Lab Notes
Yes, we really cooked an egg in a PC
IF YOU READ OUR REVIEW of the Origin PC Neuron (pg. 74), you’ll notice a bit of an oddity. That’s right, we cooked an egg inside a PC. No, this won’t be a regular addition to our testing suite, but it was a fun experiment that really demonstrates how toasty it can get inside our gaming machines.
Anyway, let’s talk about our egg-cooking methodology. I got the idea when I noticed heat pouring out the blower-style fans on the back of the Neuron. The rig sports dual GTX 1080 Ti GPUs, each of which can get pretty hot in their own right. I measured temperatures around 80 C coming out of the air vents in the back, while the top of the GPUs inside measured as hot as 85 C. This was while running TheWitcher3 at 4K ultra settings (which looked amazing, by the way).
Using a little boat made of aluminum foil, we cracked an egg and set it on the GPU shelf. The temperatures there were hot, but not quite hot enough to directly cook the egg from the bottom. What really did the trick was putting a second piece of foil on top, creating a nice little mini oven within the larger oven-like enclosure of the system. Even better, the Neuron’s Phanteks Evolv case is equipped with easy-open doors on hinges, making the whole process feel a bit like opening an oven to check on a frittata.
Speaking of frittatas, that probably would have been a better egg dish for our PC cooking adventure. The sunny side up option we went with here didn’t really play well with our double-oven situation. It did cook, but wasn’t exactly the most palatable dish on the menu. The top was cooked to a hard shell, while the inside was a bit of a goopy mess. Edible, but not exactly tasty. Next time, I’ll opt for a baked frittata.