Cases, Cooling & PSU News - Page 1

EK continues to outdo itself with each product release, where today the watercooling company has just announced the combination of nature + technology with its new EK-Quantum water blocks that feature a gorgeous walnut wood top.

The new signature CPU water blocks - EK-Quantum Velocity² and EK-Quantum Magnitude Lignum edition. Lignum Lime, you say? Lignum Lime is inspired by Edvard Koning's love of woodwork, as well as modern computer technology, and is named after the Latin translation of the word "wood".

The new EK-Quantum Velocity² Lignum Edition - Walnut is available for both AMD AM4 and Intel LGA1700 sockets -- meaning no matter the PC you've got, you'll keep it cool (and woody). EK explains its specialized manufacturing techniques: "deployed to create this truly unique product. Not a single Magnitude component was made using mass production techniques. Instead, every single piece was CNC-milled separately out of a solid piece of material. At the heart of Magnitude lies the CNC-machined solid brass insert. This component made it possible to significantly enlarge and optimize the cooling engine".

You might want to hold off on any power supply upgrades to your PC for a while, as you'll want to get a new ATX 3.0-capable PSU with the new PCIe Gen 5 12VHPWR connectors that we'll see on NVIDIA and AMD's next-gen GPUs.

PCIe 5.0-powered GPUs and new ATX 3.0 PSUs are going to be coughing out some major numbers, with "Power Excursions" of up to 1800W spikes of power. For example, NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti has a TGP rating of 450W, and could have power spikes of up to 1350W while the next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 is rumored to chew 600W, so a power spike of an insane 1800W is there.

The news is coming directly from Intel's Platform Power Specialist, Stephen Eastman, where during an interview with PCWorld, said: "With the new PCIe 5.0 connector and ATX 3.0, Intel and the PCI SIG address what both euphemistically call "power excursions." You might recognize it by the less sugar coated term "power spike." The PCI SIG has basically outlined the capability of a GPU to exceed the maximum sustained power of the card by 3x. That means a 600 watt card on a PCIe 5.0 12VHPWR connector is allowed to spike to 1,800 watts for 100 micro-seconds".

AMD will be releasing its new Ryzen 7000 series CPUs later this year, powered by the new Zen 4 architecture and arriving on the new AM5 socket.

We've already seen a few CPU cooling manufacturers announce that their fleets of CPU coolers would work with AMD's new AM5 socket, with Noctua throwing its hat into the AM5 hat... and now Arctic has announced that all of its AM4-compatible CPU coolers will work with AMD's new AM5 socket.

Arctic tweeted: "AMD is expected to release the next-generation AMD Ryzen™ 7000 desktop processors (Zen 4) by the end of 2022. Since all mechanical dimensions remain identical, ARCTIC is able to guarantee the compatibility of its coolers with the new AMD processors".

ASUS has just announced a new member of its ROG Thor II Platinum PSU range, with the introduction of the new ROG Thor 1600W Platinum PSU.

The new ASUS ROG Thor 1600W Platinum PSU is the highest-end PSU in the ROG Thor II PSU family from ASUS, where you'll have 80 Plus Platinum certification, meaning you'll get 90% efficiency at 100% load. There's a beautiful black and silver design, with ASUS using an OLED screen on the side... because why not.

I don't know why you'd want to spend a huge chunk of coin on this PSU, considering it doesn't have any native 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power connector. You'll need to use the adapters (1 x 16-pin to 3-4 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors) which is going to be annoying. But things are confusing: ASUS confirms on its product page that the "each ROG Thor 1600W Platinum PSU is bundled with a 16-pin PCIe cable that can pipe up to 600W of power to PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics cards. Get ready for the future of power delivery".

Antec has just added an all-new Dark Fleet DF800 FLUX mid-tower ATX gaming case, which has a wicked visual design on the front thanks to its geometrical mesh design and use of mirror surface materials.

Antec built the new cooling solution for its F-LUX Platform, explaining it: "When Intel and AMD announced their latest CPUs, they all deliver remarkable performance upgrades and better productivity, it also means the functional requirement of PC equipment needs to be taken to the next level, especially the thermal performance. To cope with the stress of enhanced heat dissipation, Antec developed a revolutionary structure for airflow, providing an improved and powerful cooling solution for your system. The F-LUX Platform".

