Just about 20 years ago to the day, my wife Ivonne took me shopping for my
birthday. My present, a window-mounted air conditioning unit that I promptly
disassembled on the lawn so that I could chill my gaming CPU to sub-zero
temperatures. She a keeper or what? Anyway, it's my birthday again, and this
time I decided to spend a little more on
my uh air conditioner. >> How much? >> 30.
>> Oh, that's actually >> thousands. What? We already have
numerous exotic coolers, including an industrial water chiller right there.
Why did you spend $30,000 on this one? Because
seeing this unique item handbuilt by
overclocking legend Charles Fuggerworth
is what inspired me to learn about Sub-Zero cooling in the first place,
which is what led to my PC tuning obsession, which is what led to me
standing here today. And you know what the craziest part is? His price for this
thing, like literally the one that inspired me, isn't even unfair. While
most chillers use a single compressor and refrigerant, this is a Cascade
system and uses a total of three compressors, not to mention unobtanium
gases to reach ungodly low temperatures.
This very unit has been used to set countless performance records over the
years, including live on stage at Intel launch events. And it comes with an
extra special perk, hand delivery from
the man himself, Charles, who flew up here to help me unbox it, verify that it
works, and talk me through what makes his creation arguably the greatest CPU
cooler on the planet. >> You got my money, right?
>> Uh, no. But you know who does? Our
sponsor, War Thunder. War Thunder is a free-to-play detailedpacked vehicle
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the video description.
>> I think some muscle to push on the screwdriver to strip them out.
>> Uh, are you saying you don't think I have muscle? >> Yeah. What is it with everyone who's a
guest on this channel and they just immediately open with the sick burns
next? Are you going to ask me if I can reach all the way up there? >> I should get you a little stool.
>> You're not even that much taller than me. I am so excited. I haven't even seen
a picture of this thing since back when I was like browsing extreme systems.
Now, I dreamed back then of
commissioning you one day to build something like this for me. And I
remember you did a handful of commission
builds if I recall correctly, but like really a handful. How many of these have
you actually built? >> 20 uh two stages. One, this is the only
three stages I built. >> So you're saying this is a completely
unique item then? >> Correct. Only a very few of these been
attempted in the world. >> And what is the difference just for the
uninitiated between a two- stage and a three-stage? Well, most of the two
stages never really achieved 100 below zero Celsius. And as far as this one
achieves 100 below zero, actually exceeds 100 below zero.
>> I mean, architecturally, two stages versus three stages.
What's the difference in the level of complexity having two compressors, one
kind of cooling the first versus having three, one cooling the next one cooling
the next one. the guesstimates getting the third stage gas well the optennium
of the third stage gas first of all you can you can get like the poly cold or
the revco units and you know try to work with one of those three-stage gases but
you won't have the capacity you'll have to buy several of them or have to supplement the third stage gas and you
won't have the capacity so if I wanted to build like a a sperm storage unit or
something like that I could get like a nice low temperature
right but if I want to cool something that is actively kicking out 500 600
watts of need. >> Correct. Correct. Correct. >> I need this.
>> Correct. Yes. >> This is the only one. >> Right. >> I got to tell you, I didn't realize how
heavy it was. >> Yeah. >> Before we started, I gave it the old
Okay. It couldn't be that. It's It's really freaking heavy.
Literally, it's this or a vehicle.
Everything about this thing screams
handbuilt in the best possible way.
>> When I originally built this, um, I didn't have very much refrigeration experience. So, I built all of my lines
as the crow flies. Over many, many, many years, I perfected everything as I went.
>> Now, you said that others have attempted three phases.
>> Yes. >> Has anyone succeeded that you know of?
No, not with the balance. Um, I've seen some other attempts, but
I've never actually seen it in use. I'll get ready to catch it.
>> Don't drop it on me. Hey. >> All right, I'll hold it.
>> Thanks. You can hold 350 lbs, right?
>> Oh, yeah. This is light work. Now, I
couldn't help noticing, Charles, that my brand new purchase has some dust and
rust on it. No, it doesn't. >> How long did you say this thing was?
>> 25 years. 26 years. >> So, she's been around the block.
>> Been around the world twice. Three times now. >> How would you rate this packing foam
minus? >> Zero out of 10. >> Well, let's hope I got here in one
shape. >> That's fine. When you're made it here,
when it's when it's crate chipped like this, realistically, that's not doing
anything. It's just sitting on top of it. >> I'm just having fun at work.
>> I know. I'm sorry. Sorry, sir. >> That's better.
I'm waiting for the camera to stop rolling. Keep it rolling so you can't hit me while it's rolling.
>> Sorry. How many power cords? >> Three.
>> How much power does this thing draw? >> 45 amps at max.
