Sigh, must be nice when you can just do custom everything. Pretty cool though, they're really betting the farm on VR driving high-end system sales.
News AMD Project Quantum
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I live in a 12.3m^2 (132 ft^2) single bedroom apartment and I don't mind placing an external PSU the size of ATX PSU next to one of the feet of the desk if the main enclosure and its contents are appealing. But this project is still under progress and if it ever will come out as a commercial product with the dual Fiji I have a feeling they will downsize the PSU to accommodate an SFX/SFX-L unit instead of an ATX unit as the project team should certainly be aware of all the new SFX/SFX-L coming up.
In my country we had a series of aluminum PC cases specifically designed with an external ATX PSU back in 2002, and one of them was a 206 x 280 x 280mm microATX case:
The PSU enclosure was W158.5 x H97 x D156mm, the external cable length was 1.5m, and the rated PSU output was 350W, which wasn't small back in 2002. I know it's a small market but this case/PSU combo was a success back then.
In my country we had a series of aluminum PC cases specifically designed with an external ATX PSU back in 2002, and one of them was a 206 x 280 x 280mm microATX case:
The PSU enclosure was W158.5 x H97 x D156mm, the external cable length was 1.5m, and the rated PSU output was 350W, which wasn't small back in 2002. I know it's a small market but this case/PSU combo was a success back then.
In a lot of (or, most of, as of now) tower PC cases an ATX PSU is placed on the bottom back with air intake from the tiny space between the case bottom and whatever surface the case is placed on reserved by the case feet, with warmer air surrounding the PSU enclosure than room temp, and also I'm sure many tower PC users place their cases against a wall with just enough space for the power cord/display cable/USB cables in between. Thermally I don't see such a setup being so different from, or better than, the kind of setup when hiding this external PSU under the desk in a typical room.
What a nice vigorous discussion 
In principle a single AWG 18 wire would be in danger of going outside of ATX spec after 2-3 meters in length. However, one of the reasons computer PSUs use multiple wires of the same voltage is to reduce the effect of distance. More accurately it's to split the current, but has a happy side effect of reducing voltage droop. For example, the PCIe 8-pin has three 12V wires in parallel with a maximum of ~4A each, with 5 ground return wires. In this case such a cable can be 5 meters without going out of spec.
Unfortunately not all of the wires on the ATX24 are doubled like this, e.g. the -12V line and the 5V standby. So while it's possible to have long wires (>2m) to the GPUs, it's not possible with the motherboard or sata drives.
In principle a single AWG 18 wire would be in danger of going outside of ATX spec after 2-3 meters in length. However, one of the reasons computer PSUs use multiple wires of the same voltage is to reduce the effect of distance. More accurately it's to split the current, but has a happy side effect of reducing voltage droop. For example, the PCIe 8-pin has three 12V wires in parallel with a maximum of ~4A each, with 5 ground return wires. In this case such a cable can be 5 meters without going out of spec.
Unfortunately not all of the wires on the ATX24 are doubled like this, e.g. the -12V line and the 5V standby. So while it's possible to have long wires (>2m) to the GPUs, it's not possible with the motherboard or sata drives.
It should absolutely be possible for them to integrate a FlexATX PSU into the waterloop with a custom block. I wouldn't say they could design one for themselves, that would take way too much effort, but a block is doable and that would've been the way to go here. That external brick is so stupid it's untrue.
As you said, the Xbone already has a comically large brick, I built a PC smaller than their console and still managed to put the PSU in it, for heavens sake! But AMD just made an enclosure for an ATX PSU, so the whole advantage of using a single slow fan for the whole cooling just goes down the drain at that point.
OT: Good on you, Microsoft, for spending years on making the light on the controllers "X" as balanced as possible, though. Your priorities are all over the place.
As you said, the Xbone already has a comically large brick, I built a PC smaller than their console and still managed to put the PSU in it, for heavens sake! But AMD just made an enclosure for an ATX PSU, so the whole advantage of using a single slow fan for the whole cooling just goes down the drain at that point.
OT: Good on you, Microsoft, for spending years on making the light on the controllers "X" as balanced as possible, though. Your priorities are all over the place.
The major issue with a watercooled PSU is running a conducting fluid through a components with exposed line voltages. There have been a handful of PSUs manufacturer-retrofit and sold to consumers for water cooling (though all over-length ATX models rather than SFF), so it's at least possible to pass safety testing.
