TrashBench repurposes a trash 4-kW air conditioner radiator for his test bench to see how well it can cool a PC — achieves a shocking 28C on an Nvidia RTX 3080

TrashBench, an Australian hardware examiner known for his inventive tests, has once again demonstrated his prowess by repurposing a discarded 4-kW outdoor radiator-fan unit from a split air-conditioning setup. This time, the radiator served as the basis for a test bench designed to evaluate its cooling capabilities for a PC. By removing most of the unit's components and adding a reservoir, a T-joint converted into a Y-joint, and 3D-printed mounting brackets, TrashBench transformed the radiator into a makeshift test bench.

His first test involved an Nvidia RTX 3080, a powerful graphics card notorious for its high power consumption and heat output. By hooking up the custom cooling system, TrashBench managed to cool the GPU down to just 28°C, a remarkable 7°C above ambient temperature. This impressive temperature drop of 37°C compared to the card's stock cooler, which maintained the GPU at 65°C during the test.

Even more striking, when TrashBench overclocked the RTX 3080 to a boost clock of 3300 MHz, the GPU's temperature only rose to 33°C, a 16°C improvement over the stock cooler. The cooling efficiency of the radiator and its 4-kW power output proved to be far superior to any stock cooler available.

TrashBench followed up the RTX 3080 test with an even more demanding challenge: keeping a powerful Intel Core i9 14900K CPU cool. Using the same Fujitsu radiator, the CPU temperature dropped by 18°C to 76°C, showcasing the radiator's impressive cooling potential for high-performance processors as well. The graphics card, however, showed no signs of heat reduction, indicating that the radiator had far more headroom than what the hardware could utilize.