Is Noctua about to switch to AIOs? Clearly so, as the company organised an event in Japan called Noctua Vision. During the event, the company unveiled a pumpless AIO kit based on the Thermosiphon concept (already seen at Computex). On top of this, the company also unveiled its new generation of 120mm fans… But we’ve known all about it since Computex!
A thermosiphon AIO from Noctua?
The thermosiphon system is already well known, since it is based on the heat pipe principle. Basically, the kit is filled with a liquid that evaporates at low temperature. As it evaporates, the liquid transports the heat to a condenser, where it cools and condenses. It then falls back in liquid form to the block installed on the CPU , where it can once again capture heat. The disadvantage of such a system is that it works with gravity, so the condenser will have to be installed at the top of your PC case.
But there’s also a big advantage to having such a system. It doesn’t need any mechanical parts to work. Unlike an AIO, we don’t have a pump, which greatly improves the reliability of the system.
In short, we can imagine that if the brand goes for this kind of system, it’s not for the faint of heart. Processors are becoming ever more power-hungry, and developing high-performance air-cooling fans is becoming increasingly complicated. We saw this with the NH-D15 G2, which took a very long time to come to market, with numerous postponements… And that’s not to mention the bill, which has skyrocketed in the process. We can imagine that we won’t be seeing an NH-D15 G3 any time soon… If there is one.
By working on this system, we assume that Noctua sees it as a high-performance, reliable solution for the future.