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[Celcius]

No seriously, hear me out.

I don't think we'll get "Pro" consoles this gen but someone at work was asking me about it. They said to imagine if we had the power of a 3080 in a console and then I said yeah but imagine all of that heat. But then this got me thinking... chips are just getting hotter and more power hungry as time goes on. I feel like the PS5 and the xbox series X are already doing what they can to keep things cool and quiet. If you were to double the power for a $899 Pro console, how do you improve cooling capabilities without sounding like a jet or being massive in size? Water cooling.

Do you think we'll get to the point (whether it's Pro consoles or even the next generation) where consoles utilize AIO (All-In-One) water cooling in order to keep things cool?

Some may say water cooling is too risky for the mass market but AIO's have been super common in the PC building community for years now and are far less risky than custom water cooling.
I remember when we had 5400 rpm hard drives forever and SSD's were considered too expensive, and now we've got pcie 4.0 nvme lightning fast ssd's, so anything is possible over time. Moving towards an all-digital future (meaning, ditching the disk drive) would help free up space on the insides as well for a radiator and tubing.

 

[kraspkibble]

no way are we getting consoles with anything like AIOs in them. that's a disaster waiting to happen. although rare they can leak which could kill the console. pumps also are likely to fail. it would also add a lot of noise. people went crazy with the noise that a PS4 made lol and you want them to deal with the noise of an AIO?

if we're lucky we might get liquid cooling like how phones do. basically there is a little water vapour inside copper heatpipes. you'll still have a heatsink over the CPU/GPU but they might put copper heatsinks with small amounts of liquid to distribute the heat. i'm not familiar with how the insides of PS5/XSX look but i think they are just heatsinks slapped ontop the chips with a bit of paste between them both.

there is still things sony/ms can do to better cool the consoles without having to resort to full on water cooling.

 

[jshackles]

All in one systems are pretty good but can still rupture. In the US at least, in order to get approval for these types of home electronics, you have to verify that a failure from your system could not under any conditions cause harm to the end user's other property. Imagine if someone had a liquid cooled PS5 Pro that had a pipe rupture and leak fluid all over their home stereo equipment or something. Lawsuits everywhere.

Besides, doesn't the PS5 already have some sort of "liquid metal cooling" that got hyped up in the press a few years ago? That's just some sort of small amount of liquid inside their heatsinks or something?

 

[ReBurn]

I'm not really seeing consoles getting to the point where they need to be water cooled. At that point they become things that aren't convenient to put under the TV. I think they'll continue to balance horsepower against power consumption and try to keep it under 250w max so that liquid metal, big fins and big fans can keep them cool.

 

[The Stig]

We are a long LONG way away from that.

Plus too much of a liability.

 

[rofif]

People think ps5 coil whine is too loud... they've not heard pump from water cooling yet

 

[kraspkibble]

People think ps5 coil whine is too loud... they've not heard pump from water cooling yet

if the PS4 sounds like a "jet engine" then people will go deaf as soon as they turn on a console with an AIO

All in one systems are pretty good but can still rupture. In the US at least, in order to get approval for these types of home electronics, you have to verify that a failure from your system could not under any conditions cause harm to the end user's other property. Imagine if someone had a liquid cooled PS5 Pro that had a pipe rupture and leak fluid all over their home stereo equipment or something. Lawsuits everywhere.

Besides, doesn't the PS5 already have some sort of "liquid metal cooling" that got hyped up in the press a few years ago? That's just some sort of small amount of liquid inside their heatsinks or something?

oh yeah i forgot the PS5 was meant to have some kind of liquid cooling.

 

[Rusty Shackelford]

This reminds me when the manager at what was Babbages told me the Dreamcast was liquid cooled right before launch. I was 16 at the time and knew better than to believe that.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

i'm not familiar with how the insides of PS5/XSX look but i think they are just heatsinks slapped ontop the chips with a bit of paste between them both.

XSX has a vapour chamber heatsink.

 

[Black_Stride]

I dont even use AIOs in my PC builds today.....twin towers forever!
I sure as hell dont want that shit in my consoles.

And realistically AIOs only become worthwhile at like 240mm.
So the console is already most likely going to be massive and likely overly complicated to assemble for the advantage you are gaining.

Lets say you are making a Series X Max.
120mm Rad at the bottom, 120m rad at the top, a heatplate/pump(pay asetek) to replace the heatsink, yeah itll likely still fit in a chassis not too dissimilar to the XSX chassis but will you really be gaining much over just a better heatspreader/heatsink/thermal compound solution that costs less and is easier to assemble?

 

[flying_sq]

I have never had a loud AIO in my PC, its always been quiet. Not sure which one you guys are buying, but yea you don't see any performance gain on 120s normally. There are DIY people who do liquid cooled consoles. I remember seeing liquid cooled xboxs, 360s, and ps3s. I think it would add a significant cost to come out of the factory with one, but I could definitely see somone adopting one to a series X.

 

[nominedomine]

Water cooling doesn't make sense for any consumer product and certainly not for consoles.

 

[WitchHunter]

No seriously, hear me out.

I don't think we'll get "Pro" consoles this gen but someone at work was asking me about it. They said to imagine if we had the power of a 3080 in a console and then I said yeah but imagine all of that heat. But then this got me thinking... chips are just getting hotter and more power hungry as time goes on. I feel like the PS5 and the xbox series X are already doing what they can to keep things cool and quiet. If you were to double the power for a $899 Pro console, how do you improve cooling capabilities without sounding like a jet or being massive in size? Water cooling.

Do you think we'll get to the point (whether it's Pro consoles or even the next generation) where consoles utilize AIO (All-In-One) water cooling in order to keep things cool?

Some may say water cooling is too risky for the mass market but AIO's have been super common in the PC building community for years now and are far less risky than custom water cooling.
I remember when we had 5400 rpm hard drives forever and SSD's were considered too expensive, and now we've got pcie 4.0 nvme lightning fast ssd's, so anything is possible over time. Moving towards an all-digital future (meaning, ditching the disk drive) would help free up space on the insides as well for a radiator and tubing.

Yeah, I'm buying up all the silicone tubes ritenow.

 

[cireza]

Looks more important to me to make easily repairable hardware that will last for a couple decades.

 

[intbal]

XSX has a vapour chamber heatsink.

So did the original Xbox 360.

 

[TGO]

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

wont happen--too expensive for consoles.

but y'all have had some weirdly terrible watercooling experiences i guess.

a water pump should be essentially silent.
fans should be at a lower speed compared to air, because heat transfer is way more efficient and radiators usually have more surface area for cooling.

but eh, heatpipes in regular ol' heatsinks are basically mini, sealed watercoolers anyway.
basically fluid carrying heat like a watercooling setup.

 

[Dream-Knife]

Pro consoles are already out, it's called PC.

Maybe they could with an AIO. It would be more expensive and largely unnecessary.

As chips get stronger they use more power, but that isn't necessarily true. Ten years ago the GTX 680 used 200w for 3.3 tf. Now we have rx6800s that when undervolted to 925mv will do 2170 (16tf) at only 170w.

Consoles are built similarly to laptops. More efficient parts come out all the time. This will be even less of an issue in the future.

Amazed people in this thread don't know about heat pipes and what liquid metal is.

FYI liquid metal is basically just super conductive thermal paste.

 

[RoadHazard]

Don't you have to maintain a water cooling system? That's just not gonna fly with a mass market "it just works" console.

 

[ZywyPL]

People used to say the exact same thing about SSD drives just a few years ago, that they are way too expensive and hence there's no place for them in consoles, and look how it turned.

And given how big PS5/XSX already are exactly due to generated heat, water cooling doesn't seem that stupid, it might be the only way to keep them relatively small in 8 or so years whenever next consoles show up.

 

[RoboFu]

Water cooling isn’t quiet, you still have 1 or 2 fans that’s always going.

 

[Physiognomonics]

XSX has a vapour chamber heatsink.

Necessary because of the size of the whole cooling system (compact).

 

[BoxFresh123]

The Internet nearly died about removing a screw to install a PS5 SSD.

 

[n0razi]

Water cooling itself isnt inherently better than a standard heatsink... heat pipes pretty much perform the same function without the leak risks. The main reason you want watercooling is for a custom setup (like in a PC) where you want the flexible tubing for relocating the radiator to an optimal position (an area of the case where you can stuff a larger radiator, etc) for many different case sizes and layouts. In a closed system like a console, you can just use rigid heatpipes and get the same effect. Theres no reason to have flexible tubing because the layout is exactly the same for every console.


I think a lot of people (like the OP) have some belief that a watercooler performs better than a regular heatsink because 'water'! That is not true at all; you can have a water cooling radiator perform exactly the same as a regular heatsink as long as the 2 are equal in material and mass. Water cooling CAN work better in a PC because it allows you to use for instance a dual 240mm fan+radiator setup where a heatsink of that size would not fit on the motherboard in a standard setup. The water tubing just moves the heat to a different area of the case where you can use a obscenely large radiator. Thats why lots of cheaper low end AIO kits that use a single 92mm or 120mm radiator performs similar or worse than a plain old 120mm heatsink. There's almost no benefit to using water tubing in a console where you can either design the case to fit a larger custom heatsink or use rigid heatpipes to direct heat to a radiator instead of water. Youre just adding more weight, size, leak risks, points of failure (pump), etc.... over-engineering101 basically

 

[Damigos]

Maybe PS6, cant see it happening on Pro models

 

[hangdang69]

Not gonna happen but what's with the comments about loud AIOs? I've had one from NZXT and one from Corsair and they've both been very quiet

 

[Gamerguy84]

 

[HTK]

Its not necessary at all so I don't see this ever happening.

 

[Buggy Loop]

I ain’t even touching water cooling on freaking PC, imagine the disaster waiting to happen on consoles? Failing pumps, leaks, etc.

 

[Ozriel]

If you were to double the power for a $899 Pro console, how do you improve cooling capabilities without sounding like a jet or being massive in size? Water cooling.

It’s not like the fan noise has to double when you double the power. Smaller process node and updated architecture (RDNA4?).

You can invest in a better design. The Xbox One X was much more powerful than the xbox one S, but still silent

 

[Draugoth]

No seriously, hear me out.

I don't think we'll get "Pro" consoles this gen but someone at work was asking me about it. They said to imagine if we had the power of a 3080 in a console and then I said yeah but imagine all of that heat. But then this got me thinking... chips are just getting hotter and more power hungry as time goes on. I feel like the PS5 and the xbox series X are already doing what they can to keep things cool and quiet. If you were to double the power for a $899 Pro console, how do you improve cooling capabilities without sounding like a jet or being massive in size? Water cooling.

Do you think we'll get to the point (whether it's Pro consoles or even the next generation) where consoles utilize AIO (All-In-One) water cooling in order to keep things cool?

Some may say water cooling is too risky for the mass market but AIO's have been super common in the PC building community for years now and are far less risky than custom water cooling.
I remember when we had 5400 rpm hard drives forever and SSD's were considered too expensive, and now we've got pcie 4.0 nvme lightning fast ssd's, so anything is possible over time. Moving towards an all-digital future (meaning, ditching the disk drive) would help free up space on the insides as well for a radiator and tubing.

You could make an AIO console like some Graphic Cards are released but water cooler consoles will probably never happen

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Don't use water cooling for my computers and don't want it in my consoles.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Hahahahaha yeah, install it right next to the hologram projector and USB 42.0 Port right underneath the finger print lock register and the self defense turret above the disc drive, Mr. Jetson.

 

[Captain Toad]

No seriously, hear me out.

No

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Don't use water cooling for my computers and don't want it in my consoles.

With some of todays PC cases and great air coolers water cooling isn't needed

 

[Guilty_AI]

 

[Torrent of Pork]

Some of you people are forgetting what a console is supposed to be, and who it's being marketed to. $500 right now is pushing what the market will bear, pump it much higher and I ask why I'm not just building a PC at that point.

The 'enthusiast' market that would drop a grand on a console as opposed to building a gaming rig is so small the company that tries it has an instant flop on their hands.

 

[01011001]

With some of todays PC cases and great air coolers water cooling isn't needed

yeah, as long as your case isn't this shit right here

you don't need water cooling unless you want to overclock a lot



in a console it's an absolute no go, the amount of maintenance needed is simply beyond what a console can be. the system would need to be of a certain size in order to make it easy to refill the loop and to replace the pump if needed down the line

 

[lh032]

they should make a mini aircon inside the console.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Vape my Chambers.
I've been playing Diablo Immortal on my iPhone 8 Plus, and it feels like I need water cooling with how hot it was getting.
That poor old phone battery is over 5 years old and I think the game might be taxing it too much.

 

[Celcius]

Some of you people are forgetting what a console is supposed to be, and who it's being marketed to. $500 right now is pushing what the market will bear, pump it much higher and I ask why I'm not just building a PC at that point.

The 'enthusiast' market that would drop a grand on a console as opposed to building a gaming rig is so small the company that tries it has an instant flop on their hands.

But if people will drop a grand on a cell phone then why not a console?

 

[Torrent of Pork]

But if people will drop a grand on a cell phone then why not a console?

I'll give you that, but I'd want to know how many people use MS's Xbox all-access program. 2 year contracts buried into phone plans are the only reason smart phones took off, $1000 is a lot of money for most people to drop all at once.

It's also really hard to justify new consoles when after 2 years into the gen we're only just getting to the point where AAA games are starting to leave 2013 hardware behind. IMO the focus should be on making the manufacturing process cheaper and more efficient right now, a refresh no earlier than 2025 at the current $500 price point, and a decade long generation. Or hell, scrap the generation model all together since these are all just off the shelf PC parts. Bring out new hardware every 5 years, and require devs to make the games run on the previous model so people are only required to buy new hardware every 10 years.

