AI slop infects PC watercooling with Thermaltake's 'AI Forge' feature — adds generative AI to its MagFloe Ultra AIO screens for custom backgrounds

Thermaltake MAGflore 360 Ultra ARGB
(Image credit: Thermaltake)

A few months ago, Thermaltake took the covers off its MagFloe Ultra lineup of all-in-one (AIO) liquid coolers that have a pretty neat-looking display, along with flagship specs. These coolers are controlled by the TT RGB Plus software that has a bunch of built-in animations for the 3.4-inch LCD on the pump. It can not only display images and videos, but also overlays the weather, time, and CPU/GPU telemetry data on top. Unfortunately, these elements are bound by certainty and lack imagination — and Thermaltake is here to fix that with its new "AI Forge" feature.

Yes, your liquid cooler, whose sole job is to keep your CPU temperatures in check, now has AI. Inside the TT RGB Plus 3.0 app, there exists "a studio without walls" that will allow you to generate custom videos and images with your own prompts. The selling point here is that you don't need to fiddle with third-party services; new animations can be made and saved right inside Thermaltake's software, ready to be applied to your cooler's screen. These custom backgrounds can then be overlaid with the aforementioned time, weather, or hardware monitoring data.

Thermaltake AI Forge

(Image credit: Thermaltake)

In the graphic the company provided for this announcement, we can see a text box that seems to already provide suggestions to give you a head start. It's reasonable to believe this AI model will not run locally and will require an internet connection. Thermaltake did not say whether AI Forge will also work on the TT PlayLink mobile app that can be used to change the screen backgrounds on MagFloe Ultra coolers as well. As far as we can tell, this is the first instance of AI implemented on any PC cooler — not that it helps much anywhere else.

Whether you consider this a genuinely useful feature or just AI slop, the MagFloe Ultra coolers themselves are no gimmick. They come in two variants: 360mm and 420mm, and both are high-performance AIOs with slim radiators, low-noise pumps, and easy installation with pogo-pin connectors. You get 120mm or 140mm ARGB fans with swappable fan blades, along with two years of warranty, which is plenty of time to drive up those tokens in AI Forge. Anyhow, if you're a fan of screens on things that were fine without them, make sure to check out V-Color's new OLED RAM sticks.

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Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

  • Notton
    IMO, AI slop or not largely depends on how light and secure the software is.
    It's slop if it runs like a pig and has more holes than Swiss cheese.

    That said, I'm not familiar with the quality of TT software.
    Reply
  • hwertz
    Definitely a gimmick, but so is having a display built onto your cooling system. Honestly I think this makes clever use of generative AI.
    Reply
  • derekullo
    I guess if it shows a picture of Chernobyl, you are in trouble!
    Reply
  • hwertz
    derekullo said:
    I guess if it shows a picture of Chernobyl, you are in trouble!
    Actually that would be pretty funny (and vaguely useful) -- they could have it show (for instance) some glaciers and snowy mountains when it's running quite near room temp (like below 40C or something), some neutral pic of choice in between, and like Chernobyl if it's getting above like 80 or 90C (if someone's running so many watts they can slap a water cooler and have it running over 90C, that power bill will probably make them cry.)
    Reply