Why Is Kryotech So Cool?
Kryotech is nowadays a name that is known to most of my readers and particularly the power users amongst you have certainly already contemplated running your system with one of the super cooling devices from this company based in the deep and hot South of the US. Unfortunately Kryotech was not yet able to cut any kind of deal with Intel, so that there hasn't been any Kryotech cooled system with an Intel CPU so far. We are all aware of Intel's disapproval of overclocking, which seems to be strong enough that there isn't even an interest to do some kind of joint venture between Intel and Kryotech, although it would most likely lead to the fastest PC on Earth under highly professional conditions. The systems that Kryotech has made available so far are either based on an Alpha CPU, running it at no less than 667 MHz, or on an AMD K6-2 450 and now a K6-3 500. Although there is nothing wrong with the AMD K6-3, a raise in clock speed from 450 to 500 MHz isn't really enough to shell out the additional 500 bucks for the cooling unit of a Kryotech K6-3 500 system. Hence the x86-systems supplied by Kryotech weren't really competitive as yet. This could change tremendously either with the release of AMD's K7, which could run at up to 1 GHz when cooled by Kryotech, or in case that we would be able to cool an Intel CPU based system and run it at very high speed. Many of today's power users are 3D-gaming cracks, which is why the K6-3 with it's lower FPU performance is not really the right choice for a super cooling system. Thus we have to wait for K7 or somebody tries and runs an Intel CPU cooled with the Kryotech technology.
A few weeks ago I received a K6-3 500 system from Kryotech, consisting of a case, the special bottom unit with the cooling device, an Asus P5A motherboard and a K6-3 450 overclocked to 500 MHz. Instead of testing this system, I instantly took it apart and tried to use it for other purposes, as described further below.
