CoolIT Cooling Accessories Roundup

The most unique piece in the CoolIT stable is the beverage chiller. Think of this piece as a regular desk coaster, but on steroids. Not only does it sit roughly an inch tall, its also helps keep your drink at a cool 47° F. This isn’t freezing cold, but it does help keep the drink cooler than it would be just sitting out in the open.

Made entirely out of plastic, the small peltier used to chill the cold plate is kept cool itself with the help of a large aluminum heat sink and a very small fan.

On the bottom of the chiller, there is a set of four rubber feet. These are in place to mainly keep the chiller from sliding around on your desk, but also to dampen any vibrations caused by the fan on the back. On the bottom of the unit, we can also get a better look at the heat sink.

The CoolIT Beverage Chiller is powered by a single USB cable and for the most part, does its job well. There are problems with cans we found, since there is very little surface area that actually touches the cold plate but even then, it kept the “adult beverage” colder longer than it would normally stay cold just sitting on the table.

While not as prestigious as the main line up of CoolIT’s products, the three that we touched upon here do serve their purpose. With the two fans priced reasonably well, they make decent additions to any PC build looking for more lighting. While they did move air, the fans on the PCI and RAM coolers were loud. The RAM fan especially. With it installed, it was easily the loudest piece of hardware in the case. The PCI booster wasn’t bad, but it was still audible over other fans in the case. We didn’t try any extensive testing with the two coolers installed, but we did notice slight temperature drops on our test GPU, an x1900 XTX.

Turning our attention to the beverage chiller, we love the idea, and we really like the product itself but is it really worth the $39.99 asking price at a popular online retailer? We enjoyed using it on long gaming sessions and it did work reasonably well, but the whole surface area issue is a bad one, although unavoidable in this design. I did enjoy using it so we will classify it under as a neat novelty. Think of it as an impulse buy that keeps your Bawls cool and fresh. Warm Bawls is the worst, really it is… as well as the beer we used to “test” out the chiller.

Ultimately, the CoolIT accessories are a nice collection of hardware best used to accent your Freezone or Eliminator in style. Those two products are still hands down, the best coolers we have tested to date. Stay tuned as we give the HD 2900 XT cooler a spin in a later review. For now, at least my drinks cool while we wait for CoolIT’s next great design.

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