KryoTech Renegade ATX-PE      07/12/99  by John Bogush

 

  You have spent hours and hours tweaking every little BIOS setting on the system you have put together recently searching for that one last key to step the MHz up just a little bit more.  Perhaps you have not yet assembled your dream system but your researching and taking notes so you can choose every component carefully trying to ensure that your able to squeeze every little bit of performance out of your next new processor.  Well we all know that electronics produce heat and overclocked computer systems produce lots of it.  The problem with electronics is that the higher the temperature of a component then the higher it's electrical resistance and electronics hate electrical resistance especially overclocked processors.

What are we gonna do about it...

  Computers have come with heatsinks attached to their processors now for a long time and now a days its the norm to have a fan or two mounted on those processor heatsinks circulating air through their fins and pins trying to keep them cool.  The situation is bad enough when running a processor at spec but along comes us mis-understood overclockers.  The first thing we do when we have a little trouble trying to push our system is raise the core voltage of the processor.   With that extra voltage comes a little more extra heat and soon you get to a point where that processor's heatsink will no longer keep it humming along cool and collected.   Sure there are some pretty impressive heatsinks on the market today but they are big and bulky and you still have to get that radiated heat out of the systems case.   What better solution then to actually pump all that excessive thermal energy directly from the surface of the processor right out of the case.  Not only do you take the thermal load off the processor but the heat never has a chance to cook those  3D graphics cards and high speed hard drives anymore then they are already doing themselves.

Pump that heat away with what...

  We all have an appliance or two around the house and office that uses a technology that has been around and perfected for decades.   That technology is called "Vapor Phase Refrigeration" and you already have it in the a/c that cools your home and car, the refrigerator that keeps your food from spoiling and now even the computer case that keeps your new processor ticking along cool, calm and absolutely stable.  KryoTech has been working on this system for a few years now but only until recently has it become available at a more reasonable cost.  KryoTech's newest system called the Renegade is aimed at the enthusiast who has the ability to assemble his/her own components and demands providing their processor the most operationally friendly environment.

What does the Renegade look like...

  The Renegade system is actually a standard type ATX mid-tower case mounted on a pedestal cooling assembly.  There are a few electrical connections between the case which is attached to and sits upon the lower cooling pedestal.   There is also an insulated flexible line about 1.25" diameter that extends up into the case on the end which is mounted a "cold plate".  The cold plate is what attaches to your processor and takes the place of the heatsink.  The lower pedestal cooling assembly contains an electric compressor, condenser coil, 120mm fan and an electronic display (ATX-PE model only).

  Just like your refrigerator the compressor in the Renegade compresses a refrigerant gas called r-134a (some older refrigeration systems use r-12 or r-22).  When compressed the r-134a turns into a liquid and is pumped through the condenser coil to help cool it down a little closer to room temperature because it gets warm while being compressed.  The high pressure liquid r-134a then travels to a valve where it is regulated to the low pressure side of the system which carries it to the cold plate mounted on the processor.  The reason the plate becomes cold is that when the high pressure r-134a is released into the low pressure side by the valve it turns back into a gas and absorbs lots of thermal energy (heat) in the process.  The gaseous r-134a is then carried away from the cold plate through a return line back to the compressor where the whole process starts over.  It is very simple and as I said before we have all had devices in our homes that have been doing the same thing for years.

How well does it cool...

  When I originally received the Renegade from Gen-X Tech it had a retail Intel PIII 450 and an Abit BX6-2 2.02 motherboard.  I installed the appropriate floppy drive, hard drive, video card, CD-ROM drive, soundcard and other odds and ends.  The assembly was straight forward though I chose to leave the Renegade standing on it's base instead of installing the mobo while the case was on it's side.  I did it this way because I was a little hesitant to tilt the refrigeration system suspecting that it may damage the compressor by allowing the oil in the compressor to collect in an unwanted place.  In case you didn't know that is a standard precaution which any compressed gas cooling system that utilizes a mechanical compressor.  I found out later after reading the Renegade's excellent manual that as long as you let the system sit upright at least 10 minutes before turning it on that the extra precaution is not necessary (read the manual first, duh).

