The PS4 Pro costs $400, and all it's got is better graphics.
It doesn't even have the damn 4K Blu-ray player.
Bitch, if I wanted to spend $400 every three years for better graphics and non-cinematic
frame rates, I'd get a PC.
F*** this s***.
Well, you know what I say?
Amen, brother.
We heard all the outraged console gamers out there and got on the phone with dbrand to
devise a plan.
And so, if you don't want to buy a PS4 Pro, why not just water-cool your PS4 and make
it look dope AF while you're at it?
So let's get down to it then.
Welcome to PlayStation 4 water-cooling.
So this journey began over six months ago, when my son and I sat down and tore down the
PS4, looking for the best way to tackle this problem.
Then I got busy with other projects.
And handed it off to Jake, who promptly did what any sane person would do, and taped a
thermal probe, using a non-conductive thermal paste, to the back of the main board and reassembled
it.
He chose this position because placing the thermal probe on the APU directly would have
affected the contact between the heatsink and the APU itself.
And the purpose of this disassembly-reassembly rigmarole, in total, it was completely torn
down and put back together twice.
And we'll need to do it one more time to get our thermal probe.
The first step was to get baseline temperatures so we could determine how well our DIY water-cooling
solution worked.
So I don't expect too many people to replicate this project, and if they do, I'd imagine
they have some idea how to go to iFixit.com and find a PS4 teardown to follow along with.
But since we've got all the footage of taking it apart, I'll leave it to my editors to give
you guys the highlights until we reach the good stuff.
Ah, here we go.
So, with the motherboard removed, we get our first good look at the thermal compound on
the AMD APU that functions as both the CPU and GPU core for the PlayStation 4.
So we replaced this with a pea-sized amount of IC diamond for both our before and our
after tests.
Let's fast forward again for a little bit here.
Really?
That tiny heatsink does all of the cooling for the PlayStation 4?
So that then is what will be replaced.
replacing with an EK Supremacy GPU block by the way shout out to EK for providing
our liquid cooling gear by drilling through the rivets here with a couple of
different size bits next we needed to cut away the motherboard tray with some
aviation shears we actually ended up needing straight right and left angle
for this but I guess you could just use a Dremel then we routed zip ties through
the block through the motherboard and through the tray proceeding to cut a
hole into the side of the PlayStation 4 for our tubing to route through please
note that we don't generally recommend attaching fittings to tubing then
screwing the whole thing into a block it is very easy to accidentally cause it to
come loose and leak when the tubing moves but we didn't have many options
here and it was the best way forward with the tubes installed it was time to
reassemble the ps4 but we needed to make sure our block was securely mounted
first hmm
you
foreign that single zap strap didn't really seem to cut it but with four or
five pieces of squishy double-sided tape we were able to compress the stacks slide
them in and let them expand giving us a surprisingly good mounting solution that
not only held the block in place but also supplies adequate pressure between
the block and the APU so far so good fast forward again to are they really
gonna do that yes my friends
they will bring our PS4 back in a bunch of pieces and we will see if we can
do it again in the next episode while the PS4 is still a bit of a rancor
the PS4 as it stands is just only available in the market and therefore
it will be completely free to use and to be able to own it we will be
providing you with a completely new PS4 and a full 퀬uit
but first if you're interested in buying our PS4 you can go to our Google Play
Store because we do have a free Amazon download link and you can download it
from there
subscribe to our channel and we'll see you in the next episode
or reservoir inside the PS4's chassis.
It's possible that this could be done,
but given how cramped the PS4 already is
with its smaller size, similar power to the Xbox One,
and internal power supply, it wouldn't be easy.
No problem though, Protocase to the rescue.
So the first step was to do up an initial design
in SketchUp, which we sent to Protocase
to mechanically design and to manufacture.
Those guys are great at what they do.
The footage you're looking at now
is from their amazing metal shop
that they use for rapid prototyping
and even some larger scale manufacturing.
There was a small design oversight on our part
that forced us to run the radiator in pull rather than push,
but other than that, it worked great.
We loaded up an EK X-Res 140 with a pre-attached D5 pump
using a custom mount from our 3D printer,
a Coolstream SE 120 millimeter slim radiator,
a bunch of EK fittings,
some Primochill black tubing,
and a Scythe slim 120 millimeter fan.
Then at this point, we sent the mostly finished system
to Dbrand for one of their sexy vinyl skin jobs.
Those guys mostly do phones, game consoles,
and accessories and computers,
but they're always up for a challenge
and I think they did an amazing job
of the external water cooling box.
Let them know over on Twitter if you agree.
We'll have that linked below
and be sure to check out their configurator,
which we'll have linked in the video description.
Next time, you need to personalize and protect a device,
whether it's an iPhone or a monstrosity such as this one.
Anyway, surprisingly, with it all put together,
no leaks, which leads us to moment of truth time.
Will the PlayStation 4 boot and success?
It still turns on, but did we improve our temperatures?
The answer again is yes.
Unfortunately, for those of you who legitimately,
thought water cooling might help you avoid a PS4 Pro upgrade,
this won't do anything for performance at all,
but a 16 degree improvement in temps
while staying near silent
is still a pretty fantastic achievement.
At least we think so.
So thanks for watching, guys.
If you disliked this video, I guess you could do that thing,
but if you liked it, hit that like button, get subscribed,
maybe even consider checking out our links
in the video description,
where you can learn more about Dbrand,
you could buy a PlayStation on Amazon,
we'll have that down there as well,
or whatever the case may be.
Also linked in the description is our merch store,
which has cool shirts like this one,
and our community forum, which you should totally join.
Now that you're done doing all that stuff,
you're probably wondering what to watch next,
so click that little button in the top right corner
to check out our latest video over on Channel Super Fun.