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Hardware

Power Water Cooling Kits 190

Posted by michael from the sultry-summer-days dept.
msolnik writes: "Toms Hardware has but together a head to head comparison of 4 different water cooling kits. Instead of buying each part seperately these kits come with everything needed. I would love to use water cooling but there is just something about having water inside of my case that makes me very uneasy. But for all you hardcore overclockers out there this may help you out a lot."
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Power Water Cooling Kits More

Power Water Cooling Kits

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  • I'll stick to good ol' liquid nitrogen
    • It's been tried. There are a couple of sites out there about doing this very thing to a motherboard, such as at the Mission Impossible [octools.com] site.

      The problem appears that it is pretty hard to get from a sub zero level of -40C to the much cooler temperatures that liquid nitrogen provides without cracking something on the motherboard or CPU and killing the system completely.
    • it keeps the produce cool and fresh. why not my processor? and, a good song while were at it... "i'm singin' in the rain"... can i have a glass of milk, please?

  • 4 kits? (Score:2, Informative)

    by IIOIOOIOO ( 517375 )
    That's kind of a stretch on their part. Try 2 kits, each with 2 differently sized heat transfer blocks. To save you some time, they like the one from Innovatech, and despise the other one. Want a big surprise? They like BOTH "kits" from Innovatech and hate BOTH "kits" from the other guys

  • I've thought about trying a water cooler... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:37AM (#2778650)
    But the Water Still's least expensive cooler runs around $169. That model doesn't even have 'hot and cold' options. It'd be cheaper just to keep my bottled water in the refrigerator.

    Seriously, I've often considered water cooling in my Athlon system, but every time I decide to go ahead and order it, the night before I place the order, I have a horrible nightmare about sparks and electrical fire leaping up out of my computer from where the water-line broke.

  • Maybe it's just me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:39AM (#2778653) Homepage Journal
    Personally, I never really understood the whole "overclocking" thing myself. I tweak my computer system, sure. But the things I tweak are (in the old days) loading locations in high memory of my modules within CONFIG.SYS, or I tweak the settings of Netscape or online games to satisfy my own personal preferences...

    But in terms of voiding warranties, possibly destroying hardware, and overheating delicate computer systems, I never really had the urge to do it. I just can't understand the reasoning behind overclocking a processor just to squeeze a couple of extra megahertz out of it, when it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between MHz these days.

    Any overclockers care to enlighten me regarding the reasoning behind overclocking?

    • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cavemanf16 ( 303184 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:48AM (#2778705) Homepage Journal
      I overclock. It's the difference between adjusting the heat settings, mirrors, seat positions, and radio volume on your car, and putting on a fat exhaust, aftermarket boom radio, and an intercooler for more speed and 'wow!' factor. Not only does it make your computer go just a bit faster, but it's for bragging rights too. It's fun. It's the hardware side of script kiddies, maybe to a degree (but not nearly as disruptive to everyone else :-p ).

      Sure, overclocking doesn't need to be done, but some people enjoy it, like me, but I hate fiddling with trying to code or decode programs. Boring! But if that's what floats your boat, great! :)

      Hope that helps.

      • I think you're right; I am a software person (that's what I'm supposed to be doing now, heh) and I love to tinker with software... coding, "tricking out" the memory, etc, trying to get the most out of the hardware by changing the software. Overclockers try to get the most out of software by changing the hardware.

        <VOICE STYLE="Yoda">Two sides of the same coin, we are</VOICE>

        The car analogy is another good one; I personally don't care about tweaking my car, but I have friends here at work who talk about racing their cars, exhaust systems, distributor caps, etc. I just sit back and nod, not having the first clue what they're talking about. I guess that's just a type of personality, and I don't have it. Thanks, cavemanf16.

        • That is what I can't figure out about myself. I'm a computer guy, have been since I was 6 years old.

          Only now am I getting into cars. But with in a year of getting my dream car, I've got a freer flowing exhaust, cone filter in place of the restrictive air box, and now I'm looking at a full turbo upgrade.

          But with a big turbo comes more heat. Both in the intake charge and under hood in general. So I've got to look at cooling solutions for my car.

