E3 2005: Gadgets With Your Games

Introduction

It’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the hardware at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), given how much of the show floor is plastered with games. In fact, games occupy most of the South and West halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center, with the bulk of the hardware relegated to the "basement" of Kentia Hall.

Sapphire - The T1000 In Your Computer

Water cooling is becoming more and more popular among the hardcore gaming crowd, but Sapphire hopes to leapfrog beyond the H20 with liquid metal technology. Using a silent electromagnetic pump, liquid gallium (atomic number 31) flows through the tubes of their Blizzard line of graphics cards. Gallium turns into a liquid at a low 85.6°F, but boils at an amazing 4388°F. Sapphire officials say that gallium is 65 times more effective at cooling than water !

In addition to the efficiency aspect, the other advantage of using gallium may not be immediately apparent to some : since Gallium doesn’t boil until such an extremely high temperature, you theoretically won’t need to top it off. This is in contrast to some open loop water cooling systems. The material is also fairly non-toxic (though you probably don’t want to drink it !)

When the cards come to market, they will be vastly different from the demo models at the booth. One of the power controller chips will be eliminated, and Sapphire officials say that the unit will only need one fan, rather than the two shown in the above picture.

We put our fingers on the flexible tubing and found it to be cool to the touch. In the future, Sapphire may offer the liquid metal technology for CPU cooling - just what the doctor ordered for those hot Pentium 4 chips.