Entry to watercooling

[Yossarian22]

Hello all.

I don't visit this forum very often. I think because in the public eye the popularity of alternative cooling solutions have dropped. For me, it was always a matter of being a cheapskate.
Water cooling was some sort of expensive enthusiast hobby when I was growing up.
Now that I'm older and I have some money and much more knowledge... I am giving it serious consideration.

In particular, I'm interested in exploiting natural convection of liquids to make a thermosiphon. Any experiences or reasons why I shouldn't bother and just go for a pump?

 

[Tsumi]

Pump will give you much better flow rates than any kind of convection current can give you. And you would quite literally need to bathe the entire system in a liquid for a good thermal convection current to carry heat away.

Look up the 3M Novec extreme cooling solutions forum. It only works because the 3M Novec has a relatively low boiling point. And you don't get much faster thermal convection currents than actually boiling it.

 

[ghost6303]

a modern CPU has the highest heat output density (watts/per square inch) among any electrical component in the world. a thermosiphon simply wont cut it. you need a much higher flow rate for it to be more effective than a regular, cheap, heatsink+fan combo.

now if you wanted to play with a thermosiphon for the sake of experimentation- sure. just dont expect it to be a nice easy bolt-on mod, and dont expect it to be able to match any of the more common cooling soloutions, performance-wise.

 

[MD]

Hi,

There was a time when CPU heat output was lower and standard CPU water blocks design's were less restrictive than today. Even pumps were different. Pumps did not have had good head pressure as they do now days. Also they use to fail much more than today.

Back in those days people have experimented with pump less and even pump less passive design's. Even than they have needed huge contraptions to barely move water at all. Temperatures were way to high. Even huge size did not make difference. Basically on such system you could work till system would overheat. Temperature would be at workable levels till all water is heated up and than they would be way to high.

Today you will find that most of good CPU water blocks give extreme resistance to water flow. Though today's pump can handle it good though. Today pumps are pretty quiet, have much higher head pressure than old pumps and can work for years.

Today with modern CPU's are very effective and actually for work they do produce less heat than before (less heat per operation). Idle is also extremely good. I use i2600K at 5GHz (though with speed-step and all other Intel stuff) and at this moment my CPU consumes 11.3 to 11.6 watt's. Though once they hit full load and with high core voltage and high OC they get pretty warm. So worm that even good passive radiators ain't enough to cool them efficiently enough.

It is enough to have simple loop with 240 radiator, good CPU water block, res and pump and it will outperform any passive setup. Even such simple setup will allow you to reach almost maximum OC your CPU will do before going to cooling solutions that cool CPU under room temperature.

Well everything is possible but at what costs and what efficiency.

Maybe thermosiphon with alternative liquid and with vacuum? More like giant heat pipe than water cooling loop? Though every part should be self made/machined.



MD

 

[Psyclops]

I too am looking towards building a custom liquid cooling solution rather than using the out of the box stuff these days. A worklog from a newer water cooling enthusiast would be an interesting read.

 

[Tsumi]

I too am looking towards building a custom liquid cooling solution rather than using the out of the box stuff these days. A worklog from a newer water cooling enthusiast would be an interesting read.

Watercooling has not changed much at all over the years, the core of it remains the same. Look up any worklog, and the key points are all essentially the same.

The only things that really have changed are that you have more options, and designs have gotten better at heat transfer. CPU blocks have improved their heat transfer capabilities, as well as radiators. The 7+ year old MCP655 pumps and 355 pumps are still the same as ever, with the exception of the introduction of the MCP35x. Pump tops and accessories have also increased in number; same with the many different designs of reservoirs.