in it, and
the temperature stayed cool even after leaving it on for two weeks
straight. I proudly left this displayed not in my office, but right on
the desk in my living room so that anyone coming into the house could
see it and start up a conversation about it (and it is definitely one
hell of a conversation piece).
The
guys at Puget decided to put me through the whole process a normal user
would see, so I could know just how well their operation worked. From
placing the order, to getting informed of what was going on with the
order at any given time, dealing with the people here was a real treat.
I loved the fact that the workers would actually comment on the order
to let me know what was going on – I felt special, even though I knew
that this was what everyone got treated to.
Now remember, this is a
DIY kit, so you need to provide your own “computery” parts, but it does
come with everything else you need. The aquarium is a 12 gallon
Eclipse system, which is a really nice all-in-one aquarium (there’s one
in my step-daughter’s room) – inside that you put a special motherboard
tray that will hold pretty much any kind of mobo – it’s super easy to
bolt one on, just like you would inside of a normal computer case. On
top of that, you bolt on a specially designed acrylic aquarium top that
is designed to hold your hard drives (they don’t recommend putting a
hard drive in the aquarium because of how viscous mineral oil is; if you
have a Solid State Drive though, you’re good to go).
If you
really want to make the case stand out even more than it already will
you can also pick up a cold cathode light to install into the top and
then add in a “bubble bar” to the bottom of the aquarium. These things
aren’t standard, but really for the $30 you’d spend on them, the are
incredibly worth it. Another thing you can get just for effect, are the
“weighted” fake fish – that way they float at different heights and
will serve to freak people out even more when they see it – don’t be
dumb and use real fish though. Real fish can’t breathe through mineral
oil.
The radiator that you mount on the back of the aquarium is
impressively huge. It’s literally the height and width of the fish tank
(and about half of the depth), with four huge fans running in tandem to
pull the heat off of it. The best thing about the radiator though, is
that when the fans are set to low, they are virtually silent – the
benefit of having so many going so slow.
Editor’s Rating:
Perfect!
The Bottom Line: If
you’re looking for something that will pretty much floor anyone that
comes over to look at it, this is definitely the way to go – it does
cost a pretty penny, but it’s worth every cent.
Pros:
- The cooling that you get from this case will exceed anything you could hope to do otherwise
- The setup is relatively quick and simple so even someone inexperienced can do it
- Adding a light and bubble bar makes the whole thing surreal
Cons:
- Mineral oil is another expense you have to consider (about $60 to fill it)
- All warranties are null and void after putting things in this
- Once you have it up and running it’s a lot of work to tear down and move
The
V4 kit will run you $596 plus shipping and includes a 12-gallon tank
and cover, acrylic motherboard tray, 7 slot I/O shield, power cord,
power/HDD LEDs, power switch, PCI SATA and power bracket, 3-inch brushed
nickel wire handles, hard drive mounts that go above the surface,
Watercool MO_RA3 Pro radiator and a radiator stand, submersible Swiftech
MCP35X pump, 5 feet of half-inch tubing, and all necessary screws,
barbs, and fittings. It can be purchased from Puget’s site.
