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- Date:
- Monday , April 13, 2009
- Author:
- Marc Adams
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Xpressar Refrigeration System & Xaser Chassis
Thermaltake, a leading manufacturer of cases for PC enthusiasts, is here to show us their cooler side. The Xpressar Refrigeration system is Thermaltake's first attempt in serious phase change cooling. This is a "micro" refrigeration system aimed at silence rather than balls out 24/7 overclocking.
Thermaltake Xpressar
Before we take a look at the actual Xpressar unit I wanted to talk a little bit about how phase change cooling works. For those of you who are familiar with the procedure you can skip down to the next section. For the rest of us, prepare to be amazed by the magic of science!
Now, technically speaking many of us already use phase change cooling in our everyday lives. Both with our refrigerators as well as our PCs. Heat pipe cooling technology uses a form of phase change cooling in a more passive method to remove heat from our GPUs and CPUs.
(1)Starting at the compressor we compress the vapor which increases its pressure and temperature simultaneously. It also serves as a pump to move the refrigerant around the loop.
(3)This high pressure/high temperature vapor moves to the condenser which lowers the temperature of the vapor and changes it from a gas to a high pressure/low temperature liquid.
(5)This liquid then moves on to the expansion valve which lowers the pressure of this liquid. Liquids under low pressure are easier to evaporate which is exactly what we want here.
(7)As this liquid hits our cold plate it flashes back to vapor taking a lot of heat with it.
The most interesting part is that this vapor remains at a low temperature. The heat from our CPU only changes the liquid to a gas. It is at this point that our system repeats itself and depending on the strength of the compressor you can remove more or less heat as desired.
Here is the Xpressar unit as Thermaltake designed it.
The last photo in the group is the controller board. Since maximum cooling performance may not always be required, Thermaltake designed this controller to react in the same way a PWM fan reacts to an increase in heat. As the CPU gets hotter the compressor powers up and increases the cooling capacity.
Installation
Since this is not your typical heat sink and fan combo it is worth going into detail just how one goes about installing this beast.
To start there is a back plate that needs to be installed. Because this unit is designed to fit most motherboards there will be some adjustment needed. Once you have the back plate installed flip your board over and install the spacers and standoffs. Nothing terribly difficult really. Just be sure to take your time since you do not want to have to do it again after you install your system in the case.
From here you want to install your board on the tray as you would any other removable tray. This is where we attach the Xpressar unit to our system. Like any other heat sink unit, make sure you tighten the thumbscrews in alternating, diagonal fashion to ensure even pressure across the base of the CPU. Once that is complete it is simply a matter of connecting the four-pin fan connector to the CPU connector on your motherboard.
The complete installation of the Xpressar Micro-Refrigeration unit. There are a couple of important points Thermaltake wants you to be aware of. First is that the compressor uses a 4-pin molex connector like older HDDs and optical drives. They strongly recommend you attach the compressor directly to the PSU and not have any other devices attached on the same lead.
Also, regarding the use of longer video cards... The first slot of the motherboard is incompatible with the Xpressar but this should be a moot point as most motherboards reserve that slot for x1 slots. The second slot can accommodate cards up to 12" inches in length. The third and fourth slot can accommodate cards up to 9.5 inches regardless where the power connectors of the card are located. And finally, the bottom three slots of your motherboard can support cards up to 10.5 inches in length though the power connectors must be located along the long side of the card. This is the more common placement among cards this long.
