Alienware intros Liquid-Cooled Quad-Card Graphics

Published on March 31st, 2006

Alienware's new Liquid Chilled solution delivers the optimum amount of cooling for four GPUs

When will game graphics finally outdo reality?

Available exclusively on the Aurora ALX system with
Quad SLI, Alienware’s new Liquid Chilled solution delivers the optimum amount of cooling for four GPUs, surpassing the capabilities of other commerial liquid cooling solutions, which only cool two GPUs.
Alienware’s Liquid Chilled solution, utilizing CoolIT Systems’ patented technology called MTEC, takes the liquid used to cool system components and chills it below ambient temperature. This enables the full potential of four Quad SLI-powered graphics cards operating at full speed on the Aurora ALX to be unleashed, ensuring blazing performance without limitations when running demanding games and applications.

17 users responded in " Alienware intros Liquid-Cooled Quad-Card Graphics "

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# 1 jasontheodd said, on March 31st, 2006 at 10:14 am

will the have little dell logo shaped radiators over each GPU???

# 2 Dave Drews said, on March 31st, 2006 at 10:25 am

So, the graphics cards need more cooling than the processor(s)?

Can’t wait until the PSP has this level of graphics capability. Have to wear a water tank on my back and a cooling tower hat.

# 3 blank said, on March 31st, 2006 at 10:36 am

And this will get you…what? 20 extra FPS on a game?

Come on…this is only for bragging rights. “Hey dude, check this out!”. It’s like when I was growing up and my brother was tricking out his ‘69 Nova with dual exhaust and jacked-up in the back and mag wheels etc.

I have a 7800GTX…just one…and it works great in everything I play. I don’t sit there and say “wow, I wish I had just a couple more FPS. Haven’t there been studies that show after a certain amount of FPS, you don’t even notice it anymore? I don’t know the figure, but I’m sure this rig goes way way WAY past it….so it’s sort of wasted isn’t it?

# 4 Awake said, on March 31st, 2006 at 11:21 am

And all this power is for what? Nerds with no real life playing shoot-em-up games! Woohoo!
Guys… try paintball instead… or join the Army and go to Iraq and do the real thing!

# 5 Hey Mac said, on March 31st, 2006 at 11:50 am

Hmmm… supercharged .035 litre, 4 on the floor, overhead (web) cam, rear spoiler (sitting too long)…

# 6 Jim said, on March 31st, 2006 at 11:51 am

and in 6 months to 1 year, DX 10 will be needed and you’ll need four NEW video cards! woohoo!

# 7 Bruce IV said, on March 31st, 2006 at 12:12 pm

Yeah – I must ask, why does any consumer need this level of power? Agree with Blank – its just for bragging rights.

# 8 Rick Pali said, on March 31st, 2006 at 2:39 pm

The way I figure it, if someone wants to spend a small fortune for bragging rights, I’m all for it…because they’re paying the bleeding-edge costs of R&D so we call can get it for 1/10 the cost in no time…

# 9 A Person said, on March 31st, 2006 at 3:41 pm

“or join the Army and go to Iraq and do the real thing!”

But the respawn time for Reality is insane!

# 10 Improbus said, on March 31st, 2006 at 4:20 pm

Soon you will be able to use your computer to play games AND heat your home’s water. That would be truely useful.

# 11 ECA said, on March 31st, 2006 at 5:00 pm

let me see here…
Iv seen a setup that will use 4 cards, with 256 meg EACH..And cooling your comp will heat your HOME, let alone DRAIN the power from your home.
And what COMPANY, uses ALL that ram in a game…1 GIG of video cards?
RENDEr your WHOLE 3D universe, and still have room. But NO game DOES it.
And WORSE…the bottle neck…is on the MOBO. It cant hadle that MUCh data, as fast as these cards (together) can send it…AS WELL as its SERIAL, so only 1 card can send/recieve data at a time.
Put this on a Parrallel board(If they make one) and the CPU and windows CANT handle it..

So, conclusion…
BUY it and waste your money..

# 12 Floyd said, on March 31st, 2006 at 7:37 pm

At the last COMDEX held in Las Vegas, I remember seeing a modified hi rez graphics card that was liquid cooled. This really isn’t anything new… just a way to get more money from the gamers. Call me back when they replace the chip that requires liquid cooling with a better made chip that’s just as fast but only needs air cooling. ECA has the engineering bottlenecks figured out, I think.

# 13 Mr. Fusion said, on March 31st, 2006 at 8:27 pm

This is cutting edge technology. If you want to be the first on your block, you need to pony up the big bucks.

Floyd, I think more and more computers will be using liquid to cool themselves. There is an efficiency saving from the cooler circuits and a reduced noise level. Even now they are not that much more expensive then a good cooler. Another big saving will be space. Better heat dissipation will compact the boards.

# 14 GregAllen said, on March 31st, 2006 at 8:30 pm

I still am not used to seeing liquid cooling inside a computer.

By the way, this is still the wierdest comptuer board, in my opinion:
http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/apen-tube/lamp-in-work.jpg

I never bought one and I don’t know how many AOpen has sold but I’d like one just for the geek-chic factor.

# 15 ECA said, on April 1st, 2006 at 1:54 am

OK,
I have to give a small education here.
Electricity and speed are Like WATER.
either get a BIGGER(or add more hoses) hose, or use a SMALL one that can shoot at the moon.
Shooting at the moon can only go so far, before you BLOW the hose apart.
LOOK at the pipelines on these cards…Look at those on the MOBO.
consider making the Video card and Audio card, CONTROL themselves, have there own drivers and can do the audio/video with out the CPU doing anything, then set a timing chip in the middle to link them for videos.. WOW I just described the AMIGA computer and the BeOS hardware setups..
THEn add enough ram that the GPU wont need the SYSTEM ram…
This alone would save about 80% of the processing on the system by the MPU/CPU and you can increase whats going on.With the CPU FREED of 80% of all thats going on, you can ADD 5 times more speed to whats going on..Because it dont need to deal with the audio/video, just THROW the progs at the cards and LET the cards do the work.

This is OLD tech and it works.

# 16 Stephan Sokolow said, on April 1st, 2006 at 4:04 pm

I’m happy with a single dual-DVI card which is old enough to not need a fan. Heat sinks are pleasantly quiet.

# 17 Crash Burning said, on March 7th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

Water is 3 times more than air cant beat it with a stick. Once you use it you will never go back!
I run sli and for the money = to the performance I got screwed!!
8800 gts worked great by it self a second card was ok with half a gain but not much games even use sli yet. so more than half the time only one card is being used lmao!
But it was fun to build jerk jerk

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