>> Over 5,000 watts. >> Could be. >> What do you What What do you mean could
be? >> So, why does it need to draw 5,000 watts when it's only cooling 500 watts?
>> Yeah, >> professor, explain that.
I didn't want to I didn't want to undershoot. That's okay.
>> Okay. But but in all seriousness, there are efficiency losses. Yes. Especially
as we make our way through multiple stages. So like our main stage, our
biggest one that cools the second that in turn cools the third has to be
absolutely enormous, monstrous overkill
from from my understanding. Mhm. >> Um well, here let's get it up on the
table and then maybe you can walk us through
where all the gases flow. >> Okay. >> In order to make it work its magic.
Here. I just want to get this under it. So maybe we can get some fingers under
it so we can maybe lift it. >> Oh god. I don't want to get fingers under that. >> Oh wow. You really don't because Charles
in his infinite wisdom built it with sharp corners.
>> It's designed that way. So you get a nice clean cut.
>> If if it's a if it's a poor cut, it's hard to attach. Again, >> you want to take it off right at the
segment. >> No, it's just for this the stitches go clean.
>> Are we doing okay? >> You're doing great. >> Let's get Lionus's end on first.
>> Uhhuh. >> Cuz he's by himself. >> Yep.
>> I'm good. >> You're good. Yeah. No, I'm good. >> Okay. Put your in a corner down and then
>> Okay. >> My fingers are now being squished. But that is okay.
>> Uh do you need help? >> What?
>> My fingers were stuck. It's good.
>> Okay. There's stuff that you get to see.
>> I'm glad you're here to tell me how it works. I found the three compressors and
I found the the cold end that goes on the CPU. I found what looks like a K
probe or something like that probe. >> Perfect. So, that's going to tell us
what the temperature is at our evap head. I'm going to need you to kind of
walk me through it. So, where's our first stage? >> This is our first stage compressor. This
is a Danfos SC12 MLX low temp compressor. It's basically a half horse
compressor. So basically this is for sub-zero temperatures and uh it has
R507. It's a common gas that you can use for uh refrigeration. So this gets about
40 below zero. Okay. >> And it uh runs into our heat exchanger
back here which is a lightron brace plate heat exchanger 40 plate.
>> Okay. So then normally right you would
have uh you know your condenser side which is where you have your fans and
your you know aluminum fins or whatever right and then you would have your
evaporator side which would in the case of like an air conditioner more aluminum
fins and a fan that blows the cold air into the room for you to enjoy or in the
case of a refrigerant-based CPU cooler it would go to the evaporator head which
would go to your CPU but we're not doing that >> because this is a multi-stage stage,
we're taking our cold side, our evaporator side, and we're going to a
heat exchanger. So then that means this inside here is the cold side of stage
one >> and the hot side of stage two,
>> right? >> So that refrigerant, which for stage two
starts at -40C, right on the hot side.
Okay, where does that go? >> Well, the hot side goes into the called it's called a duper heater first before
it before it even goes to the heat exchanger. So, I'm actually stripping off the heat before it goes into the
heat exchanger. >> Oh. To make it easier for our first
stage to cool it. >> Condense. Correct. >> God. >> So, I'm bringing it down to ambient.
>> So, we precool it. >> Correct. >> Brilliant. So, where does it go from
there? >> It actually goes into the expansion valve
>> and it goes into the second stage compressor. There's an expansion valve on this side. This is a pressure
expansion valve. Yeah. >> And it's u has a little knob on the side
over here that you can adjust. And >> Oh, I won't. >> No, no, don't don't have to. It's
already preset. Oh, good. And then what? I don't see another heat exchanger.
>> Oh, it's all built. It's all inside of here. >> Oh, so you're telling me then that we
actually have two heat exchangers in here. >> Correct.
>> One that is using the first stage to chill the hot side of the second stage
to minus 40. >> Correct. >> And then one that's using the cold side
of the second stage. - 80, you said? >> Yes.
>> To cool the hot side of the third stage.
>> Yes. which is at -80 C. Now, this my
understanding goes is where kind of the black magic and the tuning and the
unobtanium gases really come into play. >> Correct. Condensing the third stage gas.
>> Okay. So, I did notice that our third stage compressor, which is this guy over
here, looks a little gruntier.
>> No, it's exactly the same. They're all the same compressor. >> Wait, it looks bigger.
>> No, it's all the exact same. Okay, I need to use whatever trick it's using
with my wife.
I did notice there are a few components that we haven't talked about much. Okay,
>> we didn't mention the oil separators. >> Correct. >> What's their role in this system?
>> Uh to keep the oil separated from the system. Um because when we're working at
temperatures that are sub-zero and when you get the the the oil inside the
lines, it can call flogging and that'll cause the system to fail. And you don't
want the system to fail. >> No, I don't. >> One of the major problems that I had with my cascade was uh system volume.
