Crazy experiment: RTX 3060 was connected to an ice machine for extreme cooling

YouTuber TrashBench, known for his experiments with extreme and non-standard video card cooling systems, conducted another test – this time he tried to cool NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with a household ice maker.

Homemade system with water and ice circulation

The experiment began with a complete disassembly of the video card: the blogger removed the standard cooler and installed a home-made frame to connect the water cooling directly to the graphics chip. Then a submersible pump was added to the system, which was placed inside an ice maker filled with water.

The scheme of operation was simple: the heated liquid from the GPU returned to the tank, where it was cooled by ice, after which it returned to the video card in a closed circuit.

Temperatures before and after modification

Under standard conditions, without the participation of an ice generator, the video card under load in games such as Cyberpunk 2077 heated up to approximately 44°C. At the same time, temperature instability was observed due to limited heat removal.

After turning on the system with ice, the performance improved dramatically – the GPU temperature dropped by more than 20°C and stabilized at 22-23°C. Peak values ​​of the hot zones, which previously reached 75°C, dropped to around 34°C.

Design limitations and issues

Despite the impressive reduction in temperatures, the system was far from a practical solution. The ice maker was intermittent, the compressor would only turn on for a short time and then be turned off by a thermostat that could not be fine-tuned.

An additional problem was that the cooling elements were not sufficiently immersed in the water, which reduced the efficiency of the system. The blogger had to refine the design to improve contact with the cooling medium.

Summary of the experiment

The final version of the system showed real results in temperature reduction, but was accompanied by leaks, complicated setup and potential risks to the equipment.

The author of the experiment himself noted that such a scheme is more of a demonstration of capabilities and an engineering experiment than a practical solution for everyday use, as the design remains complex, unstable and potentially dangerous for PC components.