Every now and then Frostytech gets a piece of gear in the lab that is just way too cool. The Extreme Cooling Technologies (ECT) Prometeia Mach II GT is one such contraption - a near $600 'heatsink' that can cool down to the minus -30C°s. Let me tell you, if you think the Thermalright Ultra 120 is something, you haven't see anything yet!

Frostytech recently put the Mach II GT phase change cooling system through its paces on our Intel synthetic test platform, and the results are pretty fantastic. The chunky SFF-PC like cooler has been in the labs for a while now, but until recently we'd only ran it on the AMD K8 platform. I won't spoil the review except to state the obvious, its the coldest damn thing Frostytech has ever tested. Well, apart from the Neslab Cryocool CC-60, that beastie went down as low as -65C (unloaded) in an ill-fated project from the past.

To get the cold head of the Mach II GT phase change cooler on the Frosty K8 platform, we abandoned the stock bracket and milled a custom one from nylon.

Nylon is a good material to work with; it's less thermally conductive than metals, cuts like butter and is strong enough to take moderate clamping forces. The bracket I came up with for the job fits over the edge of the cold head, with clearance for the off-center tubing. Two long 6-32 screws thread through at either end and mate with the AMD metal support frame (or in our case the synthetic K8 test support stand). Here are a couple profile pictures of the finished custom nylon bracket. Dead simple isn't it?

Here are a couple profile pictures of the finished custom nylon bracket. Dead simple isn't it?

The little plastic ridge around the cold head conveniently holds the custom nylon bracket in place. I wonder why ECT doesn't use this ridge for its own bracket?

We're not as concerned with condensation build up, so the gap between the cold head and the synthetic test stand support base was filled with inexpensive open cell foam, rather than the sticky black seal-string. Sure enough, condensation quickly formed into frost as actual CPU die temperatures hovered in minus double-digits.

Frostytech's socket 775 synthetic test platform was a lot easier to get working with ECT's Prometeia Mach II GT phase change cooler. The manufacturers' LGA775 bracket easily screwed in place - you can almost picture your Core 2 Duo processor in there, just waiting to be overclocked!

You won't believe how cold the Mach II GT ran with a 150W heat load coming from the embedded cartridge heater, particularly if we consider the Delta-T value. Stay tuned to FrostyTech...