  The Renegade has a separate power cord for the upper case and one for the lower cooling pedestal.  I plugged both cords into a wall outlet and hit the power button.  The display on the Renegade immediately runs through a short diagnostic routine and shows the firmware revision number then immediately displays the cold plate temperature.  I watched nervously as it quickly climbed to 39c and then slowly started to drop back down.  The system will automatically shut down if it ever reaches 55c for any reason.  The room temperature was 25c and and after the system completly loaded Windows 98 the display read 21c and stayed right about there.  No I mean it, it stayed at around  21c no matter how hard I ran the system.  I never got the display to read higher then 24c during the entire time and the cold plate was always cool to the touch but it never produced any condensation and I live in humidity high Florida.  Thats one of the benefits of the Renegade system, it keeps the cold plate near room temperature so insulation to prevent condensation is not neseccary.

  After a few days of using the system I decided to get a little more formal data.  I had been running the retail PIII 450 that Gen-X Tech sent along with the Renegade which was pre-tested at 581MHz.  I decided I wanted a to push the Renegade's cooling capability a little more so I installed one of my OEM PIII 450s that will run 621MHz at 2.05 volts with a converted ALPHA P125 heatsink.  Since the BX6-2 in the case was a revision 2.02 it did not have the required internal processor diode monitoring capabilities so I installed my new SOYO SY-6BA+III which can monitor the processor's temperature diode.  I had the system running very nicely at 607MHz (the most my PIIIs will do on the SOYO board) and 2.3 volts just to really put the heat on.  I fired up Prime95 and did 30 minute runs with the Renegade system then I did the same with a few PIII heatsinks for comparison sake.   I ran the heatsinks in the Renegade's case without the cold plate attached so each test was in the same environment.

  What can you say, the Renegade even blew away my trusty ALPHA P125 heatsink.  Let me remind you that the temperatures in the graph are from the internal processor diode and not from the surface of the heatsink.  The internal processor temperature runs much warmer then the heatsink and I believe it is a much more accurate temperature to help judge a cooling device's performance.  The Renegade's cold plate surface temperature near the processor stayed slightly below room temperature all the time.  I would hesitate to compare these results with a different brand of mobo such as the Abit BX6-2.  The internal temperature diode may be interpreted slightly different from one motherboard to another.

Time to get nit picky...

  I'm always very critical on every component I test.  I am not satisfied until I can find areas which could benefit from some improvement and my attention gets directed to the top ATX case itself on the Renegade system.  Although the cooling system performed flawlessly and most impressively I was a little disappointed in the actual case.  Not to say that it is a poor design but a little improvement could make this unique system a little better.

  The first of two points is the fact that there is no removable motherboard tray.  I think we have all come to expect this now common feature on higher end cases which definitely aid in the installation of components.

  The second and most frustrating concern came about in the following manner...

  The first time I installed my components in the Renegade system I had difficulty getting the video card to work.  I reinserted it several times and checked the monitor cable only to discover that the stand-offs that the mobo rested upon did not provide sufficient height as to allow the peripheral cards to plug into their slots completely without being held too high by the card mounting tabs.  I had to remove the mobo and fashion small 1/16" spacers from plastic tubing for the stand-offs to position the mobo correctly.  Perhaps this is only with the particular example I had but it did take some extra time.  The Renegade ATX-PE goes for around $410 (US) and for that kind of money details count and thats without a power supply.

  I like the KryoTech Renegade system very much.  It works as advertised and the cooling system is implemented without compromising any other component of the computer system.  It is a little expensive for some folks and perhaps not always necessary.  It did not allow me to run any processor any faster then I was previously able to with a conventional heatsink though I have no doubt that if you are presently running a given MHz with temperature related stability problems then the Renegade will definitely relieve you of that frustration.   If you need to buy a new case then the sticker shock of the Renegade may be easier to handle rather then buying it to replace an already capable system enclosure just for the benefit of the cooling system.

  I would like to see perhaps just the lower pedestal cooling setup available for adaptation to a user's currently owned case.   The modification would be very simple and the user would have the benefit of their already assembled system.  It is rumored that KryoTech may offer a stand alone cooling module for existing cases and that definately would be good news.

  If you have the means then I highly recommend giving Gen-X Tech a call as they are an official KryoTech dealer.

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Copyright © 1999 by John Bogush