EK Is attempting to take on the long supreme Aquaero with it’s new Ascendency controller. Like the Aquaero 6 the Ascendency can control a 40W pump, a bunch of fans and monitor flow and temperature sensors (sensors not included). The power limit seems to be 150W with 15W for 8 fan channels and 40W for one pump.
Looking at the preview of the beat PCB we see a 6 pin GPU connector to provide power (worth pointing out that a 6 pin connector *should* only be rated for 75W unlike the 8 pin GPU connector. It’s also unclear quite on how the LCD panel is going to attach to this board. The Ascendency will be offered in both a bare version without display as well as with a display in a an unknown amount of (probably one) 5 1/4″ drive bays.
It is worth noting that not all flow sensors will be compatible – only the pulse style that is most common. Not the fancy new AquaComputer ones.
Software will only be available for Windows however the unit can work in standalone mode. I assume other OS’s might be able to use a VM to control it if it’s hooked up via USB and if cpu/gpu hw temps are not required to be used by the Ascendency. HW temps will be provided no doubt by the use of CPUID (CPU-Z etc) libraries.
No word on pricing yet, but we would expect it to undercut the Aquaero 6 which retails at $200 with the LCD but not the optional waterblock. The less featured Aquaero 5 Pro however retails at $150, and it seems that this would be closer to the expected price while the barebones Aquaero 5 LT is only $72.
Launch date for the barebones version is supposed to be March 2013, but with the unit only entering beta testing and EK’s tendency to run later than their predictions on their waterblocks recently it might be somewhat optimistic. Press release is here. More pics below:
