Watercooling Drifting Mainstream

pacc writes "With Prescott said to dissipate 103 W and the dual Apple G5 playing in the same league, air cooling seems less than sensible. Nikkei Electronics has an article about watercoolers getting standardized by Hitachi. A technology pioneered by a NEC desktop last May."

Comments

Comparison?

[insecuritiez]

I overclock. I run a decent cooling fan. I have never seen solid comparison results between water cooling and just high-performance fans. If I (and the public) were to see dramatic improvements published in say THG or some other more mainstream publications perhaps water-cooling will gain even more ground. But as it is I have never really seen anything that has jumped out at me and said "go water". If it is so good and is gaining more ground then why haven't I seen more about it? Slashdot educate me!

Re:Comparison?

[Skater]

But...so what? I mean, at some point, it doesn't matter how cool it is; the only thing to worry about is that it doesn't overheat. At some point it becomes bragging rights rather than actually useful.

My processor runs at 35c pretty much constantly no matter what load I put on it. Room variations sometimes make that tick slightly upward. Removing the case cover the other day dropped it 2c.

I guess if you're going to overclock it, then you'd want it cooler. But if not, then all you really need to accomplish is keeping it below "lockup/meltdown" level.

--RJ

Not sure this is a good idea

[JFMulder]

To have mass public acceptance, it has to be pretty cheap to buy. And by being cheap to buy, it may also be cheap material, or sub-par, so it may have more chances to leak. I've been burned (more exactly my CPU) twice by a cheap CPU fan and an AMD CPU fan. The last thing I need now if being "flooded" by a cheap watercooler. Especially since a burned CPU breaks the CPU and the motherboard most of the time, but water spilled on a running motherboard, that's gonna do a LOT of damage.

Am I the only one...

[achurch]

who thinks it would be more sensible to find ways of reducing power dissipation rather than (or even alongside) better methods of cooling?

(Yes, I know the answer is that nobody actually needs these new CPUs, but you know Microsoft and Intel won't stand for that...)

Not really

[MasterVidBoi]

Less then sensible? Maybe you just need a better air cooling design. Since the G5 was brought up in the post, it seems reasonable to mention that Apple is really pushing the idea that the G5's are quiet*:

http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html

If a system is having trouble dissipating that kind of heat with air flow alone (or sounding like a jet engine), then you just have a poorly designed system. And maybe it's just me, but I have some qualms about putting water in a poorly designed system.

* of course, we haven't had independent reviews yet, so...

Water cooling dangers

[maelstrom]

Every friend of mine who has entered into the water cooling realm has burned out at least one CPU before getting the system stable enough to work properly. Have fun, but be safe :)

I have an idea

[prichardson]

As much as we all like have our big huge CPUs and VPUs I think perhaps it's time to rethink the "speed at all costs" mentality of processor design. A lot of companies don't even try to optimize code anymore using the argument that processors are fast enough to handle it. Then processor companies use the fact that fast processors are needed to run this clunky software (I know this is simplistic and there is also a big numbers war between processor and video card companies). I think instead of basicly brute forcing more cooling we need to design components that are more efficient (produce less heat) and design computers that can dissipate heat well (kudos to apple for thermal zones, 9 low speed and quiet fans that are controlled by a thermometer). Also, more efficient code all around is a good thing for everyone.