There's an incredible amount of room inside of the Dark Fleet DF800 FLUX mid-tower ATX case, as well as a wicked amount of cooling -- 5 x 120mm fans to be exact -- enough to keep the most powerful CPU + GPU nice and cool, probably. Better yet: Antec gives you the 5 x 120mm ARGB fans with the case, all for $119.95.

MSI has announced that its entire fleet of AIO liquid coolers are fully compatible with AMD's upcoming AM5 socket, which is where the new Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will call home.

MSI isn't the first -- Noctua has announced that pretty much every cooler they have is AM5-ready -- and they won't be the last to support the new AM5 socket with their existing products. AMD's new Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 series CPUs will be launching later this year, on the new AM5 socket (LGA 1718).

MSI explains: "AMD Socket AM5 (LGA 1718) is the next-generation socket designed to support next-generation Ryzen™ 7000 desktop processors (Zen 4). AMD Socket AM5 uses the same liquid cooler bracket as Socket AM4*. This allows you to upgrade to and enjoy AM5 without buying a new liquid cooler. *Requires motherboard's dedicated AMD Socket AM5 backplate".

Noctua has said that all of its coolers apart from one are upwards compatible with AMD's next-gen AM5 socket, which will debut with the new Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs launching later this year.

It's not just Noctua CPU coolers but also the mounting kits that will be AM5 compatible, the only model that won't work with AM5 will be the NH-L9a-AM4 and the NM-AM4-L9aL9i coolers. Noctua explains in a new FAQ: "All Noctua AM4 mountings except the ones of the NH-L9a-AM4 and the NM-AM4-L9aL9i attach to the threads of the standard AM4 stock backplate. Since these backplate threads and their pattern are identical on AM4 and AM5, our AM4 mountings that attach to the standard AMD backplate also support AM5".

AMD designed the new AM5 package to be the same size as AM4, meaning that mounting holes for existing AM4 coolers are compatible. AMD keeps the same z-height as well, so we should see mounting kits for AM4 socket being compatible with the new Zen 4-ready AM5 socket.

ASUS China is giving away some 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power cables for its enthusiast-grade ROG Thor PSU family.

If you don't have or won't be buying NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card, the new 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power cable is kinda useless for now. But if you are... well, this cable is very useful. If you are buying a next-gen GPU when they roll around with NVIDIA's new Ada Lovelace GPUs and AMD's new RDNA 3 GPUs will rock some high TDPs.

But over in China, select retailers are giving away the 600W-ready 16-pin PCIe 5.0-ready power connector with its ROG Thor I 1200W and ROG Thor II 1000W PSUs. There are limitations on this, with reports that the PCIe 5.0 power cables are only bundled with ROG Thor/Thor II PSUs that were recently purchased.

We've been hearing more and more about the next-gen PCIe 5.0-based power connectors and PCIe 5.0-ready PSUs, but now Intel has just made the largest change to industry power supply specifications since 2003 with the introduction of the ATX 3.0 specifications.

The new ATX 3.0 specifications will drive the future and unlock the full power, and full potential of next-gne hardware and components built around connectivity like PCIe 5.0. Intel has also updated its ATX12VO spec to help the PC industry with an "updated blueprint" for designing PSUs and motherboards that reduce power draw at idle, and more.

• Read more: PCIe 5.0 '12VHPWR' power connector: 150W, 300W, 450W, 600W settings

Stephen Eastman, Intel platform power specialist explained: "Power supplies based on ATX 3.0 and ATX12VO 2.0 will ensure anyone looking to get the most stable and cost optimized performance possible with highest power efficiency out of their desktop PCs will be able to do so - both now and in the future".

Cooler Master is joining in on the next-gen PCIe 5.0 power supply fun, announcing its next-gen flagship V-series PSUs with the introduction of the new V1300 Platinum and V SFX-L PSUs that both have PCIe 5.0 power connectors. Let's dive right into it.

The new flagship Cooler Master V1300 Platinum PSU looks gorgeous, rocking the new 30th Anniversary Edition design and 80 Plus platinum efficiency that's good for 1300W full load. Cooler Master is tapping high-quality Japanese 100% capacitors that have high operating temperatures of up to 50C.

Cooler Master has a hardware base single/multi-rail switch, as well as revamped PCIe cable connectivity -- there's 16AWG PCIe cables that are thicker than the standard 18AWG cables -- as well as offering 10A over 7A, with a fully modular design and huge 10-year warranty.