ROG Absolute Zero Extreme OC – Day 2 – Liquid Helium

Day 2 the liquid helium arrived. This can’t be handled like liquid nitrogen in flasks and pots, it needs to be applied directly from the central storage canister. The specialist (long) tubing to direct and apply the liquid helium down to the pot was a US$5,000 investment alone! It has its own valve to control the amount of liquid applied, but to generate the pressure to force it out the cryogenic canister, another compressed Helium bottle was used to push the liquid through. The combination of pressure and quantity of liquid Helium had to be balanced to keep the extreme temp stable.

It goes without saying that the Maximus V Extreme and components have to be completely sealed from the moisture in the air, so each board was first painted in liquid tape (as opposed to Vaseline), then covered in the usual blue paper towels to further insulate and absorb any moisture that might collect.

First the system has to be chilled using liquid nitrogen down to approximately -150C, then the liquid helium is applied to drop it down beyond LN2 temps. As the temperature probe has a limit of -200C, it required offsetting to provide an additional overhead to -230C, which was around the cold-bug temp of that particular i7-3770K.

During the day three teams comprised of combos of Vis-and-Raja, Andre-and-Fred-san, and Roberto-and-Hassan attempted CPU and memory OCs on the Maximus V Extreme, Core i7-3770Ks and a mix of G.Skill and Corsair memory. Splave and Shamino decided to go back testing 4-way CrossFire-X for a while.

We’ll have a video of the Liquid Helium antics shortly, but for now, here is all the pics from Day 2!