Are There Still Any Phase Builders Left in the U.S.?

[uRnOdAiSy]

I have been using single stage phase change cpu cooling since 2004 starting with the Asetek Vapochill Lightspeed LS and have used a Cooler Express for a number of years and she has died on me. It looks like commercially available units like Cooler Express and even Under The Ice are no longer available. I know Little Devil (LD) but don't want to deal with anyone outside of the states if I have choices in the U.S. Are there any phase users that might have a source(s) for me?

I know that the yields in overclocks are not as great as it once was with phase versus water cooling with today's chips and that phase change cooling doesn't have the popularity it once had. For the sake of staying on point, I don't want this thread to become a "why phase?" or "water is better" debate. Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Fir]

I had one of the original Kryotech boxes. Weird thing that was.
Refrigeration units are actually still valid today, most of the hardcore users either build their own or find a refrigeration/HVAC guy to put one together. It's not that hard to build a cascade system with an evaporator temp that matches dry ice and can run practically forever.

Of course perpetual sub ambient requires a slew of engineering to make it reliable. Ambient air gets in and condenses out (ice) you're done.

I've seen some pretty creative ways to reach these temps with combinations of thermoelectric coolers cascaded to a block which then was cooled to ambient with a decent sized chiller (10hp).

By far the most interesting design used a vortex tube. This is about as inefficient as you can get and the freaking noise is unbelievable!

 

[aigomorla]

Have you tried taking your Cooler Express to a HVAC specialist and seeing if they can fix it?
At most it might just need a compressor swap + regas, which most HVAC's can do, and would be cheaper then you purchasing a completely new unit.

Im pretty sure you can take your old unit, and use them on today's Chips, unless were talking about TR/TR2 or the 7980XE.
Those chips may overshoot the capacity of most vapo's... if i recall it was somewhere around the line of 300-350W max load at -2C on the evap head.... i think....

I can only think of one phase unit that is comercial, however its a Liquid Chiller, and its not that great from me playing around with it.

Meaning it wont go that sub ambient, and its very hard to get serviced via vendor, your better and faster solution would be to take it to a HVAC specialist and get him to repair / service it.

 

[uRnOdAiSy]

Have you tried taking your Cooler Express to a HVAC specialist and seeing if they can fix it?
At most it might just need a compressor swap + regas, which most HVAC's can do, and would be cheaper then you purchasing a completely new unit.

Im pretty sure you can take your old unit, and use them on today's Chips, unless were talking about TR/TR2 or the 7980XE.
Those chips may overshoot the capacity of most vapo's... if i recall it was somewhere around the line of 300-350W max load at -2C on the evap head.... i think....

I can only think of one phase unit that is comercial, however its a Liquid Chiller, and its not that great from me playing around with it.

Meaning it wont go that sub ambient, and its very hard to get serviced via vendor, your better and faster solution would be to take it to a HVAC specialist and get him to repair / service it.

Thanks for the input. The Cooler Express sprung a leak along the evaporator hose; a local HVAC might be the way to go on that. I still would like to find a builder in the U.S. for a robust new unit. As long as I can mount the PC case on top in can be taller and wider than the case itself.

 

[uRnOdAiSy]

I had one of the original Kryotech boxes. Weird thing that was.
Refrigeration units are actually still valid today, most of the hardcore users either build their own or find a refrigeration/HVAC guy to put one together. It's not that hard to build a cascade system with an evaporator temp that matches dry ice and can run practically forever.

Of course perpetual sub ambient requires a slew of engineering to make it reliable. Ambient air gets in and condenses out (ice) you're done.

I've seen some pretty creative ways to reach these temps with combinations of thermoelectric coolers cascaded to a block which then was cooled to ambient with a decent sized chiller (10hp).

By far the most interesting design used a vortex tube. This is about as inefficient as you can get and the freaking noise is unbelievable!

Thanks for the reply. IIRC, the Kryrotech predated the Asetek units.

 

[Fir]

Yes they definitely did!
Chips today are monsters in comparison.
The cores themselves have gotten much more efficient but they are adding them on faster than the (per core) power draw drops.

Adding insult to injury, the enthusiast crowd wants to crank it up to 11 out of the box so it's just that much hotter.

 

[uRnOdAiSy]

Yes they definitely did!
Chips today are monsters in comparison.
The cores themselves have gotten much more efficient but they are adding them on faster than the (per core) power draw drops.

Adding insult to injury, the enthusiast crowd wants to crank it up to 11 out of the box so it's just that much hotter.

For my current wants and needs which really would be gaming and simply the joy of tweaking my system to its max, four to six cores in a chip is all I think I would want, particularly with hyperthreading. I'll take a 10 core chip, disable the cores that are not useful to me at this time and then focus on bringing core frequency as high as possible.

 

[Fir]

The new 8 core 9th gen processors coming this fall sound perfect for you then!