Adata shows off hybrid air/water cooling tower at Computex — new PSUs and PCIe 5.0 SSDs also on deck
The second Marvel reference on a power supply this Computex
Adata unveiled many new products at Computex this year, including an innovative new CPU cooler, an SFX power supply, and SSDs. This assortment played second fiddle to Adata's XPG Nia handheld gaming PC, which also appeared at its booth.
First on deck was the Levante II, an AIO CPU cooler from its XPG gaming line. A much-needed refresh of the Levante X 360, the Levante II offers a few changes to address our concerns with the first model. Chiefly, the Levante II moves the AIO pump from the radiator down to the cooler head, creating a slightly thicker CPU block.
This new design is patented by Adata, which is a big change for the vendor that traditionally uses Asetek-patented designs for its AIOs. The Levante II promises to keep the X 360's low noise and drop its price to $179 from $199. It will arrive sometime in Q3 2024.
The XPG Hydro CPU cooler is perhaps more interesting due to its hybrid nature. The product is both a water cooler and an air cooler. The dual 120mm fans push air across the central radiator, which rests directly atop the CPU.
The Hydro promises to be worth the novelty. Reading only 28 dB at max performance, the cooler approaches pure-AIO sound levels and promises to keep up that low noise performance at max loads when cooling up to 280W TDP. And because XPG is marketed towards gamers, we have a thin RGB line across the top of the cooler. The XPG Hydro will cost $109 when it arrives in September.
Adata is not the most well-known name in power supplies, but it will seek to enter the market through the Pymcore SFX power supply. Likely named after Ant-Man from Marvel Comics (because one PSU referencing Marvel at Computex wasn't enough), the Pymcore was first spotted at CES in January, bringing the new 600W cable to small form factor builds. The power supply will be available from 850W to 1000W, ranging in price from $219 to $249, making it one of the most expensive SFX power supplies on the market.
Adata is jumping into the interlocking fans market with its Hurricane Mag fans. Hurricane Mag is a series of 120mm fans that can magnetically lock together, joining the recent trend of bucking daisy-chaining PWM cables in favor of just daisy-chaining fans. Snapping together easily and quickly, the fans promise to make PC building much less painful. The fans will also come equipped with a forward/reverse flow switch, which is a welcome addition. The Hurricane Mag will be slightly above average pricing for its field, selling four fans in one package for $109 starting in August.
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Rounding out our Adata coverage is another upgrade to an existing Adata product: the Adata Legend 970 Pro NVMe SSD. Not to be confused with Samsung's SSD of a similar name, the Legend 970 Pro succeeds the Legend 970, a drive that we reviewed highly on release. The Legend 970 Pro has a few changes from its older brother, moving away from the Phison memory controller to an InnoGrit chip. Perhaps it is this change that boosts the Legend 970 Pro up to speeds of 14,000/12,000 MB/s, as compared to the advertised 10,000/10,000 MB/s of its predecessor.
The most significant change from its predecessor is actually on the heatsink. The tiny fan on the SSD's heatsink now draws its power from the PCIe slot rather than an extra SATA power cable; the heatsink is likely to be just as useless as before, but now installing it is less of a hassle. The price and release date weren't specified to us, but you can expect to pay close to the $169 and $299 price tags of the Legend 970's 1TB and 2TB skews.
Dallin Grimm is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has been building and breaking computers since 2017, serving as the resident youngster at Tom's. From APUs to RGB, Dallin has a handle on all the latest tech news.
- Paul AlcornManaging Editor: News and Emerging Tech