Good point, didn't think about that. But if it's been done before, it can probably be done again. I don't know how PSUs exactly work, but I guess AMD could make a passive/water hybrid cooling solution that conducts heat directly to the metal plate of the bottom half of Quantum for all components that directly work with the AC voltage, and put glue over every seam where water could get in and use the waterblock part for the lower voltage DC parts of the PSU.
On the other hand, the waterblock doesn't need to be opened, so I guess there would be ways of making it 99.9% waterproof and still have an internal fuse that would kick in in case anything goes wrong. Maybe even protect the very critical parts with some non-corroding insulating adhesive.
The 'easy' way would be to lay the entire PSU out flat, bonding any component needing heatsinking to a baseplate (or fastening with only blind holes). The underside of the baseplate would be watercooled, just a big serpentine channel would do.
The downside is it would mean designing a PSU from scratch (most OEM designs are for squat cuboids, and assume either a folded board or riser boards for various stages, or even just having hot components stand off the board to accommodate vertical heatsinks. PSU design isn't a simple pursuit due to all the certification required for power electronics. It would be pretty much a single-purpose custom design because you couldn't easily repurpose it for other cases, so you have a big up-front design cost you can't spread over a large production run.
The downside is it would mean designing a PSU from scratch (most OEM designs are for squat cuboids, and assume either a folded board or riser boards for various stages, or even just having hot components stand off the board to accommodate vertical heatsinks. PSU design isn't a simple pursuit due to all the certification required for power electronics. It would be pretty much a single-purpose custom design because you couldn't easily repurpose it for other cases, so you have a big up-front design cost you can't spread over a large production run.
Koolance's watercooled PSU was entirely self-contained with its own pump using nonconductive fluid, and used a plate heat exchanger to connect to a standard custom watercooling loop. The big footprint and added weight would probably make it not very viable for an SFF system though.
I can't imagine that to have sold well. Seems very impractical to have the ports on the outside and then route them into the case. Pretty cool idea.
As Project Quantum is completely self contained, too, it wouldn't be hard to imagine them using a non-conductive fluid as well. And as they seem to go more for design and noise optimisation over performance, that seems to fit their bill quite nicely.
Especially when you consider the thermal design of 1U and FlexATX PSUs, which have air pushed/pulled through them from one side to the other, it doesn't seem unrealistic to me that you could just replace that air with a non-conducting liquid, as it seems to be perfectly possible to construct a sealed enclosure around that. Then have one port on each side and integrate the whole thing into Quantums loop, done.
The only problem I see is that those non-conductive fluids may have worse cooling performance than regular distilled water.
They could just go nuts and immerse the whole thing in Novec 7000, for compressor-free phase-change cooling. Piping it may save on coolant fill volume (because those hydrofluorocarbon mixes aren't cheap), but complicated line placement: you need to account for the flow of both the coolant in both liquid and gas phases.
Hmmm, a SFF immersion cooled system with inert blocks to fill 'free' space between components (to reduce required coolant volume) could be an interesting project. Might be hard to fit a phase-change condenser/radiator into a small volume though, and with too low a liquid volume you run the risk of the system running 'dry'.
Hmmm, a SFF immersion cooled system with inert blocks to fill 'free' space between components (to reduce required coolant volume) could be an interesting project. Might be hard to fit a phase-change condenser/radiator into a small volume though, and with too low a liquid volume you run the risk of the system running 'dry'.
So when are you going to add the LEDs to make the new horizontal Brevis S mount visually like the Quantum, @iFreilicht ?
Oh my god that's the best idea! I thought about it very briefly but deemed it too complicated to further waste any thought on. But now that you say it, that could look so damn awesome I might just have to figure out a way to do it. And you could have like software customisable colours and blinking lightshows everything!So when are you going to add the LEDs to make the new horizontal Brevis S mount visually like the Quantum, @iFreilicht ?
Always looks good when you make it indirect and when it's even. It's tacky when you just stick the strips in and expose them directly to the view through a window or so. That just looks cheap most of the time.Have to be careful with LED lighting.. it's a fine line to walk between good-looking and gaudy
Ha, look what I just found!
Watercooled 600W PSU (german website, didn't find english version)
I know this wouldn't have fit into Quantum, but it is certainly doable! And to be honest, it's quite large already, giving it a bit more uniqueness by having an effing watercooled PSU inside wouldn't have hurt them.
Watercooled 600W PSU (german website, didn't find english version)
I know this wouldn't have fit into Quantum, but it is certainly doable! And to be honest, it's quite large already, giving it a bit more uniqueness by having an effing watercooled PSU inside wouldn't have hurt them.
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