Noctua is a brand known for its air coolers, but it looks like the German cooling manufacturer is finally dipping its toe into alternative cooling solutions. Noctua showed off a prototype of an AIO-esque liquid cooler at Computex, built in collaboration with Calyos, that uses dual-phase thermosiphon cooling to dissipate heat from a CPU.
The prototype has three primary components: a heat spreader, tubes, and a radiator — in this case it is also known as a condenser — all filled with evaporative coolant. Heat from the CPU causes a chemical reaction within the liquid that transforms it into a hot evaporative fluid, causing it to rise to the condenser, which then cools the vapor, turning it back into a liquid. Gravity finishes the cycle by pulling the cooled-off liquid back down to the heat spreader, which is connected to the heat-generating CPU.
This design is not new: evaporative cooling has been used extensively in air coolers for decades, ironically, which is probably why Noctua ventured onto this route in the first place. However, it is a cooling solution that has yet to be mastered in the AIO liquid cooling space. Noctua built the prototype with standard form factors in mind — if you didn't know any better, you would think it was a traditional AIO liquid cooler. The radiator is 240mm in size, connected to two sleeved tubes that lead to a heat spreader that's compatible with LGA sockets. The heat spreader appears to be using repurposed installation mounts from Noctua's air coolers.
Noctua's pumpless solution has many perks. The lack of any pump means the unit itself is completely silent (save for the fans), and the unit technically has no moving parts (aside from the fans) — the same advantages air coolers have. Another advantage is the liquid itself, which should technically make this prototype perform better than Noctua's best air coolers. The only downside is that there is potential for the cooler to leak, but that is a problem that's basically nonexistent with current AIO liquid coolers.
Noctua has not provided any performance metrics for the new cooler — but that's expected, given that this is a proof of concept more than anything. Noctua announced that its prototype thermosiphon cooler is actively in the early development stage, and the company has no launch date or pricing projections at this time.
Hopefully Noctua will go through with this cooler and not scrap it before it comes to market. We would all love to see what a Noctua liquid cooler would look like, after all. The best part is that Noctua is toying with entering the AIO liquid cooler market with a completely unique product that does not use the same cooling techniques as its competitors. The only thing we can confidently predict about this product, if it makes it to store shelves, is that it will be very pricey.
