This AIO Doesn’t Have A Pump, But It’s Got Decent Thermal Performance

This AIO Doesn’t Have A Pump, But It’s Got Decent Thermal Performance

Roman Hartung a.k.a. ‘Der8auer‘ is back at testing another unique hardware, this time taking a closer look at a prototype AIO cooler from a German manufacturer Wieland. At first glance, it doesn’t look too different than your run-of-the-mill AIO coolers, but upon closer look, you may find that there is no pump present.

So how does it work if there’s no pump to push the water along the loop? Enter ‘thermosyphon’ technology: this is a method of passive heat exchange mechanism that relies on natural convection, the same kind of technique used in passively cooled PC components. The benefits of this are two-fold – one, there is less noise since the pump is no longer present; and two, better reliability as there are fewer moving parts.

According to Der8auer’s testing – which compares the Wieland AIO against the Corsair H150i 360mm (since he couldn’t get a 240mm AIO on hand, he taped off a section of it to simulate a 240mm equivalent) – the Wieland cooler largely kept up with the Corsair, while in the worst-case scenario that is Cinebench R23, the Corsair AIO won. However, the pump-less Wieland isn’t far behind, achieving only 8°C higher temps.

There are other tradeoffs, too. The pump-less design requires additional spaces to fit a cylindrical element on either end of the radiator, meaning some cases today will have difficulty installing this AIO. As a result of slightly worse thermals, the Ryzen 9 7950X used in this test also pulls slightly less power as a result – though given Ryzen’s power scaling characteristics, this only accounted for 1% of the performance difference, which is largely negligible.

Source: Tom’s Hardware | Der8auer (YouTube)

Pokdepinion: I can see some people wanting this kind of AIO if reliability is what they’re looking for.