In time with Intel's launch of the new Xeon W-3175X 28-core workstation CPU today, Asetek has announced their first, and only to date, certified CPU cooler for the processor. The cooler, code-named 690LX-PN, is a closed loop liquid cooler developed in collaboration with Intel, and approved by the latter to be used with the 28-core behemoth that no doubt needs more ample cooling than most of Intel's desktop offerings. It is rated for a 500 W TDP, thanks to the use of a triple 120 m radiator (copper/brass instead of aluminium, for a change) with fans pre-installed, and their latest Gen6-s pump integrated with a copper cold plate.

The cold plate in question is fairly large relative to the pump, which indicates that the cooling engine itself is not necessarily optimized for the larger heatspreader on the CPU. The cooler is only compatible with this CPU platform, and is also the only cooler approved by Intel for the platform as of the time of this post. It is available for purchase on the Asetek web shop, and comes with a 2-year warranty.

The Intel Xeon W-3175X processor is available today. This unlocked 28-core workstation powerhouse is built for select, highly-threaded and computing-intensive applications such as architectural and industrial design and professional content creation. Built for handling heavily threaded applications and tasks, the Intel Xeon W-3175X processor delivers uncompromising single- and all-core world-class performance for the most advanced professional creators and their demanding workloads.

At CES 2019 we had the opportunity to look at Lian Li's revised PC-O11 Dynamic ROG V2 case which sees numerous improvements compared to previous iterations. It offers a tool-less quick release for all side panels along with improved radiator installation thanks to changed made to the bottom fan mount. Installing a GPU vertically is now a possibility with Lian Li going a step further by also including a seamless anti-sag bracket for stable GPU mounting. Even the dust filters have seen upgrades with the bottom fan filter now being equipped with a plastic frame for increased stability and better usability.

Enthusiasts will be happy to see improved water cooling capabilities with all radiator locations now capable of fitting thicker radiators. They also improved support allowing for the use of up to 360 mm radiator options as well. Those not interested in water cooling can instead use an included plate for more storage space while also hiding the side fan mounts. Overall it is a larger more luxurious case that has seen numerous improvements.

GIGABYTE debuted liquid-cooled WaterForce editions of its Aorus Xtreme GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards early November, with three products, two based on the RTX 2080, and one RTX 2080 Ti. While the RTX 2080 got two variants, one featuring an AIO liquid cooling solution, and another with a full-coverage water-block for DIY liquid cooling; the RTX 2080 Ti at the time only released in the full-coverage water-block trim, with no variant that has an AIO CLC. GIGABYTE changed that today, with the new "N208TAORUSX W-11GC," or Aorus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme WaterForce.

This card features a slightly spruced up version of the Asetek-sourced AIO closed-loop liquid cooling solution its RTX 2080-based sibling features, with a larger base-plate to draw heat from the additional memory chips and MOSFETs that come with the RTX 2080 Ti. The card features the same factory-overclock as the water-block equipped twin, with a GPU Boost frequency set at 1770 MHz (vs. 1545 MHz reference). The memory is overclocked to 10140 MHz (GDDR6-effective, vs. 14000 MHz reference). The cooler features RGB LED embellishments along the front, top, back-plate, and the two included 120 mm fans for the radiator. It draws power from a pair of 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include three each of HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.4, and a VirtualLink port. The card could be priced upward of $1,400.

SilverStone today introduced the Tundra RGB series all-in-one liquid CPU coolers, with the TD-02 RGB and the TD-03 RGB. These aren't mere RGB refits of the TD-02 and TD-03, but complete redesigns to the Asetek platform. You now get the swivel fittings that Asetek holds patents on, along with completely redesigned pump-blocks and radiators. The TD-03 RGB features a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator, while the TD-02 RGB comes with 240 mm x 120 mm; both with 32 mm thickness, and a ridged aluminium radiator-fin design that improves heat dissipation. RGB LED lighting extends to not just a company logo on top of the pump-block, but also the included radiator fans. The included fans spin between 600 to 2,200 RPM, take PWM input, push up to 83.7 CFM of air, with a noise output of 15.3 to 34.8 dBA, each. Among the current-generation CPU sockets supported are LGA115x, LGA2066, and AM4.

