1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Blogs Is there still a need for water-cooling?

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by arcticstoat, 13 Jul 2011.

  1. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

    Joined:
    11 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    2,535
    Likes Received:
    59
    Random Thought:

    Take a water system and instead of circulating liquid, circulate cooled air through the tubes. Then you have the nice aesthetics of liquid cooling with the simplicity of air. Anyone got an air pump laying around?
     
  2. Waynio

    Waynio Relaxing

    Joined:
    20 Aug 2009
    Posts:
    5,714
    Likes Received:
    228
    Good article :thumb:.

    Wow yeah I'm sure it was a bit of a nightmare getting pc water cooling bits 10 years ago, I tried about 4 or 5 years ago & was a bit limited then even, well compared to now anyway :D I'm sure it has a bright future still as like you said it can look cool :D & especially with intels beefy parts that should be out this year, could well be a return to the need for more adequate cooling.

    Tried it once & it gave slightly better temps took up heaps of case space costs far more than air cooling & had me nervous it would leak at some point so dismantled it all & sold parts & stayed with air since :lol:.

    And this 2500k is rolling on sweet on air at 4.5ghz & I'm sure I could tune it a bit higher with safe temps :) if chips keep being made better & produce less heat then it will end up being purely an aesthetic thing unless you live somewhere where it's rather warm all year round or most of the year.

    If ever I'd have gone back to trying it out it would have been if I'd have got a gtx 480 as the stock cooler on that was awful & barely did it's thing, the 580 seems to keep temps fine & isn't noisy even when having a heavy gaming session :).

    I might do water cooling some time in the future but unless theres a real need to then I'll leave it alone :).
     
  3. mrbens

    mrbens What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    15 Aug 2009
    Posts:
    511
    Likes Received:
    4
    Love my liquid cooled PC. The main reason I went with water is for the silence. So nice to see my GPU at around 45C when overclocked and gaming and not hear a peep from my PC and it's so much nicer when watching films to not hear fans in the background. :)
     
  4. digitaldunc

    digitaldunc What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    4 Oct 2010
    Posts:
    629
    Likes Received:
    24
    Good article.

    So... any chance of a roundup of WC gear, either in CPC or here? Last full WC feature was in the June 2008 issue.

    I'd love a definitive article on the maths involved, for example what flow rate, head pressure and radiator size chip x rated at y TDP requires to maintain a sensible temperature, etc. I appreciate something like this would probably be pretty difficult to write due to subjective differences in radiators, coolant and block performance.

    I guess the team may not feel this worthwhile, but thought I'd mention it anyway.
     
    Last edited: 13 Jul 2011
  5. Pacolicious

    Pacolicious What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    13 Jul 2011
    Posts:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    The main advantage of water over air is the ability to absorb heat. Water can absorb about 4 times as much heat as ambient air at the same temperature.

    If you could find an air with the same ability to absorb heat like water/liquid, your idea would be pretty cool.
     
  6. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

    Joined:
    14 Apr 2004
    Posts:
    4,955
    Likes Received:
    202
    A year or so ago I thought about water-cooling my PC. I did some initial research into water-cooling with the desire to reduce the noise, but after doing some rough calculations it turned out that I would have the same number of fans - with a possible increase.

    Since I don't overclock, water-cooling turned out to be a non-starter for me. I just did some better cable management to enable more efficient air flow, which allowed me to slow down my existing fans to an acceptable sound level.
     
  7. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

    Joined:
    11 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    2,535
    Likes Received:
    59
    All case and radiator fans controlled by motherboard and speedfan software.

    Many motherboards have limited fan headers that can be speed controlled so you need to wire multiple fans to a single header. This is ok though since most motherboards can deliever 1200ma per header.

    I make my own fan adaptors so I can fit maybe 4 fans per header.
     
  8. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

    Joined:
    7 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    17,421
    Likes Received:
    5,795
    One small problem - thermal conductivity.

    Water is about 25 times better than air at conducting heat.
     
  9. Farfalho

    Farfalho Minimodder

    Joined:
    27 Nov 2009
    Posts:
    427
    Likes Received:
    2
    Although air coolers are getting better, the noise is becoming a deal breaker for me. I much prefer watercooling and have decided to endeavour in such ways recently, already bought the vga blocks and the rest is missing due to lack of funds but when I have those, oh boy, pure joy and happiness will be brought upon me.

    I agree that the cool factor is one of the impellers to this cooling solution, there's an infinity of water solutions when compared to air cooling which you can do so much with.