 

[BusierDonkey]

They'll slap the cheapest parts they can into that box to meet a low fixed price. Cheap hoses, cheap connectors, cheap pump. I'd rather they not do that.

 

[Rea]

Water cooling is overrated, haha.

 

[kiphalfton]

This reminds me when the manager at what was Babbages told me the Dreamcast was liquid cooled right before launch. I was 16 at the time and new better than to believe that.

This man is a prodigy. Too bad he can't spell.

 

[rofif]

People used to say the exact same thing about SSD drives just a few years ago, that they are way too expensive and hence there's no place for them in consoles, and look how it turned.

And given how big PS5/XSX already are exactly due to generated heat, water cooling doesn't seem that stupid, it might be the only way to keep them relatively small in 8 or so years whenever next consoles show up.

Bur water cooling is not ssd. Any ssd makes sense. Even plugged in old sata interface.
But water cooling is only beneficial when it’s big. 120 is terrible
You put good quality air cooling and suddenly it’s a challenge to rival it with any water cooling.
Look at reviews of stuff like be quiet dark rock pro4. The thing is like 50$ and performs same or better than best 300 water cooling solutions. And it’s silent because.
With water cooling you always have more fans and the pump which is a hit or miss.
And the. Of course the water can dry if the loop over the years or you can have a leak.

Tldr:
Water cooling makes no sense if you don’t get a really nice one.

 

[ZywyPL]

Bur water cooling is not ssd. Any ssd makes sense. Even plugged in old sata interface.
But water cooling is only beneficial when it’s big. 120 is terrible
You put good quality air cooling and suddenly it’s a challenge to rival it with any water cooling.
Look at reviews of stuff like be quiet dark rock pro4. The thing is like 50$ and performs same or better than best 300 water cooling solutions. And it’s silent because.
With water cooling you always have more fans and the pump which is a hit or miss.
And the. Of course the water can dry if the loop over the years or you can have a leak.

Tldr:
Water cooling makes no sense if you don’t get a really nice one.

SSDs are the main reason why current consoles cost 499 instead of 399, as always any additional costs are being transfered on the end consumer. Liquid metal also seemed too extreme measure and yet PS5 does have it.

So what I meant is that whenever new consoles show up, they can easily be sold at 599$ (especially given the current ongoing inflation, that extra 100-150 bucks in ~2030 will be nothing) due to liquid cooling IF it'll be necessary to both keep the consoles cool and reasonable sized, because most consumers will not want to put a PC-sized box under their TV, hell, many people already had a hard time fitting the PS5 inside their cabinets, and those consoles consume just a mere 220-250W, the next ones will be 300 or even more.

Now looking at how XSX is built, it could already easily house a 15x15 rad on top, just adjust the thickness if usual 25mm doesn't provide enought surface, and obviously adjust the case height accordingly, and there you go, much better heat dissipation with more or kess the same footprint.

I honestly can imagine future consoles going the vertical itx case kind of design with a rad and fan on top, keep in mind the consoles van have a fully custom solutionsbthen it comes to size, not just the usual 120/140x25mm the PC is limited to.

 

[rofif]

SSDs are the main reason why current consoles cost 499 instead of 399, as always any additional costs are being transfered on the end consumer. Liquid metal also seemed too extreme measure and yet PS5 does have it.

So what I meant is that whenever new consoles show up, they can easily be sold at 599$ (especially given the current ongoing inflation, that extra 100-150 bucks in ~2030 will be nothing) due to liquid cooling IF it'll be necessary to both keep the consoles cool and reasonable sized, because most consumers will not want to put a PC-sized box under their TV, hell, many people already had a hard time fitting the PS5 inside their cabinets, and those consoles consume just a mere 220-250W, the next ones will be 300 or even more.

Now looking at how XSX is built, it could already easily house a 15x15 rad on top, just adjust the thickness if usual 25mm doesn't provide enought surface, and obviously adjust the case height accordingly, and there you go, much better heat dissipation with more or kess the same footprint.

I honestly can imagine future consoles going the vertical itx case kind of design with a rad and fan on top, keep in mind the consoles van have a fully custom solutionsbthen it comes to size, not just the usual 120/140x25mm the PC is limited to.

Yeah I didn’t consider that water cooling could be fully custom shaped to fit the console but it would still raise the price probably United there can use much less metal

 

[winjer]

Water cooling a consoles as standard, is just an accident asking to happen.

 

[Melon Husk]

That is a consumer service nightmare