Xpressar User Report: a small fridge inside the chassis

2009, Aug 31

Thermaltake’s Xpressar is the world’s first DC-inverter type micro refrigeration cooling system and has been introduced just about half a year ago. It brought about an entirely new technological approach for improved CPU cooling. To let other users share his experience with the Thermaltake Xpressar, Tom Smith from the USA submitted the following report showing you in some detail how the Xpressar works in action.

I am a graduate student from Arizona. Because I am majoring in Animation, sometimes I need to do some video editing and run graphic programs. In my leisure time, I like to play PC games like Count Strike and racing games. All these programs need a high performance CPU.

Last year, I got an Intel Core i7 920 CPU, which basically is a good CPU but when I was overlcocking it I often faced some instability problems. In the beginning I tried rather conventional air cooler but soon switched to liquid cooling. Still, my expectations weren’t quite met. Sure enough I could run my aircon 24/7 to also keep the room temperature down which might help out a bit more. But sooner or later the electricity bill would kill the entire project. At this moment, Thermaltake’s Xpressar saved me from this dilemma.

Themaltake’s Xpressar RCS 100 is a micro vapor-compression refrigeration system. To put it simple, it is like a small fridge inside the chassis. The installation was easy. It took me about 30 minutes to install the system. The system included condenser, expansion valve, evaporator, an intelligent IC controller, and most importantly the compressor.

By utilizing the bundled R134a coolant, the heat could efficiently be taken away from the CPU. And voila finally I managed to successfully overclock my CPU to 4.0 GHz for 8 stable hours. In the past, when I used air cooling, my system would sometimes die on me. It was pretty frustrating when I almost finished my work or I was about to break my record in some games. But after I switched to the Xpressar, every time I used my PC I felt at ease.

The Themaltake Xpressar RCS 100, though coming with quite some high-tech, is rather easy to install and run and as for me, is really the most convenient cooling solution I have worked with so far. I have been using this system for almost half a year now, and I can say it’s fun to play around with it and it finally made me somewhat of a proud overlcocker. For those out there wanting to have a powerful and yet easy overclocking CPU cooling solution, I can only recommend it.

The Thermaltake Xpressar RCS 100 is just the beginning in DC-inverter refrigeration technology, but rest assured Thermaltake is already working on even more powerful solutions of this kind. We’ll keep you updated and encourage you to send in your OC experiences too, to be shared with others.