Nagao Industries has created an innovative new cooling system for motherboard VRMs, that works in almost every single chassis. Dubbed the N-VRM-FSTY60, the cooling system relies on twin 60mm fans mounted to a 120mm/140mm chassis fan bracket, which in turn gets installed onto the rear 120mm or 140mm chassis fan mount in your case next to the rear I/O panel.
These two fans blow at the rear portion of the VRMs. Thankfully, the mount works with the rear fan installed, so there's no need to remove the chassis fan. The idea is to keep the VRMs cool, even if you're using an AIO or tower cooler that otherwise wouldn't move much air across the VRM heatsinks.
A device like this might seem like overkill, as most power delivery systems on mid-range to high-end boards are overbuilt on purpose. They need to provide adequate power to Intel or AMD's most power hungry CPUs without causing the VRMs to overheat. But power requirements are going up for CPUs — Intel was already there with Alder Lake and Raptor Lake maintains the status quo, but AMD's Ryzen 7000 will be goosing power delivery to more or less equal Intel's socket power.
With power creep becoming a legitimate concern on both Intel and AMD CPUs, a VRM cooling solution like this could become very useful. Alder Lake chips are already capable of running upwards of 240W or higher under specific workloads, which is extremely high for a central processing unit. Just a few years ago, you were lucky to hit 200W on a mainstream Intel chip (not HEDT) even with overclocking.
Thankfully, modern day motherboards won't explode or crash when the power delivery systems get hot, but once the system hits a certain temperature, the motherboard will throttle down the CPU to keep temperatures in check. This can be especially problematic on entry-level and some mid-range motherboards, where VRM power and cooling capabilities are sacrificed to keep manufacturing costs down.
Adding this funky fan setup to such a PC could seriously improve VRM performance, unlocking more performance at the same time. Since VRMs are traditionally passively cooled, direct VRM cooling can make a night and day difference to motherboard component temperatures.
Each fan measures 60 x 60 x 20mm, featuring hollow bearings (an improved variant of fluid dynamic bearings) and a maximum fan speed of 3000RPM. Despite that very high RPM speed, the fans are rated for just over 21 dBA, which seems impossible to believe. We don't know what RPM level the noise level specification was taken from, so take that 21 DBA with a grain of salt. Each fan runs on a 3-pin connector so they will work with almost every motherboard in existence.
Unfortunately pricing and availability are unknown at this time, and of course this would add the to cost of budget and mid-range boards. Still, $20 for higher performance and better cooling (if it's that cheap) might be a good idea.
