Calyos is getting closer to shipping its NSG-SO PC case later this summer, or so we were told during Computex in Taipei this week. Although this case will come with a high price tag, it’s certainly intriguing because of its use of phase change cooling, an old-school technique with a couple of new tricks.
The chassis is essentially a heat sink, with phase change cooling for the CPU and GPU. The cooler uses a capillary pump to send a few grams of pentafluoropropane through the loop. It becomes vapor from the heat source, and once it passes through the radiator it returns to its liquid form and back to the pump. There are no mechanical or moving parts and no fans, and even the PSU (coming from Seasonic) is fanless. The system also deploys a rigid aluminum foam to help dissipate heat.
NSG-S0 weighs approximately 22 kg, which includes the chassis, cooling, and the tempered glass. Its dimensions are 537 x 495 x 276mm.
Our French colleagues tested a prototype of this case back in September 2016 with some impressive cooling numbers. At the time the prototype could handle about 400W of waste heat performance, which was enough accommodate a Core i7-5820K and a GTX 1080 graphics card. The company claims that it can now handle 450W, giving it the range to accommodate a GTX 1080Ti graphics card. The company also claims that with ample space for fans, the case will also support more advanced overclocking.
Calyos is working with Watermod on the manufacturing aspect of NSG-SO, and the companies are working on things like cable management, support for two graphics cards in SLI, and the ability to make a closed chassis.
If the prototype performance is any indicator, the NSG-SO is pretty compelling. Tom’s Hardware France explored temperatures in a series of benchmarks, including Unigine Valley, an OCCT CPU test at a slight overclock, and much more. The CPU temperatures maintained impressive temperatures -- typically in the mid-50s (degrees Celsius) -- while the GPU was usually in the mid-to-upper 60s (degrees Celsius). Only in our knee-bucking CPU test did we see the processor reach 85°C. In that test, the GPU reached 83°C.
Orders will first go out to Kickstarter backers (who paid starting at roughly $550), and future new orders will cost around $675.