ASUS today launched the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Ryujin line of all-in-one liquid CPU coolers for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. Positioned above the ROG Ryuo series, which opened to pre-orders earlier this month, the Ryujin was first showcased at the 2018 Computex. These coolers are characterized by a somewhat square pump-block design that resembles a that of a chipset heatsink; but is embedded with a 1.77-inch color OLED display that shows an animated ROG logo by default, but can be reprogrammed to show just about anything, such as clan logos, live CPU temperature/load monitoring, etc. Another innovation that sets the Ryujin pump-block apart from every other Asetek cooler out there, is a tiny lateral-blower fan embedded into the block, which ASUS claims can bring down CPU VRM and M.2 SSD temperatures by up to 20°C.

The Ryujin series comes in two variants based on radiator size, the Ryujin 240 (120 mm x 240 mm radiator), and Ryujin 360 (120 mm x 360 mm radiator). These are 27 mm-thick aluminium radiators, which are ventilated by matte-black Noctua IndustrialPPC 120 mm PWM fans that are part of the package. These fans each spin between 450 to 2,000 RPM, pushing up to 121.8 CFM of air, with noise output up to 31 dBA. As we mentioned earlier, the product pages for both models mentions that the coolers only support AMD socket TR4, with full coverage for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper integrated heatspreader. This could help ASUS command a slightly high price, given that it's catering only to the market that can afford HEDT processors.

ASUS surprised many when they showed off their closed loop liquid CPU coolers at Computex this year, in the form of the Ryuo and the even higher end Ryujin series. Today we see that the Ryuo 120 and Ryuo 240 have made their way on to pre-order pages at popular UK retailers including Overclockers UK. The Ryuo series is based off an Asetek AIO design, presumably Generation 6 as used by other Asetek clients including CORSAIR and EVGA, with either a 120 or 240 mm radiator. ASUS's attempt at differentiating these is by the addition of a 1.77" "LiveDash" full color OLED screen on the top of the CPU cooler block/pump unit, with a USB connector that will no doubt help configure the display and other cooler settings via a software driver. The OLED screen can thus be used to display system stats, cooler settings or, if you wish, even a GIF or a custom static image.

The other differentiation comes in the form of "ROG-designed fans" that claim efficient, instantaneous cooling. The ROG Ryuo 120 and Ryuo 240 are up for pre-order at £129.95 and £149.95 respectively, with the prices including UK VAT. For comparison, the CORSAIR H100i PRO and the NZXT Kraken X52 240 mm coolers currently cost £114.95 and £124.99 respectively from the same store. Both the ROG Ryuo series coolers support a wide variety of CPU sockets, including AM4, sTR4, LGA 115x, LGA 1366, LGA 2011(-3) and LGA 2066. No release date, nor pricing in other regions, is available at this point.

Asetek today announced Acer as a new data center OEM partner. Acer will incorporate Asetek liquid cooling technology into its Altos dual Skylake high performance servers (W2200h-W670h F4). Asetek will be displaying an example of an Acer server with liquid cooling at its booth (#1625) at SC17 in Denver, CO November 13-16th, 2017.

"Given their engineering and design expertise, we are pleased to have been selected by Acer as they incorporate liquid cooling into their next generation of high density and high wattage server designs," said John Hamill, Asetek Chief Operating Officer. "Partnerships with OEMs such as Acer are a key component of our strategy to develop the emerging data center market."

Asetek, a company known for designing water-cooling solutions for PC hardware that it sometimes licenses to other manufacturers, has lost a patent infringement lawsuit it had levied against Cooler Master. The lawsuit, which looked to impede the sale of Cooler Master products Nepton 120XL, Nepton 240M and Seidoen 120 V v.2, stated that Cooler Master was infringing on Asetek's European EP 1 923 771 patent, which describes a water cooling mechanism. This Asetek patent, filed in November 2004 and finally approved in May 2015, is in itself based on Asetek's older, US-bound patents.

