ThermalTake Xpressar is the first micro refrigerated case

ThermalTake introduced Xpressar - world's first computer case with a DC inverter type micro refrigeration cooling system! According to ThermalTake, the Xpressar RCS100 case keeps your components 20°C cooler than a liquid cooling system.

The Xpressar RCS100 is a quite big supertower case, it measures 605 x 250 x 660mm and weighs 22.2kg. There's support for micro ATX and ATX motherboards, seven 5.25" devices, five 3.5" devices and 10 expansion cards. The case is made out of 1.0mm SECC steel and features an aluminum front door, the design of the case looks a bit like the Xaser VI and it has several nice features such as a removable motherboard tray, cable management, a sliding hood and an adjustable PSU bridge. Furthermore, the front also features a compartment with I/O ports, this includes 2x e-SATA, 4x USB 2.0, 1x FireWire IEEE 1394 and HD audio.

The most interesting thing about this case is the phase-change cooling system, the Xpressar features a micro vapor-compression refrigeration system, which is a method similar to the one used for air-conditioning. It has a compressor, condenser, expansion valve, evaporator and intelligent IC controller. The cooling system uses a circulating liquid refrigerant as the medium which absorbs and removes heat from the space to be cooled and subsequently rejects that heat elsewhere. The refrigeration cooling system is compatible with Intel LGA775 and LGA1366 (Nehalem) sockets and the compressor uses a max of 50W.



The scheme below explains how it works and more info can be read over here.



ThermalTake claims the Xpressar cooling solution performs significantly better than air cooling and liquid cooling. The firm ran tests on an overclocked Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor and found the Xpressar kept the processor at a relatively chilly 35°C at full load with a noise level of only 20dBA. That's pretty impressive considering the chip was running stable at 4.05GHz.

According to ThermalTake, that's 20°C better than liquid cooling and more than 40°C better than air cooling but I have some serious doubts about these results. It strikes me odd that a non-overclocked Core 2 Duo E8400 with a decent air cooler would reach over 75°C and shut down. It's clear that there's something wrong with at least some of their results, we'll have to wait for some real reviews to see how this new cooling solution will perform.

UPDATE: Apparently, ThermalTake overclocked the system from 3GHz to 4.05GHz. They forgot to mention this vital piece of information on their comparison page.



Phase-change cooling for computers isn't exactly new, but AFAIK this is one of the first cases that integrates it nicely. Besides the refrigeration cooling, the Xpressar also supports a 140mm front intake fan, 140mm top exhaust fan, two 140mm bottom intake fans and a 140mm VGA intake fan but those are all optional.

In short, XPRESSAR, this world first DC inverter type micro refrigeration cooling system customized for PC chassis, has minimized the compressor widely applied in air conditioners and refrigerators commonly seen in our everyday lives, and placed it inside the computer case to cool the extreme heating sources of your systems. The built-in intelligent IC controller, the part making this news valuable, will then be keeping the temperatures constant and stable to preventing condensations at the same time.

More details and photos can be found at the Xpressar website. The case will be available within a couple of weeks for $799.

Unfortunately the case isn't compatible with all motherboards. Here's a list of compatible motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI:

MSI: P45 Diamond / P45 Platinum / P45D3 Platinum / P7N Diamond (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot) / P7N2 Diamond (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot) / X48C Platinum (Only for one VGA card plug in 4th slot)

Gigabyte: EP45-DQ6 / EP45T Extreme (DDR3) / EP45 Extreme (DDR2) / X48T-DQ6 (DDR3) / X48-DQ6 (DDR2)

Asus: Blitz Formula / P5Q / P5QC / P5Q Pro / P5Q Deluxe / P5E Deluxe