And one of the early things I did with the create system volume was I cur I
pigtailed my line trying to think that I was adding volume to my system by adding
>> making them a helix kind of like you do on the traces of a PCB to make sure that
you know all the traces to the memory slots are the same length for instance
>> right but I was trying to add volume to the system by adding more length of the
thing but I wasn't very knowledgeable at the time but in time I realized I could
get suction accumulators and add more volume to the system and so what these
do is These are like right before the the line set and they add more volume to
the system >> these are just a giant reservoir
essentially of refrigerant gas >> correct >> wrap my brain around this one and this
time I don't actually know the answer before I'm asking you
>> how does having a large volume of the
gas that isn't actively participating in being cooled
as far as I can tell it's not insulated how does that help Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh
boy. I don't know how to explain this that you guys can understand it.
>> Um >> damn.
>> Damn. >> Let me let me I always had um capacity
issues and I always had to like add more gas to the system and I had a problem
with adding more gas and then having the pressures on the system too high. So in
order for me to add more gas and not have the this the pressures too high, I
had to add more had to increase the volume. And so by adding the suction
accumulator solve that problem. >> So it's almost like like like buffering
you against pressure volatility in a sense like what what is it? What role is
it playing? >> More gas. Um I need more gas to go to the block.
>> Okay. But if the gas isn't actively >> more liquid I needed more liquid to go
to the block. So it gives you just more fluid overall because liquid is so much
denser than gas. But then when you, you
know, weren't running it, the pressure would be astronomical because it's all
in its gaseous form. >> Right. >> Well, I had I had to put more gas in the
system and the pressure would go up higher and then I can't run into like a
>> Understood. So this just gives us enough. So, so realistically when we're
running this is not like high density gas storage at that time because so much
of it is in liquid form but this gives it somewhere to go.
>> Yes. >> All becomes gas right. >> Okay, I think we got it.
>> Yes. >> See, I could understand that. >> Yeah, great explanation.
>> There is one thing we missed. >> Yes.
>> Do I need to be paying attention to these? Like if these go to the red line,
do I freak out and pull all the plugs out? Like >> No, no, no. These just let me know like
if the second stage and the first stage are running. So if I my my pressures go
up I can pull this pull the plugs. Um
basically when we shipped it I could you know like when you took the picture I
can know if the the gas is leaked or not. >> Um in future like I can always like we
can mark the the pressures right now and like a year from now we can see if we
lose pressure and we can you know charge the system. >> Right. But not the third stage. I mean
do do you have a bottle of the third stage? >> No.
>> Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, >> it's kind of making it sound like
there's a bit of a like fire up procedure for this.
>> Correct. There is a procedure for firing up. C >> Can we do it?
>> You want to fire it up? >> I mean, yeah. >> Okay. Uh, do we pull some cords? We can
fire it up. >> All right. So, this is going to take about 10 minutes to to come down.
>> Well, are these labeled? >> Uh, no. I just No, but we'll we'll label
them before we go.
>> What should I be monitoring here? I mean, obviously I can see some of my
fluid flowing through here. Am I Am I looking at pressures? How do I know when
it's down to temperature? >> Okay. So, right now, uh we just got to wait a few minutes and we're going to
watch for some ice build up on the first stage. The ice will build up right here on the on the back side of the uh the
suction line. >> Okay. >> And so once we get a little bit of ice built up on there, we can fire up the
second stage compressor. And we watch for the same thing on the second stage compressor. We watch for a little bit of
ice building up on the back of the second stage compressor. >> Now, riddle me this. If someone were to
irresponsibly fire the second stage compressor when we are not cooling the
first stage, what happens? >> I don't know. Never done that.
>> Neat. Now, let's say I don't like learning things the hard way,
>> right? >> Where are the do not touch, no touchy places? >> Uh, this would be one of them.
>> Oh, there's a thing that was burned on there. >> Yes. This would also be one of them.
>> Yes. >> And this would also be one of them. >> Okay. >> That's the only three spots that are
that are >> danger zones. >> Oh, look at that. Hey, we're frosting.
Now, should I care about that at all? Like, like it'll drip and rust.
>> No, no, no. Once I fire up the second stage, that'll evaporate. >> And I assume the second stage is the
middle one. >> Yep. >> Good assumption. All right, >> go for it.
>> Okay. It's a little bit not quite straight, but hey,
>> aren't we all Okay, >> so when I plug in this third stage, this
one, actually, this one's going to drop. >> Yeah. >> And then about about 15 or 20 seconds
later, this is going to start to drop. Oh, the temperature at the evap head for
the third stage. And this is where we cool our CPU.
>> Okay, there we go. >> Big moment. Here we go. >> It's not that flat, Charles.
