South African PC users in both the corporate and hobbyist segments are enthusiastically embracing a new generation of advanced PC cooling technologies - fully integrated water cooling for CPUs, graphics, hard drives and motherboard chipsets - according to Johannesburg-based specialist distributor Synapsys (www.synapsys.co.za).
"Since we introduced professional-quality liquid cooling in May this year, we've seen a dramatic increase in both interest and sales," says Synapsys MD Arthur Williamson. "And now that summer's here, users want a viable solution for their hot and noisy air-cooled PCs".
Like many important PC technologies, water cooling has migrated from mainframes, where it has been standard for over 20 years. Until recently, only hobbyists and overclockers (those who tune up their PCs to run faster than standard) experimented with water cooling, because their systems run at extreme performance levels, says Williamson.
"Now a new level of professionalism and easy installation has made reliable water cooling viable and cost-effective for commercial workstations and servers," he claims.
The company, which represents a number of international PC liquid cooling manufacturers, including Koolance and Asetek, has in the past year positioned itself as the only provider of PC thermal and noise management solutions in South and Southern Africa.
"We're focused on doing one thing very well - selling and supporting liquid cooling solutions to corporate, government and hobbyist users, We've scoured the planet for the best solutions, and local users are discovering the sometimes dramatic benefits in system stability, improved reliability, and reduced noise, says Williamson.
Widely known as South Africa's "Mr PC" a decade ago, Williamson has previously held senior positions at IBM and Microsoft, and has been at the forefront of new technology introductions over the past 20 years. He believes liquid cooling will be commonplace on high-end PCs in the next 18-24 months.
"I've never seen a shorter cycle between evaluation and adoption of a new technology", Williamson observes. "Without exception, initially skeptical IT managers and users have been delighted by the quality and performance of these products. That's because the basic technology is well-proven in the high-end systems arena - it's the availability for PCs that's new. And it's very professionally executed.
"At last there's a real solution for today's hot and noisy systems. And they have enough expansion capacity to cool the next two CPU generations, so there's a considerable life in both technical and investment terms," Williamson says.
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