First Peek: Hyte’s Bonkers THICC Q60 CPU Cooler Has a Phone-Size Screen

When in doubt, make everything bigger? Case maker Hyte (the lifestyle brand of PC maker iBuypower), known for its Hyte Y40 and Y60 chassis that we have reviewed, brought its creative A-game to Computex 2023 with the THICC Q60, an XXL-size all-in-one liquid cooler that brings two big innovations in one. The first is a giant, smartphone-size screen that hovers over your pump unit. The second is a nifty connection scheme that lets you attach other gear, including fans and RGB strips, in series.

The THICC Q60 is the company’s first liquid cooler. As you can see, it has an IPS screen suspended on an arm above the CPU socket and cooling block…

(Credit: John Burek)

This is a 5-inch panel with a 720-by-1,280 resolution, and you can tilt it for ideal viewability. (The screen proper is actually sourced from an Android smartphone screen maker, according to the company’s reps.) The body of the screen has some RGB “underglow” backlighting to set off the screen from the rest of the case.

(Credit: John Burek)

You control the THICC’s screen, and its underglow, from software on the PC side, which Hyte dubs Nexus. On the panel, you can change backgrounds, show different feeds of information such as reminders, monitor system vitals, or even just display the time.

(Credit: John Burek)

As for the cheeky name of the product, it’s embracing the girth of its radiator and fans. A Hyte rep noted that this 240mm-class cooler should deliver cooling performance comparable to that of some 360mm AIO models. Clearly, the funky screen may be cool, but not that kind of cool; looking at the radiator and fans, you can see the extra thickness of both…

(Credit: John Burek)

That means more airflow pushed through (from the fan point of view), and more surface area to be cooled (from the radiator point of view). The radiator is 52mm thick, and the fans 32mm.

Hyte did design the THICC to work especially in its Y40 chassis, which allows for ideal mounting on the motherboard tray next to the motherboard. It should work well in other cases, too, with the radiator mounted in the front. You’ll want to check clearance specs, though, if you’re thinking of mounting the radiator up top, given the extra thickness. The chunky fans themselves are new offerings from Hyte, dubbed the FT12, and they connect to one another via magnetic coupling, eliminating the need for cabling to each one. Each 500rpm-to-2,000rpm fan also contains its own thermal sensor.

(Credit: John Burek)

The other noteworthy aspect of this cooler is the wiring scheme, Nexus Link, that it introduces for hooking up other Hyte fans and light strips in your case. Light strips and FT12 fans from Hyte can plug in, in a serial fashion, using a proprietary USB-C-type connector that Hyte has developed. (The connectors have a irregular-shaped surround to keep you from plugging them into other incompatible USB things.) Here’s how it looks…

(Credit: John Burek)

Given the limitations of power delivery and how many devices you can connect in series, Hyte will also offer a separate module that lets you chain additional devices off of it, the Nexus Portal, if you really want to go all-in on Nexus gear.

(Credit: John Burek)

Expect the Hyte THICC Q60 to hit the streets in September for around $299.99, with the FT12 fans at $79.99 for a three-pack.