All-in-One liquid coolers have made it much easier to get into liquid cooling, but they are far from perfect. The weak point of any AIO setup is the pump: its mechanical nature is a reminder that one of the components will eventually fail, and the patent situation around it is far more complicated than it seems. However, a German manufacturer called Wieland Group sent der8auer on YouTube a prototype AIO based on the thermosiphon effect, which removes the pump entirely...
If you want to try liquid cooling in your rig, you don't have to break the bank. A basic 240 mm AIO costs less than 60 euros and is more than enough to outperform many traditional heatsinks.
However, this is no silver bullet: on one hand, the integrated pump cannot escape its fate (although we have seen units working without issues for years), and on the other, some designs are naturally noisy. Add to that Asetek's near-total control over the AIO market (many sources suggest more than 90 percent), and its tendency to litigate whenever a company tries to do something different with pumps, and users are eagerly waiting for an evolutionary leap for AIO systems. Maybe this Wieland prototype has the answer...
A Pump-less Liquid Cooling AIO Prototype
The prototype reached der8auer (remembered for the laptop submerged in Novec and his experiments with tap water), who after a brief introduction decided to test it with an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Now, from a technical standpoint, calling this device an "AIO" isn't quite right because it doesn't have a pump. The movement of the loop is handled by the thermosiphon effect, which takes advantage of the difference in temperature and density between hot and cold water.
Since it doesn't rely on a conventional pump, the prototype is extremely quiet—so much so that der8auer initially had doubts about whether it was working. A basic comparison with a Corsair AIO (a 360 with two fans so it "works" as a 240, which happened because of a pump failure in another unit) puts the prototype eight degrees higher... but that's not bad at all. In fact, there's plenty of room for improvement: the fans should be mounted closer to the radiator, and Wieland could use copper in the block. In addition to being quieter and maintaining a "zero maintenance" profile, a thermosiphon system has the potential to be cheaper, since there are no patent trolls demanding licenses...
