Although Apple computers sometimes seem like they steal the show when it comes to style, the big advantage of a non-Apple PC, is that you can do what you like with it. When it comes to the looks of your system you can do just about anything and now that includes making it look like a Mac Pro.
Cryorig has now announced its new, cylindrical, brushed aluminium chassis, known as the Ola. It looks very much like the casing of Apple’s current Mac Pro. But you can control all of the hardware that goes into it. Cryorig assures us that it can take a single, full size graphics card, though with a mini-ITX form factor, other hardware may be limited.
Cooling wise, the case features a single 140mm fan which helps pull air in from two side intakes, before blowing it out of the top so as to draw away the heat from the internal components. That’s not a lot in the way of cooling, but should keep things quiet, and the design is extreme efficient.
However not having much cooling potential means that we are likely limited by the thermal design power of hardware that can be safely placed in this chassis. Anandtech has it that the CPU should have a maximum TDP of 100 watts, which means every Skylake chip should be fine – though you should be careful if you’re thinking of overclocking. Some high-end AMD hardware won’t fit within that envelope.
However the real sticking point here is the potential TDP of the graphics card. Cryorig has said a full size GPU will fit, but we just don’t know what it will be capable of cooling. In the stock images, we’re shown a GTX 1080 sitting within the system, which would suggest a TDP of 180 watts from the graphics card is ok. But we wouldn’t be surprised if cards that put off more head, like AMD’s Radeon Fury X, won’t work.
Fortunately there’s plenty of time to consider, as the Ola isn’t slated for release until sometime in early 2017.
