Slashdot Mirror
Self-Contained PC Liquid Coolers Explored
MojoKid writes "Over the last few years an increasing number of liquid coolers have been positioned as high-end alternatives to traditional heatsink and fan combinations. This has been particularly true in the boutique and high-end PC market, where a number of manufacturers now offer liquid coolers in one form or another. These kits are a far cry from the water coolers enthusiasts have been building for years. DIY water coolers typically involve separate reservoirs and external pumps. The systems tested here, including Intel's OEM cooler that was released with their Sandy Bridge-E CPU, contain significantly less fluid and use small pumps directly integrated into the cooling block as a self-contained solution. Integrated all-in-one kits may not offer the theoretical performance of a high-end home-built system, but they're vastly easier to install and require virtually no maintenance. The tradeoffs are more than fair, provided that the coolers perform as advertised."
When will we see the office PC combined with the coffee machine?
Print link
"In every cooler we tested, the pump noise was actually louder than the fans when the CPU was idling."
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
You just had to mention "collocation", didn't you?
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
I won't buy your replicas unless they come with preinstalled liquid coolers!
-- Chaos, panic, pandemonium... My job here is done!
I read it as "Self-Contained PC Liquid Coolers Exploded".
I've always appreciated Corsair's products; in an industry where the typical MO is to push out the newest widget, sell before everyone forgets about it or gets upstaged, and never look back, they are one of the few companies that seem to understand that you're making an investment with their hardware. For instance, I wrote them a thank-you email after discovering that they offered two Upgrade Kits for their flagship 800D chassis. When the 800D first launched, SATA6 and USB3.0 weren't included. Had this been LianLi or Silverstone they would have released the "801D" and tell you to upgrade by buying a new $200+ chassis. Corsair on the other hand, offered a couple of $10 kits; one a new backplane for the hotswap SATA board, SATA 6.0 compatible and a new front port assembly with USB3.0 support. I have no second thoughts supporting them.
For years those of us trying to make significant overclocks on our PCs, but not wanting to commit to an additional $500 or so in homebuilt liquid cooling, were left to HUGE air coolers that required $80-120 investment, plus fans and cooling paste. These were huge monoliths that were heavy and difficult to install. The advent of the Corsair self-contained coolers is the first "ready for prime-time" solution that fixes this issue. You are given equal or better cooling than high end air at an equal or better price, with a much easier install process. With Sandy Bridge-E and AMD FX, we're just dipping a toe back into the days when serious cooling is necessary to attain a high overclock, so its great that this hardware is maturing now.
For anyone with a high-end air cooler or looking to build a new system and overclock it, these are probably the best off-the-shelf solutions you're going to find these days that don't have the learning curve of building and maintaining a custom-liquid setup and for most people who aren't trying to break records, they'll give you a ton of extra performance through the overclock.
And you still use your computer to read Slashdot all day.
Even IBM is returning to water cooling for their mainframes: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9183068/Water_cooling_returns_to_IBM_mainframe
The reasons:
. . . IBM saw fit to offer water cooling to help reduce overall data center cooling needs . . . the optional water cooling system can improve overall environmental needs by about 12%, which may help some IT managers "squeeze the last piece of floor space in before they go buy a new data center . . . Water is more efficient than air in removing heat . . .
Need a reason to justify the higher cost of your PC? Hey, it's "green" . . . !
. . . and my data center is getting full . . . I constantly trip over USB cables when I get up off the sofa . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
liquid coolers are not attempting to compete with the liquid coolers we have known of for years. They are competing with high end air coolers. As someone who was looking in to some of the all in ones. I ended up with one of the high end air coolers. Granted my case had the room for one of the dual 120mm fans with the corresponding heat sink. Price, Noise and cooling capability for all in ones equal the larger traditional cooling methods. The other thing they are good for is getting people into water cooling with little risk. Less i not forget the "cool' factor of a water cooled rig.
When we have a quantum proc that factors qubits using the Heisenberg principle applied to muons, it will automagically pump heat down e p-brane to an alternate universe. This will be both quiet and so efficient we may have to use CPU warmers!
Nobody uses water any longer. Oil is silent and more efficient.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
for data centers will a big common water system work good vs small blocks in each box?
my gpu gets so much hotter then the cpu and makes a lot more noise.
I read, "Self-Contained PC Liquid Coolers Exploded"
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
When will we see PCs, refrigerators, sewers, and other waste heat sources combined with household hydronic heat transfer systems?
I use to use a cooler on my old P4 HT computer...back when I played video games. Computer ran almost 5 years, without a hitch, til it was time to retire it. It was a HUGE external affair, with two big cooling tubes. Loud, but under no load or full load, the CPU temp hardly ever moved 5 degrees one way or the other. I think that is the ideal thing for a cooler. Keeping the CPU stable and not the up & down temperature swings, I think, keeps a CPU running longer. I don't play RPG or FS games any more, so when I got a quad core CPU, I just use the stock cooler/heat sink.
That would have been a headline.
I did it for one reason: less noise. My case already had a 120mm exhaust fan, so I simply added the radiator to the back of it, eliminating one fan from the case altogether. The fact that the radiator is the last thing exhaust air sees means very little CPU heat is being relieved inside the case.
My i960 is clocked at 4GHz and I see a water temp of about 40C at idle at 50C at full load, and the case is nearly silent with the exhaust fan on low (3-speed Antec fan).
I had a two year old one. After two years the coolant fluid got specs all in it. It was next to impossible to change out the fluid like the manufacturer (Coolant Masters) recommended let alone the motor assembly. Also the space inside the case that the radiator takes is impossible.
Asetek specifies a Rth of 0.124 K/W for the 570LC. While official values are hard to find, for a high end air cooler like the NH-D14, frostytech found 11.2 K rise above ambient for 125 W, which is 0.09 K/W - with (slow) stock fans. So you'll need a 240mm cooler like the H100, which is only slightly better, or something like the EPIC 180, which is not available standalone, to get better than air cooling. Or you can strap more powerful fans on the NH-D14, which is what I did.
There must be a reason why I have never seen an air vs liquid cooler comparison.
thegodmovie.com - watch it