Custom Water-Cooled Mac Pro Both Speedy And Quiet
Dealing with overheating engines by running cold air over them is fine for old Volkswagen Beetles with almost the horsepower of an electric toothbrush and weird French cars (I know, the word “weird” there is redundant). As engines have become more powerful though, air-cooling has become less attractive — at least, in the automotive world. Computers still lag behind though. Mostly.
Zack Fanning, who handles (surprise) marketing for computer cooling system expert Asetek, asked the outfit’s engineers to mod his Mac Pro with a liquid cooling system. The results are pretty interesting: He’s able to overclock his 2.8 ghz Mac Pro to 3.18 while reducing noise — due to the fan not having to work as hard — by 13 decibels over a strictly air-cooled Mac Pro running at the same speed. Pretty cool.
Want one? While Zack’s is a one-off, lovingly handcrafted custom job, Corsair’s H50 liquid cooling system (actually made for them by Asetek) can be had for about $80; just make sure to check first about compatibility, because the H50’ll only work with later-model Mac Pros.
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path — which explains why he's Cult of Mac's test editor-at-large. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of 