    I say water cooling will become more mainstream and aircooling will be left for OEM companies.

    In the end, Watercooling simply because I can
     
  10. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

    Joined:
    11 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    2,535
    Likes Received:
    59
    Yes but air cooling fans won't care about that. I am gonna start selling liquid-less water kits on ebay right away.
     
  11. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

    Joined:
    7 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    17,421
    Likes Received:
    5,795
    Nice. You can sell my old Q6600 too, but don't forget to market it as a 9.6GHz chip, coz it's a quad! :D
     
  12. Whindog

    Whindog What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    16 Sep 2010
    Posts:
    351
    Likes Received:
    4
    Curious as to whats inviolved with water cooling, but really dont know where to start & what sort of aly out is required.

    Also dont the rads nee to be toped up regularly??? Or is that jsut a misconception??
     
  13. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

    Joined:
    17 Feb 2006
    Posts:
    3,483
    Likes Received:
    103
    I've watercooled my PC back when there was no professional hardware around. It was a gen1 Celeron 400MHz pumped clocked at 600MHz and I used an aquarium-pump a selfmade copper-blcok and a small car-radiator. Back in those days it was really worth the hassles actually.

    Nowadays with all this professional stuff sold it's way easier to watercool your rig, but on the other hand it get's less and less interesting to watercool the equipment actually, if you're not after benchmark highscores. Modern CPUs and GPUs are powerful enough at their factory clocks for 99% of the people outthere, so the reason left to watercool a PC would be noise for for the majority of people, not overclocking.

    Kits like the Corsair H50/60/70/80/100 opens up watercooling for even those, who don't want to break their warranty or aren't confident enough to install a loop on their own. The thing that's missing is watercooling-kits like this for the GPUs, as they're actual problem of modern rigs.

    Nevertheless, I think that watercooling isn't all that interesting anymore, as hardware get's more energy-efficient and doesn't require that powerful cooling anymore. Reasonable hardware like in my rig can be easily cooled by air and it can even be done silently with good air-coolers and fans.

    So if you're not after a system ment for benchmarking, playing games at max settings on a 30" panel or whatever, there's absolutely no need for watercooling anymore these days.
     
  14. coolmiester

    coolmiester Coolermaster Legend

    Joined:
    31 Dec 2002
    Posts:
    2,087
    Likes Received:
    59
    I honestly didn't think there were that many people watercooling back when i first started here in the UK so can we have some pictures of these 10+ old systems please???
     
  15. Bloody_Pete

    Bloody_Pete Technophile

    Joined:
    11 Aug 2008
    Posts:
    8,414
    Likes Received:
    1,092
    Just on a side note, someone posted something in the hardware forum about skt2011 CPU's kicking out 150W TDP @ 3GHz... So watercooling is still very much needed :)
     
  16. Aragon Speed

    Aragon Speed Busily modding X3: Terran Conflict

    Joined:
    12 Jan 2009
    Posts:
    168
    Likes Received:
    1
    I'd love to water cool, unfortunately I just cannot afford to. :(
     
  17. Frohicky1

    Frohicky1 Awaits his moosey fate . . .

    Joined:
    16 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    1,661
    Likes Received:
    9
    4870X2 + Aircooling = Leafblower + chernobyl

    4870X2 + Watercooling = Awesome
     
  18. mhadina

    mhadina What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    29 Aug 2009
    Posts:
    40
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have had it also, now I am running GTX470 with EK block. At 31°C in the room I have only around 55 max at GPU under load and no noise at all :)
     
  19. aleph31

    aleph31 What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    14 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    17
    Likes Received:
    0
    Same as Whindog. Any suggestions on where to start? From the posts, it seems that right now the first step is to only water cool the GPU using a universal VGA block, is that right? What is the best online store to buy reliable components? Are there some tutorials to learn how to professionally seal the components to prevent leaks? You know, my main concern is security -well, apart from having a silent system and prevent hot peaks when playing.
     
  20. mhadina

    mhadina What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    29 Aug 2009
    Posts:
    40
    Likes Received:
    0
    Then you should read the tutorials and watch how it's made on youtube. I've learned from these and nobody showed me live and succeeded. You shuld go slowly for the 1st time. First make the plan to place the system to your existing case, put it on the paper, buy a water cooling kit if you like.
    Custom parts are always better so pick the parts according information around the web. The most general advice would be to connect the pump after the reservoir - it is a must. Secure the connections at the barbs with plastic strips or use the compression fittings. Use 3/8" or 1/2" tubes and measure before cutting etc.
    Good luck
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page