CoolIT OMNI Advanced Liquid Cooling for GPUs

Back in 2006 we reviewed a new product from a little known company, the Freezone by CoolIT which was an impressive attempt at factory sealed liquid cooling by the Calgary based manufacturer. A year or so later they were back with two new models which improved the product in several ways, offering two different coolers which catered for different budgets. The idea of a pre-plumbed, ready to install liquid cooler was something which clearly appealed to CoolIT and in late 2008 they moved away from the Freezone range and released their game changing product, the Domino A.L.C.

CoolITs Domino took the market by storm, winning a top award here while in the process being praised for its excellent performance and fantastically simple installation. This truly was a liquid cooler which novice users could make use of and it wasnt long before other manufacturers tried to take on CoolIT in the same marketplace. Corsairs H50 was the most successful competition, offering similar performance at lower noise levels, though CoolIT still had the edge on ease of installation.

That brings us to 2010 and the release of CoolIT's latest CPU product, the ECO A.L.C. which aimed to take on and beat the H50 whilst improving on the Domino. When we reviewed the ECO we found it to perform well and hit a great price point. It was also clear that CoolIT had made another step up in build quality and somehow they had managed to simplify the installation method even further, making the ECO a very desirable option.

Whilst CoolIT has been evolving their CPU cooling range they have also been dabbling in GPU cooling, offering some interesting products but never really making a huge impact on that market. It was clear that this was going to change though as at recent events such as CeBIT they were beginning to show the Omni A.L.C., an impressive looking cooler which took a unique approach to the GPU cooling market. It is a universal model which can be adapted for various graphics cards (including future models) by simply changing a low cost interposer plate.

Today we get the chance to look at the OMNI A.L.C. for the first time and what better card to start with than the GeForce GTX 480, one which would very much benefit from aftermarket cooling. Can the Omni give us CoolIT's usual level of quality and provide performance that GTX 480 users have been looking for, let's find out...