CoolIT makes excellent, self-contained water cooling products meant for folks who are interested in cooling their systems with water but don’t want to take the risks of damaging their components. Last year, CoolIT introduced the Domino self-contained water cooling apparatus, but this year, CoolIT takes it several steps further, including introducing a wireless monitoring system for fans, lights, and such.
The Eco, available soon for $74, is similar to the Domino, but leaves off the LCD display and advanced features. It’s really an entry-level water cooling system. A major new part of the system includes and new, adjustable retention mechanism. This new mechanism can adjust to fit every major Intel or AMD socket.
The aforementioned wireless monitoring system is called Maestro. One can connect fans, lights, and other case elements to the controller node, and then other components, such as CoolIT’s water cooling devices, can communicate wirelessly with the node. The node is accessed through software in the operating system, and the user can monitor fan speeds, light activity, and CoolIT unit statistics without having to attach extra wires.
The Vantage will be available in February for around $100. It’s very similar to the Domino of yore, but uses the Maestro wireless system for statistics access. It has similar controls, but one can use Maestro to upload a logo which can be displayed on the Vantage’s LCD.
The Omni is a still-in-development product which aims to become a universally compatible GPU water cooler. Several plates comprise the device, including an interposer plate which is matched to the GPU in use. Really, the water block is the universal component–it simply connects to the inexpensive interposer plate. The goal is to produce a sub-$200, Maestro-enabled device capable of lasting through several generations of graphics cards, with only a cheaper adapter layer needing replaced when changing GPUs.
Lastly, CoolIT showed its latest XO concept PC, the XO2. The purpose of the system is to show integrators and manufacturers that consumer-oriented water cooling is viable and possible if the system is designed with liquid in mind, rather than considering it as an afterthought. The latest XO2 is powered by an Intel Core i7 on an X58 motherboard, 12 GB of Mushkin DDR3, and a pair of ATI Radeon 4870s.