However, The Hague's court has accepted Cooler Master's argument that they too have a similar patent to Asetek's, through a so-called "utility model" that already exists in China, which describes (and patents really show their problems here) the "operation of a water pumping engine device with chamber". The The Hague judge also invalidated Asetek's patent lawsuit on the basis that there was not enough inventiveness to it. Asetek and Cooler Master's legal battles aren't anything new; in 2015, a US-based court ordered Cooler Master to pay Asetek $600,000 for patent infringement. This time, it's the other way around, even though it was still Asetek that started the legal battle: the company now has to pay Cooler Master for their legal expenses, which amount to around €113,000 (~$134,204)

The team at Sweclockers have already received their Threadripper review kit. We know this because there was a short-lived video uploaded by the team, unboxing and perusing the contents of one of AMD's delicious Threadripper review kits. Videocardz, however, managed to snag some screenshots of the act, and that content is what we are bringing to you now. Also, kudos for that Dinklebot shirt - that wizzard might have come from the moon, but ours certainly hasn't.

AMD has published a list of coolers that are officially compatible with their upcoming Threadripper CPUs. It's no surprise there needs to be a compatibility list - the new CPUs top out at 16-core, 32-thread monsters which have never before graced the HEDT space, with an accompanying large CPU die size and heatsink. The socket being an entirely new affair, a new retention kit must also be made available by cooler manufacturers.

AMD itself will be offering an Asetek retention kit for AIO cooling solutions on their Threadripper retail packaging, which should make most Asetek-built AIOs to be compatible with the TR4 socket. These coolers are automatically added to the list. However, there may be some other coolers that are compatible with the newest socket that are not listed on AMD's site as of yet. For those cases, AMD reminds us all that we should check with our cooling solution manufacturer whether an adapter is available or not, and whether our current cooling solution is sufficient for the task at hand. Other coolers are now receiving mid-production updates after a certain date to include the compatible mounting hardware. Check the source link for the AMD compatibility page, and the below image for the current state of affairs.

NZXT in a statement today confirmed that its Kraken X61, Kraken X52, and Kraken X62 all-in-one closed-loop liquid CPU coolers support AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors in the TR4 package. The company announced that compatible retention brackets for socket TR4, which work on most Asetek-sourced liquid CPU coolers, will be included in the PIB (processor in a box) package of Ryzen Threadripper processors, by AMD. The company reckons that its Kraken X61, Kraken X52, and Kraken X62 coolers provide sufficient cooling to tame the HEDT beasts by AMD.

It seems that previous rumors of AMD bundling a water cooling solution with their premium HEDT Threadripper line of CPUs both were and weren't quite close to the mark. It appears that no, there won't be a liquid cooling solution shipped with the high-performance, high core-count processors after all - as a quick look at the leaked Threadripper retail packaging might convey due to the laws of physics and size constraints.

Even so, it seems AMD will be shipping a solution for water cooling of sorts... By including an Asetek-compatible retention kit with their retail packages of Threadripper. Asetek's designs are shipped under the company's own brand, as well as in a number of recognized, high-quality brands, such as NZXT's Kraken series, EVGA's CLC Series, and some of Corsair's coolers (such as the H100iV2 and the H115i coolers.) Though with Threadripper's IHS's giant size, it is likely that most water cooling solutions currently on the market won't have a sufficiently-sized base plate to cover the entire IHS area. Effects of this on cooling performance remain to be seen, though it probably won't improve temps.

Asetek today announced that it has received payment of approximately $600 thousand as awarded in a patent infringement lawsuit against CMI USA, Inc. In December 2014, the U.S. District Court unanimously ruled in favor of Asetek on all claims in a patent infringement lawsuit against CMI USA, Inc. ("CMI") involving Asetek's U.S. Patents 8,240,362 and 8,245,764. The jury awarded Asetek damages representing a 14.5% royalty on CMI's infringing sales since 2012. After an appeal by CMI, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an opinion in April 2017 affirming the prior rulings regarding infringement, validity, damages and injunction against CMI. Payment from CMI of approximately $600,000, including interest, was received by Asetek today.

