Last March boutique PC maker Digital Storm unveiled the Aventum, a powerful gaming PC with a custom-engineered cooling system. They called it the "world's most advanced PC", and models started at nearly $4,000. Now Digital Storm is readying the Aventum II, featuring a copper tube liquid cooling solution and an even more advanced case design. The upgrades will likely add up to an even more advanced price tag as well, but that's okay—Digital Storm didn't create the Aventum with sales in mind.
According to Digital Storm chief marketing officer Harjit Chana, who spoke to me earlier this week prior to the 2013 Consumer Electronics show, the original Aventum was a good seller for the company. Despite the hefty price tag, the allure of a powerful system with an advanced proprietary liquid cooling solution (that solution brings the base price up to more than $8,000, incidentally) and an enclosure built from the ground-up with heat control in mind earned the attention of plenty of people with the cash to drop on that sort of thing.
The Aventum II ups the ante with the introduction of nickel-plated copper tubing instead of the normal rubber, making for a more secure cooling system with a little steampunk style thrown in for good measure. The thermal chamber at the bottom of the unit has been split into two compartments, lessening congestion between fans on the back and front of the unit. And the proprietary software that was capable of controlling 13 separate fans in the original machine can now handle 22. What kind of monster machine could possibly require 22 different fans?
This one, I suppose.
It's pure extravagance, of course. Chana likens it to a Bugatti automobile. It's not something anyone needs, but it's definitely something they'd want.
What's inside the Aventum II? Such is Digital Storm's focus on the new features and slightly retooled look of the Aventum II that the internal components aren't even mentioned. If you want to get an idea of what is possible, head over to Digital Storm's Aventum system configurator and weep.
Why would Digital Storm build a PC with tech so advanced and expensive most people couldn't afford it? Why, to prove that they can. "We want to prove that Digital Storm is more than a normal system builder—more than a system integrator," said Chana during our call earlier this week. They wanted to build the most extreme system imaginable.
More importantly, Digital Storm wanted to build a system that the enthusiast couldn't build themselves. Look at any post on Kotaku about an expensive piece of PC gaming hardware and you'll find people saying how they could build the same thing for less. Not this. The Aventum II is a fully-engineered cooling beast, built from parts that no enthusiast could get their hands on.
"This is what we can do," said Chana.
The Aventum II will launch on Digital Storm's website in March.