Thermalright AI HydroNous R1, le Strix Halo watercoolé

Thermalright is a manufacturer of cooling solutions and cases that has recently taken an interest in the MiniPC market. Its HydroNous R1 is positioned in the sector of minimachines capable of controlling AI locally with the use of an AMD “Strix Halo” Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor surrounded by plenty of RAM.

Thermalright AI HydroNous R1

A solution already used by many competitors but which would be deployed here on an original format. The Thermalright AI HydroNous R1 offers, in fact, a 2.6 liter format in a sort of mini-tower which presents a small 4.6 inch control screen on the front. This display will allow you to monitor the “constants” of the PC internally with temperature readings and a host of classic information such as processor occupation, RAM and others.

The AMD chip would benefit from a water cooling system specific to the brand with 18 cm fans positioned on the side to allow more efficient heat exchange. The manufacturer’s objective being to make the most of the capabilities of the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip, it would operate at maximum its TDP. That’s 176 watts, 56 watts more than its standard TDP of 120 watts. A significant difference in heat release which would be managed by the internal device.

A HydroNous R1 cools with water, but not necessarily discreet

Thermalright does not specify what noise pollution its HydroNous R1 will offer. I imagine that this is not the question here and that the use of a water cooling solution is not intended to improve the user’s peace of mind but rather to push performance to the maximum. The small tower will surely be integrated into a room dedicated to controlling a local AI and not necessarily placed on a corner of the office.

Otherwise, this should be a very high-end machine. Distributed with 128 GB of LPDDR5x memory, 2 TB of NVMe PCIe SSD in M.2 2280, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and USB4, it seems ready for very AI-oriented uses. The announced price is 23,990 yuan or €3,000 on the local Chinese market and obviously excluding taxes. Not the most accessible machine and probably a great advertising operation for the manufacturer of cooling solutions. I doubt that this type of solution will really penetrate beyond the country’s borders.

Sources : Wccftech et ITHome