"This award signifies another successful defense of Asetek's intellectual property," said André Sloth Eriksen, Founder and CEO of Asetek. "As part of efforts to build and maintain market share, we closely review and assess all competitive offerings for infringement of our patents. We are pleased with our success in defending them."

Asetek announced today the signing of a development agreement with a major player in the data center space. The end-goal of the development agreement is to have products in the market before year-end and resulting revenue to have significant impact on Asetek's future data center business. The name of the partner will be disclosed at a later date.

"This development agreement is the direct result of several years of collaboration and I am very pleased that we have come this far with our partner. I expect this is the major breakthrough we have been waiting for," said André Sloth Eriksen, CEO and founder of Asetek.

Current data center OEM customers include Fujitsu, Penguin and CRAY. Asetek's RackCDU D2C liquid cooling is used in nine installations in the TOP500 list of the fastest supercomputers in the world, and in nine installations in the Green500 list of the world's most energy efficient supercomputers.

Riotoro made its entry into liquid cooling with a pair of unnamed AIO liquid CPU coolers. What sets Riotoro apart from the others is its choice of high static pressure fans that are optimized for radiators. These fans take input via PWM from the pump-block. The block features a LED lit decorative piece, with the Riotoro logo. There are a lot of design elements that point to Asetek being the OEM.

In this week's episode of TechPowerUp News: AMD dragged into Asetek vs. Cooler Master liquid cooling patent-infringement mess; EVGA and K|ngp|n's 2 GHz GTX 980 Ti conquest that breaks several 3DMark records; and EVGA's new liquid-cooled GTX 970 graphics card.

AMD issued a response to a recent report which states that liquid cooling components maker Asetek issued a cease-and-desist to the company, to stop sales of the Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card, which implements a closed-loop liquid-cooling solution made by Cooler Master. In its response, AMD argues that the jury in the Asetek vs. CMI (Cooler Master) case did not mention the cooling solution of the Radeon R9 Fury X specifically, as infringing Asetek-held patents. The statement reads:

"We are aware that Asetek has sued Cooler Master. While we defer to Cooler Master regarding the details of the litigation, we understand that the jury in that case did not find that the Cooler Master heat sink currently used with the Radeon Fury X infringed any of Asetek's patents."

While AMD is right in pointing out that the original judgement does not name the R9 Fury X, or its cooling solution as an infringing product; there's no word on whether AMD will stop sales of the card. From the looks of it, AMD has no plans to stop sales of its flagship graphics product, and appears to have convincing legal arguments up its sleeves to continue selling the card, in the near future.

AMD has reportedly been issued a "cease-and-desist" notice by liquid cooling components major Asetek over sale of its flagship Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card. A similar C&D notice was sent to GIGABYTE, to stop sales of its GeForce GTX 980 Water Force graphics card. The two cards ship with a factory-fitted, closed-loop liquid cooling solution by Cooler Master, a company with which Asetek is locked in a patent infringement lawsuit, over its pump-block and movable fittings designs.

The Radeon R9 Fury X and GIGABYTE GTX 980 Water Force feature a derivative of Cooler Master's Seidon 120M closed-loop cooler, a product red-flagged by U.S. courts over patent infringement. Asetek has already succeeded in getting Cooler Master to withdraw similar aftermarket cooling solutions from the U.S. market, such as the Seidon, Nepton, and Glacier. The courts have ordered Cooler Master to pay 14.5 percent royalties from revenues on each infringing product sold in the market, to Asetek.

CRYORIG, PC cooling solution innovator releases the much speculated and also anticipated A Series of Hybrid Liquid Coolers. First unveiled in June at Computex 2015, the CRYORIG A Series Hybrid Liquid Cooler or HLC has been under much speculation from the PC cooling market. The CRYORIG's A40/A40 Ultimate and A80 HLC units are built on the base of Asetek's 5th Generation Pump and CPU Cold Block technology with a small but obvious twist.

With an additional adjustable and detachable Airflow fan, the CRYORIG A Series HLC is capable of lowering the temperatures of the components surrounding the CPU by up to 20%. This major drop in heat buildup effectively improves system stability, component lifespan and overall system temperatures. The CRYORIG A Series will come in three models based on radiator size, beginning with the A40's 240 mm radiator, the A40 Ultimate with a 240 mm by 1.5" thick radiator and the A80 with a 280 mm radiator.

