Baka, a Chinese language PC {hardware} fanatic and content material creator, has tried to make use of a contemporary gaming PC outfitted with Intel’s Core i9-13900K processor and Asus’s GeForce RTX 4090 ROG Strix graphics card at subzero temperatures exterior within the metropolis of Mohe for an evening, studies WCCFTech. To a terrific shock, the {hardware} not solely labored fantastic for a while, however truly survived the experiment.
Trendy high-end processors and graphics playing cards for desktops dissipate a lot warmth that utilization of superior liquid coolers is really helpful for CPUs, whereas graphics boards include slightly monstrous three-wide triple-fan air cooling techniques. However such subtle coolers apparently aren’t mandatory if the temperature falls between -30 levels Celsius to -53 C (-22 levels Fahrenheit to -63.4 F) exterior and you may be certain that that the {hardware} doesn’t brief circuit.
At first, Baka simply put in her PC exterior and eliminated its aspect panel, because it didn’t let her movie the insides at such temperatures. However at -30 C and -40 C, liquid within the closed-loop 360-mm liquid CPU cooler froze and the system merely stopped working. To chill down the processor, she needed to set up Noctua’s NH-P1 passive heatsink and construct a monstrous air compressor out of dozens of high-pressure server followers that created sound that was as horrific because the compressor appeared.
However it labored out simply fantastic. The CPU temperature dropped to 10°C to fifteen°C and the 24-core Raptor Lake processor — the finest gaming CPU you may get as of late — had sufficient thermal headroom to hit 6.18 GHz. Temperature of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4090 — the finest graphics card out there in the present day — dropped to -40°C at idle and by no means went previous 30°C underneath excessive hundreds. The machine survived at subzero temperatures for a few nights, though it’s unclear how considerably {hardware} degraded when working in such mode. We’d be notably involved about DRAM and 3D NAND reminiscence chips in addition to issues like MACs, DACs, and capacitors.
Baka used the system for some to play some Minesweeper, however didn’t try to overclock the CPU and the GPU. That is in all probability as a result of it was pointless to compete in opposition to excessive overclockers who use liquid nitrogen(-90°C).
In any case, whereas it’s hardly doable to make use of high-end PCs in a freezer for extended intervals, the experiment appears to be like like a variety of enjoyable.