>> What do you mean? >> I just mean, you know, the quality of the
>> It's perfectly flat. >> The quality of the workmanship is just, you know, it's uh
>> subzero. In all seriousness, when you have this
level of cold up against the CPU, the
macro flatness of the surface does still matter. You don't want like a big bump
coming out of it that's giving you bad contact. But little pock marks like
that, they don't actually matter though. >> You might want to resurface it.
>> Oh, wo. She's really going now. >> So, it'll stop around90 until we put a
load on it. >> 90. So, you're saying it goes lower when
we put a load on it? Yeah, this is a thermal expansion valve on this side
here. The more load we put on it, the the more it'll open the valve. >> You're at 69, baby.
>> Oh, buddy. It It started sublimating.
So, you're saying if I licked it, that would be bad. >> Your tongue would stick to it instantly.
>> Oh, that's so >> You would be Yeah, we have to You'd be going to the hospital.
>> What are we at? 90gative 83. >> Oh, we still got a ways to go.
>> Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So, we would wait until she's completely down to 90 before
we put a load on her or doesn't matter. It will just expansion valve and then
Yeah. Wow.
Woo. It's snowing, boys.
>> So, when this is bolted to the CPU and the CPU is put under full load, this will drop about 1 or 2°, maybe even 3°.
>> And another critical thing that is so
cool about this system is that it won't go up. So our temperature stability
compared to basically any other solution
is unheard of. Like even when you're
dealing with liquid nitrogen for instance, one of the big hassles of
overclocking with LN2 is that you are constantly micromanaging the liquid
nitrogen in your pots because you don't actually want your CPU necessarily at
negative 150°. That can be problematic.
You can run into cold bugs. So you got to like you got to bring it up in order to boot. You got to put it back down
when it's time to do your run. With this system, we're just
>> exact >> at minus 90 all the time. Idle, load,
doesn't matter. No no micromanagement.
>> One thing I have to uh don't have to deal with is crashing a lot. So, once
we're stable, we're good to go for the a full bench session. We can bench for 16
hours straight and like crash once or twice. >> Okay. Now, it's going to be a separate
video, but can we tease them a little bit? Can you show us one of these golden
chips which okay have been rumored for many years to exist? It's been rumored
that reviewers get golden samples hand selected by Intel. That's We
don't. He does. Can I see one? >> Sure. Sure.
>> Well, it looks like any other 1400 KS.
How do you know it's special? >> It's probably been like one of
>> some number. Now, when you have a chip of this quality, I don't think it's a
big secret that Intel has had some degradation challenges with their 13th
and 14th gen silicon. Do you kind of do the early testing with your sacrificial
lambs and then save your best chip for like when it's time to break the record?
>> Yes. >> Okay. I guess my only last question then
is why on earth are you selling this?
>> I'm going to build another. I already started. Oh, so actually I'm kind of
funding V2 then in a way. Are you are you using the the proceeds to to fund
the next one? >> Yes. >> All right. Is the second one going to be
so much better that I'm going to feel like I need a new one?
>> Um you're going to have to tell me because it's going to be yours.
>> Wait, what? >> Yeah, I'm building you a second one. I know. I haven't told you yet, but uh I
had to break it to you somehow. >> You are? Do you know about this? No.
>> Does anybody know about this? Really? >> Oh, we're we're building you a second
one. >> When was this decided? >> I thought we were building you a second one.
>> Yeah. Oh, not a three-stage, though. >> Oh, okay. No, we're building we'll build
we'll build you a single stage, I guess. >> What? >> It just needs another $30,000.
>> Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. No, no, but >> No, no, I'm sorry. Okay.
>> Hold on. What's >> We'll build We'll just build you a single stage. >> Oh, we're talking about that, right?
>> A custom single stage. Exotic single stage. No, we actually have a couple
more things coming. So, this is setting up a whole series with Charles. We're
doing the unboxing here. Part two, we're going to set some world records. Part
three, I'm going to do an everyday
Subzero CPU and GPU build for home.
That's what you're talking about. >> Yeah. And plus, I'm going to And plus, I'm going to build another three-stage
myself >> for yourself. >> Most likely. Most likely. Most likely I'm going to build a two-stage. I'm
happy to be part of the journey no matter what you build next because I
just love seeing enthusiasts go out of their comfort zone and just do cool like
this. It has been such a pleasure to have you here and uh it's going to be
such a pleasure to continue to have you here as we work our way through all the
incredible Sub-Zero adventures we have planned. >> Well, thank you for helping me out on my
journey and uh your proceeds will definitely go towards another build and
I'll make sure it's better than this one. >> And you know what else is going to be better than this one? some future segue
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mobile app. If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the first time
that I got to play around with refrigerant cooling with the LD PCV10, I
think it was from Little Devil. It was a PC case that had a single stage CPU
cooler built into the basement of it. It was woefully impractical, but very