Overclocked 2008 Mac Pro Gets Custom Liquid-Cooling [Video]

Apple's Mac Pro is a beast of a machine, and more so when you overclock it, but the fan noise you end up with can be pretty intrusive.  The guys over at Asetek decided to see what they could do with their liquid-cooling components, taking a 2008 dual-CPU 2.8GHz Mac Pro – overclocked to 3.16GHz – with custom cooling and comparing it to a newer, stock 3.2GHz air-cooled model straight from Apple.Video demo after the cut

The end result?  A quieter machine with comparable performance – as you can see in the video demo below – but putting out only 37.5 dB of noise, versus the 50 dB from the stock Mac Pro.  Both machines were running at 47-degrees centigrade, despite the overclocking of the liquid-cooled model (which uses a 240mm radiator).

Now for the bad news.  While we can think of plenty Mac Pro users who would jump at the chance to quieten their computer while boosting performance, Asetek tells us this is a custom job and isn't available for purchase.  That's because of the socket 771 chip used in this particular Mac Pro; however, the new models use socket 1366 chips, and so you could feasibly hack together a few Corsair Hydro Series coolers to do something similar.  No straightforward boxed offering, then, so it's time to start pestering Apple to offer factory-fit liquid-cooling options.