In late 2014, Asetek won a patent infringement case against CMI USA, Inc. ("CMI") at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The jury unanimously ruled in favor of Asetek, and awarded damages based on a 14.5% royalty rate. In a post trial motion, CMI demanded a judgement as a matter of law and a new trial.

The court yesterday denied CMI's demands, and instead substantially followed Asetek's requests and issued a permanent injunction barring CMI and its parent Cooler Master from selling certain infringing products into the Unites States. Also, the judge awarded Asetek enhanced damages i.e., a 25.375% royalty rate, on CMI's revenues for sales of infringing products beginning January 1, 2015. It should be noted that the matter is appealable by CMI.

One of the three unexpected products based on the "Fiji" GPU, which AMD announced at its E3 event, Project Quantum, or the quest to design a 4K-worthy SFF gaming PC, which runs two "Fiji" GPUs in CrossFire, had the press assume that the rest of the system could be AMD-based, such as AMD-branded (albeit Patriot Memory manufactured) memory, AMD-branded (albeit OCZ manufactured) SSD; and importantly an AMD-made CPU or APU. Given its liquid-cooling, the prospect of a 95W "Godavari," or even upcoming "Carrizo" APU didn't seem far-fetched. Even a 95W FX CPU could have been deployed, since AM3+ on mini-ITX is not impossible.

When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.

The bets are off, AMD's latest flagship graphics card will indeed get a fancy name, and it will be named Radeon R9 Fury X. Korean tech-site HardwareBattle leaked a product flyer with the SKU name, and its catchphrase "revolutionary, inside out." Based on the 28 nm "Fiji" silicon, the R9 Fury X is expected to feature 4,096 stream processors, 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, and a 4096-bit wide HBM memory interface, holding 4 GB of memory.

The reference-design Fury X will come with an AIO cooling solution, likely designed by Asetek, featuring a Cooler Master made fan, ventilating its 120 x 120 mm radiator. Just as the Radeon R9 290X did away with D-Sub (VGA) support (even with dongles), Fiji does away with the DVI connector. You still get three DisplayPort 1.2a ports, and a single HDMI 2.0 connector. The card has been pictured on the web featuring two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

Japanese OEM gaming PC builder Sycom addressed the biggest shortcoming of reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X - heat (which runs into a thermal throttle too often), and the resulting noise (rivaling that of a Radeon R9 290X reference), by innovating a new all-in-one liquid cooling solution. Found on the company's G-Master Hydro series gaming desktops, these modified GTX TITAN X cards look reference, except a cut-out on its top, through which coolant tubes pass through.

The loop itself appears to be basic Asetek fare, with a round pump-block cooling the GPU, with its heat being dissipated by a 120 mm x 120 mm radiator. The memory and VRM is cooled by a base-plate that's ventilated by the NVTTM (NVIDIA time-to-market) reference cooler's main blower. Given that the GPU will run cool, we imagine that the blower will not be as noisy. NVIDIA restricts its add-in card partners from coming up with custom-design cards, but this mod appears to be by an OEM, and these cards won't be sold in the retail channel. It could fall into the same gray area that allows EVGA to sell its HydroCopper variants.

With the GeForce GTX 980 HydroCopper, EVGA changed the "HydroCopper" brand. In earlier generations, HydroCopper denoted a factory-overclocked reference PCB, with a factory-fitted, full-coverage water-block, which you added to a liquid-cooling loop of your own. The new card comes with its very own closed-loop cooler, much like AMD's reference Radeon R9 295X2.

The card's cooler features a metal base-plate which conveys heat drawn from the memory and VRM, in part to the centrally located pump-block, and in part to an aluminium fin stack. A common lateral-flow blower ventilates the two. The central pump-block looks typical Asetek fare, with a pair of tubes driving coolant to and from the reservoir+radiator assembly, which is ventilated by a single 120 mm fan. The underlying PCB appears to be reference NVIDIA.