Back at CES earlier this year, Thermaltake showed off a prototype all-in-one liquid cooler designed to bring the chill to your CPU and RAM simultaneously. Not every prototype evolves into a finished product, though, and given that there isn't much need for liquid cooling RAM, we thought this one would get scrapped. We were wrong.
Now five months later, Thermaltake is officially laying claim to the world's first CPU and memory AIO cooler. Two of them, actually: Floe RC360 and Floe RC240.
As you might have surmised, the RC360 sports a 360mm radiator with three 120mm cooling fans attached, while the RC240 slaps a pair of 120mm fans onto a 240mm radiator.
In a typical AIO liquid cooler, the coolant books a round trip ticket to the CPU by traveling down one tube connected to the waterblock, and back up to the radiator through a second tube. But in this case, only one tube connects the radiator to the CPU waterblock.
A second tube on the CPU waterblock makes a beeline to the RAM waterblock, and from there the coolant returns back to the radiator. Think of it like traveling from New York to Los Angeles, with a layover in Dallas.
It's a bit of an odd design, which is presumably why no other company has built something like this before (that we're aware of, anyway). It seems Thermaltake was so preoccupied with whether or not it could create an AIO liquid cooler for both the CPU and RAM, it never stopped to think if it should. At least not for the mainstream sector.
Memory modules are poor candidates for liquid cooling, though we suppose if you really want the added peace of mind, these new Floe coolers provide it.
Thermaltake says these coolers are compatible with its Toughram RC memory modules, which are not included. It's not clear if other memory modules might work as well, once you strip the heatsink off and slap it into the RAM waterblock. That in and of itself can be risky on most modules, though it looks like it would be fairly easy to do on Thermaltake's Toughram RC kits (just a matter of removing a few screws).
These coolers will be available in the third quarter of this year. I've reached out to Thermaltake for information on pricing and compatibility, and will update this article when/if I hear back.
Update: Thermaltake tells me the Floe RC range only works with its own Toughram RC memory, and that disassembling the heatspreaders is not necessary. Pricing will be set at £169.99 for the RC360 and £139.99 for the RC240 in the UK. Additionally, eBuyer will be selling a 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3200 Toughram RC kit "very shortly" for £94.99. Still no word on pricing in the US and other territories.
