Kobalt Unveils the Blade Concept Chassis in co development with CoolIT Systems

[andrew@kobalt]

Kobalt Computers Ltd based in Surrey, United Kingdom has a strong history of building high end desktop systems with traditional water cooling components. Since 2004 they have seen system components continue to evolve with new CPUs and GPUs being launched on a monthly basis, however practical cooling has reached a plateau in cooling capacity with the standard water cooling loop. Neither Phase Change or LN2 are practical for 99.9% of PC enthusiasts and Peltier cooling on the component water block throws up many issues including condensation.

Kobalt first contacted CoolIT in mid 2008 to try to find a workable solution that can deliver superior performance over water cooling but at the same time be practical and maintenance free. The combination of Peltier cooling and a liquid loop are the perfect solution for Kobalt and being a bespoke system builder can configure the CoolIT products to any combination of components in a system.

The Blade case is an extreme example of this. Currently in a pre production model it will be available to purchase as a complete system with limitless component options in the near future. The chassis has been designed in house by Kobalt specifically to house four CoolIT Elite units.

The main features of the chassis are:

- 100% Aluminum chassis consisting of over 200 individual parts
- Annodised finish available in black or any colour of choice
- Housing for CoolIT Elites is integral to the chassis thus aiding heat dissipation
- Full hardware and aesthetic configuration options

In designing the Blade case Kobalt took cues from the Elites design and expanded it to the full size chassis. The chassis actually acts as a large heat sink - it is directly connected to the Elite’s and so helps to further dissipate heat. Housing the Elites in the top of the chassis means you can keep the heat dissipation away from every other component in the system. The chassis, being 100% aluminum, takes heat directly away from the Elite’s heat sinks and thus acts as a heat dissipater in its own right.
The Blade chassis takes the core of the CoolIT Elite and adds Kobalt’s custom building expertise to deliver an extreme product and as such Kobalt has had to modify the standard product. The system uses four Elite units running in two pairs:

1 - the first pair are used solely to cool the CPU achieving Core i7 idle temperatures under 40C even when over clocked to 4.5GHz. This level of cooling is far in excess of the performance of a traditional water cooling setup. Even on full load the temperatures are in the high 60C area which is the area a stock Core i7 system would reach with air cooling! When Kobalt began R&D the Core i7 CPUs had not been released and they had seen extremely impressive results with Core 2 Quad, for example a Q9550 @ 4.5GHz will run at 55C on full load after several hours of the Small FFT Prime test. Whether over clocked to a moderate or extreme level the CoolIT products enables Kobalt to push the CPU to new levels of performance in a consumer system without damaging the longevity or stability of the component.

2 - the second pair of Eiltes cool the GPUs, motherboard and RAM. Simply by water cooling the GPUs the acoustics of the system are reduced by up to 80% (when under load) and enable high over clocks without the risk of damaging the components.


Kobalt is also please to announce it will be offering CoolIT products in both medium specification desktops and workstations. The Domino has received rave reviews and it is a perfect solution for Kobalt’s workstations offering reliable cooling to systems running intensive tasks at an affordable price.



Specification


Core System Specification:
Case - Kobalt Blade Concept manufactured in 100% aluminum which works to directly dissipate heat from the loops
Cooling - Custom Kobalt design based around two twin CoolIT Elite loops
CPU - Intel Core i7 965 @ 4.5GHz with Swiftech GTZ block
Motherboard - ASUS Rampage II Extreme with Full EK water cooling
RAM - OCZ Flex EX 1866MHz (unique to Kobalt!) - EDIT - OCZ3FXE1866LV6GK will be available in our systems very soon
Graphics Cards - Quad SLI BFG NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 with EK water blocks
Power Supply - Be Quiet 1200W Dark Power


The Blade system will be on display from Tuesday March 3rd - Sunday March 8th on the Coolit stand at CeBIT.







































































Kobalt would like to thank the following companies for making this project possible:

Coolit Systems
OCZ Technology
BFG Technologies
Intel
ASUS
EK Waterblocks

DMS Laser Profiles Ltd
Anodising Solutions LLP
SCISS Ltd
Altamura
Denny Plastics

[MrDJ]

WOW! now that is a beast and a half.

congratulations guys.some seriously awesome bit of kit youve produced there.

will we be seing that at the gadget show in birmingham.

[andrew@kobalt]

will we be seing that at the gadget show in birmingham.

Thanks mate! Yes indeedy

[Draven]

Congrats lads very nice looking and obviously very well planned out, im really liking top tec part

[Tall0ne]

NOW ABOUT THAT TRADE IN!

Seriously nice looking piece of kit there guys now i know why you have been so busy in the back ground, Now gief pricing and long standing customer discount :P

[Tall0ne]

uhm whats the 2nd cable coming out the back above the psu cable guys?

[dR.bEEf]

I have to say that is the best looking pc I have ever seen. It looks awesome, a total work of art. Well done lads the hard work has paid off there. Are there going to be various specs on equipment or is it just how it is there? Like single or dual card versions etc. I'm looking at the wife now with a tear in my eye and pleading for some extra pennies to spend lol.

Once again awesome, so much better than what I thought it would be from the pics you sent me. Congrats

[Andyh]

Now that looks seriously amazing ! really innovative. Do we have any ideas of prices for the new case and cooling system ?

Do the hdd's live at the bottom next to the psu ?

[andrew@kobalt]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the feedback! Glad you like it. It was essentially 6 months in the making from first ideas to 3D Design work to manufacturer, and it's why we've been a bit quiet on the forum the last week finishing up

We'll be monitoring the feedback from both CeBIT and all the magazine reviews we have lined up (around 6 so far) to see how much interest there would be in this as a retail system. We had every intent of putting it into production but obviously since the economy has taken a bit of a hit we need to ensure the interest is there now It will need some changes to get the price to a sensible level as this is a prototype costs are obviously higher.

Regarding the extra power cable.. because the system is using TEC's for cooling we have installed a second small power supply. This is only so we can split the power between the components and TEC's. The TEC's are much more complex bits of kit than standard radiators so they require a lot more configuring but at the same time are very robust and require little maintainence. For single card systems (non GTX 295's) you will only need one psu.

Brgds
Andrew

[andrew@kobalt]

Now that looks seriously amazing ! really innovative. Do we have any ideas of prices for the new case and cooling system ?

Do the hdd's live at the bottom next to the psu ?

Hi there,

Glad you like it! No confirmed prices as yet as we will need to tweak a few bits for a full production model. We should be able to have this confirmed in the next 4 weeks or so.

Correct there is currently a single 3 bay hard drive caddy in front of the PSU. A full retail version will probably have two of these bays mounted sideways so you can have upto 6 drives, and we may well make them hot-swappable.

Brgds
Andrew