Fuck? ! PC players typically joke that seasonal temperature modifications have a dramatic impact on the inner temperature of their techniques below heavy load. The current record-breaking chilly snap in northern China has content material creators taking the concept to the intense.
Chinese {hardware} fanatic and content material creator Su’baka just lately posted a video (beneath) by which she exams a PC open air in -63 diploma climate. The experiment led to some attention-grabbing obstacles and workarounds.
The northern Chinese metropolis of Mohe noticed these temperatures final Sunday — one of many coldest ever recorded in China. To perceive the influence of maximum climate on a PC, Baka examined a rig with an Intel i9-13900K and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 open air for 2 nights.
Anyone who has used instruments like MSI Afterburner or CPUTemp is aware of that graphics playing cards and processors can get highly regarded when operating intensive duties, typically approaching 100 levels Celsius. Those who construct and customise PCs typically spend some huge cash conserving these elements cool. This job is usually simpler in winter when ambient temperatures are cooler, however how low is just too low?
Baka first examined one other PC in a chilly setting with none onboard cooling, which ran at about -1.8C. After a couple of minutes of AIDA64 stress testing with the cooler, the temperature peaked at 3C.
When Baka examined a 13900K/4090 system on a 4090 with an AIO cooler below comparable situations, the GPU stopped working because the liquid coolant froze stable. This is the place issues get loopy.
Baka then put in a passive cooler for the GPU and secured the tower subsequent to an array of followers the identical dimension because the tower. When she turned every part on, the customized cooling unit sounded prefer it was about to take off from the runway.
Under this situation, the CPU hits 6.18GHz whereas hovering round 15°C, the graphics card stays at -40°C, and the hotspot is at -18°C. In October exams, the identical CPU achieved a record-breaking 8.8GHz overclock utilizing liquid nitrogen cooling, all the way down to temperatures as little as -196C.
One might think about that the most effective software program to drive the 4090 in sub-zero climate can be a notoriously high-end recreation like Crysis, Microsoft Flight Simulator, or maybe Portal RTX. Baka selected minesweeping.
The video would not say a lot about how different elements such because the motherboard, RAM or SSD are withstanding the chilly. However, Baca guarantees that no {hardware} was harmed throughout the take a look at.
