Modder straps two desktop CPU coolers to a Nubia Z70 Ultra, turning it into a Linux desktop and a Witcher 3 gaming rig
Reddit user u/ntsow in r/Nubia has taken phone thermal throttling mitigation to the extreme by mounting a Nubia Z70 Ultra between two full-size desktop CPU coolers inside a custom acrylic case, then using the resulting rig to run a native Linux desktop and stream and emulate Windows PC games.
The hardware
The donor device is a Nubia Z70 Ultra with 24 GB of RAM and the Snapdragon 8 Elite. The phone sits sandwiched between two PC tower coolers inside a transparent acrylic frame, with the display still mounted and functional, although it is an aftermarket LCD.
The benchmark numbers
The modded Z70 Ultra posted a 3DMark score of 10,533, slightly higher than that of the Samsung Galaxy S25+ with an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and only slightly behind the scores of phones running the next-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
But the peak score isn't the point here. Sustained performance is what this mod targets. Across a 20-loop 3DMark Wild Life Extreme stress test, scores ranged from 6,980 down to 6,910, a spread of just 70 points, equivalent to 99% stability.
Running a Linux environment and gaming
The cooling mod serves a broader goal: using the phone as a full desktop replacement. The build runs a Termux + XFCE4 Linux desktop on top of Android, outputs video to an external monitor, and launches apps like Dofus directly from the Linux environment.
On the gaming side, the poster said that The Witcher 3 ran at 1920x1080 with the Ultra preset, resulting in 20–30 fps with the GPU pinned near 99% utilization and both the CPU and GPU maxed out.
It's worth remembering that this is a garage project, not a controlled test. The numbers are all self-reported, and there's no way to know how much of the gain comes from the two coolers versus simply running the board exposed, with better airflow than it would get sandwiched between two sheets of glass. Still, it's a fun reminder of how much thermal headroom stock phone cooling leaves on the table.
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