Computex 2025 Day Three Wrap-Up: Optical SSDs and $50,000 Immersion-Cooled Systems
Enermax showed off a $50,000 immersion-cooled system with four RTX 4090 GPUs and two 2400-watt PSUs
We're wrapping up our third day of Computex 2025 coverage, and it seems there's no end to the fascinating hardware announced so far. There's a lot of ground to cover for today, but also, be sure to see what's previously been covered in our Day Zero, Day One, and Day Two stories and look at the Tom's Hardware Computex 2025 hub.
Optical SSDs, Immersion-Cooled Workstations, Manjaro Linux Gaming Handhelds, 512GB G-Skill DDR5
Kioxia is determined to make optical SSDs more mainstream, and it was on hand at Computex to demonstrate the technology. Kioxia uses one of Kyocera's Optinity PCIe cards, which delivers optical connectivity via PCIe 5.0. One of Kioxia's CM7 Enterprise SSDs was attached to the Optinity PCIe card and was shown delivering identical performance to the same SSD using a traditional electrical connection.
While delivering the same performance as an existing solution isn't by itself an impressive feat, what is remarkable is that Kioxia can offer this performance with optical cabling 30 meters in length (or greater). Kioxia also claims superior signal integrity that is more reliable in "challenging environments."
Heat is a boss-level enemy of high-performance PCs, and enthusiasts always look for new ways to improve cooling output. Enermax is no stranger to developing high-end components to deliver power and cool PC hardware, and its latest demo takes those efforts to the extreme. Witness the Cirrus Mk1, which uses two-phase liquid immersion cooling to efficiently transfer heat away from hardware components to an external heat exchanger.
The cooling system can handle up to 3,300 watts of power, and to demonstrate this capability, Enermax's test system used an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7960X processor and four GeForce RTX 5090 GPUs attached to a Gigabyte TRX50 AI-TOP motherboard. Powering everything (including the cooling system) were two Enermax Platimax II 2400 watt PSUs. The cooling Cirrus Mk1 alone costs $50,000 before you even think of adding hardware, so it's definitely not for the average gaming enthusiast.
The market for handheld gaming PCs continues to explode, and the introduction of the Nintendo Switch 2 will likely further drive interest in the category. Zotac's Zone 2 is the follow-up to last year's Zone and features an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (rather than the handheld gaming PC-centric Ryzen Z2 Extreme). The system features a 7-inch 1080p display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, up to 32GB of LPDDR5x, and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. The system runs Manjaro Linux with KDE Plasma 6 and, most certainly, Proton to provide the broadest compatibility with games.
If you are looking for extreme performance or capacity regarding DDR5 memory, G.Skill has you covered. On the former front, the company showcased 2x 24GB DDR5 memory using SK hynix ICs, hitting a speed of 10,934 MT/s on an ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 APEX motherboard. Also on display was a 4x 64GB DDR5-7000 setup running on an ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero motherboard.
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If you'd rather lean more into capacity than outright performance, it also loaded up eight 64GB R-DIMM DDR5-6600 CL42 modules for a total of 512GB with an ASUS Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE motherboard.
- Kioxia demos optical SSD, boasts of high performance and 30m+ cabling
- This $50,000 immersion-cooled workstation can support four Nvidia RTX 5090s
- Zotac Zone 2 demoed with Manjaro Linux and an AMOLED panel — 12-core Zen 5 CPU and 32GB RAM under the hood
- G-Skill demos ultra-high capacity DDR5-6600 512GB RAM and 'extreme' 10,934 MT/s module at Computex 2025
The Best of Everything Else
- AMD's FSR Redstone uses machine learning to achieve parity with Nvidia DLSS
- Seasonic's next-generation Prime PSUs to will try to stop connectors from melting
- Tryx's new PC case has an embedded curved display
- Zalman shows off woodgrain ATX and Micro-ATX cases
- Royal Kludge highlights new mechanical keyboards at Computex 2025, available in 60% to 96% layouts
- Thermal Grizzly's open-air der8enchtable is designed for dedicated PC tinkerers
- Cooler Master is working on an all-aluminum case fan that spins up to 4,000 RPM
- Zalman returns to its roots with turbine engine-inspired ZET lineup of CPU air coolers
Brandon Hill is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware. He has written about PC and Mac tech since the late 1990s with bylines at AnandTech, DailyTech, and Hot Hardware. When he is not consuming copious amounts of tech news, he can be found enjoying the NC mountains or the beach with his wife and two sons.
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Stomx That crap called USB 2, 3, 4 or whatever has to be exterminated long ago and substituted with optical PCIe connectivity, or at least complemented it on each motherboard. The optical electronics and cabling are already dirty cheap and much more reliable and powerful than wires. Modern SSDs deliver 7-15 GB per second speeds but with USB you so far barely get 10% of thatReply