          I wonder if you can use Red Line's Water Wetter [redlineoil.com] with these water cooling kits?
      • putting on a fat exhaust, aftermarket boom radio, and an intercooler for more speed and 'wow!' factor

        Don't forget tweaking your wheels until they are turned inwards and bending the axles!

        I also enjoy the spoilers that are so large and fat (and misfitted) that they actually INCREASE the drag on the car.

        It's funny how so few of these souped up cars actually do the one thing that would speed up the vehicle -- add a turbo supercharger.
        • Not trying to flame here, just some info... turning the wheels in or out is called toe-in or toe-out, and it can change the performance of the vehicle, especially in braking, acceleration, and turning... spoilers almost never reduce drag, they are designed to add downforce, or aerodynamic force pushing the car into the ground to increase traction at high speed. Lastly, there is no such thing as a turbo supercharger, they are two very different devices , both used to add horsepower and/or torque to an engine. To start enhancing the performance of a car, you should first add a programmable Engine Control Unit (ECU) to alter the torque and horsepower curves for the stock engine. Next, the exhaust system should be replace for less pumping loss, and then a turbo or supercharger.

          • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:2, Informative)

            by cdrudge ( 68377 )
            Also not trying to flame here, but I think that you and your parent post are talking about two diferent types of toe in/out. You are talking about changing the alignment of the wheel in ways that it was suppose to be changed and withing the manufacturers design (or maybe by stretching it a little). He is talking about when someone pimps out there beat up 83 junker and pushes out the wheels 6 or 8 inches to look "cool". The bearings were not designed to handle the extra force the wheels exert since they are pushed out so much further then normal, destroying them much quicker over time. This force appears to actually bend the axle and displays a noticeable slant to the wheel. My guess is that this does absolutely nothing to increate the performance/braking/acceleration/etc. The only things that I would imagine that it increses is the size of part shops pocketbook and the laughters of bystanders who have a clue.

            Also, I think that you are confusing a wing with a spoiler. A functioning spoiler is designed to limit the amout of turbulance between the air flowing over the car and the air flowing under. As a result, a spoiler WILL add some drag. They try to limit the amout of lift, but really don't add any downward forces. Most spoilers on cars are purely a cosmetic thing and do very little for performance, especially at normal road speeds.

            A wing however, such as on Indy Cars, do act as an "upside down airplain wing" producing the downforce you described. Here [se-r.net] is a link that goes into a little bit more of detail.

            Finally, I do not believe that adding a supercharger/turbocharger will increase the amount of torque an engine will produce. Isn't that a function (byproduct?) of the transmission? I don't know for sure. But enough car talk for now.

            -If I don't make any sense or you think that I am wrong, it probably is because I am. :)
          • Actually, a turbo is a form of supercharger, and it's full name is turbine driven supercharger (as opposed to gear or belt driven superchargers).

            Basically, the turbine is driven by exhaust gases, where as a standard one is driven off the crankshafts
        • There's a difference between increasing engine output, and having a balanced vehicle that can deal with it and produce (say) faster circuit times. Most modding guides seem to look to suspension and brake changes before engine mods to improve your track-day times - brake later, turn harder.

          Not that it's something I can afford to indulge in.
      • Only thing I'd say to that car analogy is, usually cars are *already* capable
        of handling the extra power without extra cooling,
        'cept maybe tweaking the ignition timing or using colder spark plugs (that may qualify as
        on-par with changing the cooling system in a PC... since that's a mechanical change)
        but most of the time I don't think that's necessary at all.

    • I just can't understand the reasoning behind overclocking a processor just to squeeze a couple of extra megahertz out of it, when it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between MHz these days

      It is the same reasons that some guys will not be happy until they get another five horsepower out of a 350 horsepower engine:

      curiosity - What can I get out of this system

      The thrill of control

      Striving to reach the ultimate efficiency

      Mental exercise - For those of us who are not ultimate coders we can at least show some intellect with our hardware

      Because we can

    • It's the same reasons you tweak settings in CONFIG.SYS or fiddle with the registry or mess with BIOS or play around with what services are loaded at boot-up. Sure, maybe YOU are the only one who notices that you can load your OS three seconds faster or that you have the world's fastest POST, but dammit you did it BECAUSE YOU CAN!

    • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Caball ( 58351 )
      To me, it is more of sound issue then overclocking issue. If I can lower the sound of my PC, I'm in. No 120,000,000 RPM fan whirling away on the processor should help.

    • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:5, Informative)

      by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @11:02AM (#2778778) Journal
      But in terms of voiding warranties, possibly destroying hardware, and overheating delicate computer systems, I never really had the urge to do it. I just can't understand the reasoning behind overclocking a processor just to squeeze a couple of extra megahertz out of it, when it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between MHz these days.

      I don't know where you got the idea that overclockers only eek out a few MHz? Most people overclock only when they can spend far less money on a chip that can be overclocked to perform the same (or better) than the more expensive chips.

      The celeron 300a was a classic. You could easily overclock it to 450MHz, and it would perform on par with those 450-MHz rated chips, for a fraction of the price. Some people went way beyond 450MHz with them. With water cooling, crazier numbers are possible.

      Keep in mind that most of the chips that are popular for overclocking are actually the SAME exact chips as their overpriced, higher-rated brethren. The difference is that they didn't cut the mustard off the assembly line, so they were set to run at lower/safer MHz levels. The overclockers just risk moving them back up on par with the higher-rated chips.
      • Oh yes, and in addition to my above post, this one is quite true. For a measly $32 I got an AMD Duron 750, another $25 got it overclocked very stably to 995MHz in Win2k and Mandrake 8.1.
    • I think people are forgetting that there are easier (and reasonably cheap) ways to speed up your computer.

      First, get as much RAM as you can afford. Get at least 128 MB RAM; however, with the price of SDRAM DIMM's being so dirt-cheap nowadays you might as well get 256 MB or even 512 MB. With that much RAM, you can open way more programs concurrently and also because you use the hard drive way less for virtual memory, programs in general can run as much as 60% or more faster.

      Second, get the fastest hard drive you can afford. If you system supports ATA-33/66/100/133 IDE interface connections, make sure the drive runs at 7200 rpm and make sure the drive has a generous buffer memory size (2 MB minimum).

      I don't find overclocking such a great idea, especially now with the price of CPU's dropping like stone in water even for the faster CPU's.

    • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:2, Informative)

      by cmckay ( 25124 )
      I've had my Celeron 333 for at least 2.5 years. Because I've overclocked it to 416MHz (that's 25% more clock cycles per second), I've managed to avoid upgrading to a faster CPU. I only use a standard CPU heatsink and fan-- no lapping, no special thermal grease, etc. (Ah, those were the days...)

      Maybe it doesn't make *that* much of a difference, but if I can run my circuit simulations for class 25% faster, that means more time to do things besides run simulations for class!

    • Re:Maybe it's just me (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >Personally, I never really understood the whole "overclocking" thing myself.

      Me neither:

      Athlon CPU, 1.4GHz: $100
      Water cooling: $350
      Case mods: $150

      Total: $600

      Let's say this is overclocked to 1.7GHz.
      Buying the 1.7GHz Athlon costs about $200 over here.
      What the hell is the point? Sure it may be cool, but I can think of many other ways to have fun while spending 400 bucks.
    • Any overclockers care to enlighten me regarding the reasoning behind overclocking?

      The early rationale for overclocking was simply to allow your chip to work as it was supposed to. Tom's Hardware was one of many sites that insited that the cores of several of the early Pentium chips were actually identical - all cast from the same die. The difference, said Tom, was that the "faster" chips had passed certain tolerance tests. So really, at that point, overclocking was used to "unlock" the full potential of your CPU.
    • I just can't understand the reasoning behind overclocking a processor just to squeeze a couple of extra megahertz out of it, when it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between MHz these days.

      I've posted this before, and I'll probably be posting it in the future too.

      The system I am currently using is a PIII-600 overclocked to PIII-800. I've been using it for over 2 years, and it is ROCK SOLID stable. I'm using the stock fan and it only runs about 3 degrees hotter than at 600 Mhz.

      At the time the PIII-800 was nearly double the price of the PIII-600. Overclocking saved me several hundred dollars and made my system 25% faster.

      Do you still not see the benefit in overclocking?
      • Yup, we all know how it used to be. However, chips are no longer clocked that low below potential from the factory, and the serious overclockers buy the highest speed available and crank another 200MHz out of it, which provides no useful increase. Do you see why someone would question spending $200 on cooling to turn a 1.5 into a 1.7?
        • However, chips are no longer clocked that low below potential from the factory [...]

          Yeah, I was wondering about that as I wrote my original post. Oh well - like I said, the last time I bought a CPU the Pentium III 800 was top of the line.
    • I agree with Wind_Walker, if I'm going to pay $200 - $300 for a mobo and CPU I'd like to keep it more than a year or so. I don't care about voiding warranties, especially with CPU's since the vendor usually only gives you 30 days to return it as DOA, I just don't want to damage a piece of equipment I spent money on.

      I understand the 'social' reasons for OC'ing your 'tricked out box', but do you really get a noticeable difference, or do you have to run some benchmark app to prove how much faster it is? Yeah, yeah, you can OC the old Celeron 300a's up to 450mhz... oh whoopie! and you don't have all that unsightly L2 cache to get in the way! Oh my!

      With all the cash spent on cooling apparatii, wouldn't it make more sense to just buy the faster CPU?
  • If you use destilled water it doesn't conduct and you should be fine, even IF it leaks.

    Unless I didn't quite get it correctly back in School....

    Michael

    • If you use destilled water it doesn't conduct and you should be fine, even IF it leaks

      You will have to do better then distilled water. I beleive its actually the salts and ions in the water that make it conduct, but because water is a very good solvent, these salts tend to be hard to remove properly, and hence, even distilled water conducts.

      • You measure the conductivity of distilled water to determine the purity of the water. when you get to megohms per centimeter, you are not doing bad.

        The problem of course is the quantity of dust in the average computer. Any leaks are going to automatically create impure water as soon as it hits a dusty chip. This may not be good.

      • This is slightly off-topic, but... I had one of those snow globes on top of my TV, except this one had glitter in it instead of snow...

        Anyway, one of my bastard cats knocked it off the back of the TV one night and it shattered and leaked all the water, glitter and glass down the back of the TV and onto an old power strip on the floor. The wierd thing is, even though the TV was off, the power strip was still on and nothing was damaged as far as I can tell. I figured all that glitter mixed with water would have started a nice little fire or at least blown a few breakers.
    • That still doesn't prevent it from doing other damage. Even if the whole machine doesn't go up in flames, you still have quite a mess.

    • Re:What's the problem with Water? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wells2k ( 107114 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:48AM (#2778696)
      If you use destilled water it doesn't conduct and you should be fine, even IF it leaks.


      True, but the problem remains that if that water leaks, it is most likely going to pick up deposits off of the motherboard and become conductive. Think of all of the dust and grime that collects inside of a case as time goes by due to the power supply fans and whichever other fans happen to be in there.

      I do know of one case where someone tried to submerge their entire motherboard, power supply, and daughter cards, but they used mineral oil instead of water. This would be over at Dr. Ffreeze's [drffreeze.com] website.
      • You can also use a nifty chemical marketed under the name "Florinert" I believe... completely non-conductive. I remember seeing an overclocking test where they submerged the MB in this stuff and started pouring in liquid nitrogen too... very cool!

        I'd feel much more comfortable filling a "water" cooling system with that stuff, just in case.

        MadCow.
        • You can also use a nifty chemical marketed under the name "Florinert" I believe... completely non-conductive. I remember seeing an overclocking test where they submerged the MB in this stuff and started pouring in liquid nitrogen too... very cool!


          I remember this test. They started out by cooling the system down with CO2 to get the temperatures down, then hit it with the liquid nitrogen. At that point they believe that one or more of the capacitors on the motherboard cracked, and that was the end of the test.
        • Its really spendy stuff. Like $500usd/gal...
    • Distilled water do conduct, it just conducts less than tap water, which in turn conducts less than sea water etc. How much water conduct is a direct function of ion count and even pure water (which distilled water isn't) have 2E-7 ions per liter (at STP). The best you can achive with water is demineralized water, which conducts almost as low as "pure" water can be made. I don't know if that would be non-conducting enough to use safely, but it doesn't really matter: it will collect impurities fast and will start to conduct just like tap water (that would happen to distilled water too) unless all contact with anything soluble is prevented (which is hard to do with run-of-the mill pumps.) Once leaked there is no possibility that water will stay pure and continue to conduct very little. I personally wouldn't risk it.

    • The water picks (dissolves) metals from the cooler parts and becomes conductive over time. The pictures show bare copper parts in contact with the water. Deionized water is a very aggresive solvent.

      The kits shown in the review seem to mix copper and aluminium components. If the coating on the aluminium parts gets scratched on the water side (like from screwing in the tube fittings) a galvanic (battery) reaction will occur and the exposed aluminium will corrode away.

  • Google Category

    Computers > Hardware > Components > Fans and Cooling Devices > Watercooling [google.com]

  • Nice, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wells2k ( 107114 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:41AM (#2778664)
    I think one of the best water coolers I have ever seen was when these guys [overclockers.com] built a heat exchanger on the principle of heat loss through water evaporation. Very nice concept, and it approached the idea of cooling water down properly in the first place.
    • Unfortunately, you have to worry about the high level of evaporation, and having exposure to the air promotes growth of stuff (algae &C) that can easily clog your cooling block.

      It's definately a high-maintenance type of system.

  • Poor wording? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tswinzig ( 210999 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:46AM (#2778691) Journal
    And nothing will earn more respect and admiration from the hardware fan as a water cooler.

    That's funny, I would have thought the fan would be jealous of the water cooler.

    • Tangent (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by volpe ( 58112 )

      What if Afghan women actually have the best bodies in the world? Think about it.


      Ok, I've thought about it. Every time I've seen you post it. And I still don't get it. What's your point?

  • Anything that makes less noise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neorej ( 398404 ) <j@veen.kpn-is@nl> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:48AM (#2778703) Homepage
    I don't care what kind of cooling my system uses I just wish they will one day come up with something QUIET!

    I mean, listening to all them fans is irritating enough, I don't need an addition of gurgling and refrigerator noises, however appropriate those may be in some games.

    I, for one, would be really happy if they started making AMD athlon XP 2000 processors, clocked down to the equivalent of an athlon 1Ghz. Fast enough for most purposes and maybe that'll allow me to ditch the fan and the accompanying noise.
    • I hate noise too, but there are coolers out there that are pretty quiet.

      Ask yourself this, do you really want water cooled PC, knowing that the pump might stop any second and fry your computer?

      Let's face it, watercooler's realiabity on a PC is nowhere as good as air coolers.
      • I'm not totally convinced water cooling is less reliable. While I've never had a fan quit on me, several have needed replacing. And I'm pretty sure a failing fan is just as bad as a failing pump (except maybe that air cooling uses bigger heatsinks which would increase the lifetime for a couple of minutes).

        If I understand correctly, the pumps used in watercooling are the same ones used in aquariums. So if anybody has any experience regarding reliability of these pumps, I'd be happy to hear about it.

        And yes, I've been thinking about using water cooling. Not for overclocking, but for noise reduction.
        • Many of the watercooling systems I have seen come with dual pumps that run all the time. The system can run on one pump, but not efficiently. So it will shut down the machine in the case of a pump failure.

          The people who design these things are no slouches when it comes to design. They have the same concerns you do. Why do you think they designed these systems?

          as to the aquarium pump, when I had a fish tank as a kid, the pump I had ran continuously for something like 8 years. 24x7x365. the only reason it stopped was that I gave away my fish and sold the tank and all it's parts, because i went off to college and couldn't have them there.
    • the water - cooler is (nominally) letting you use a quieter fan, because you're getting the effective cooling-area of the the larger heat-exchanger, which can be located outside the case
      • According to overclockers.com, THG tested these water coolers incorrectly. Apparently, THG tested the Swiftech unit w/o fans, relying on a "passive heat exchange", while on swiftech's website, the Swiftech Barebone Kit is CLEARLY shown with 2 120mm fans. Given that, it is amazing that the Swiftech finished so close to the Innovatek! It seems evident then, that Tom's conclusion is flawed. Swiftech makes great products (really the best high-end HSF maker, better than Alpha, but pricier), and I was dissappointed to see such a poor performance until I read about this testing anomaly at overclockers.com
      • You may be able to use a quieter fan but have you ever heard a central heating system with a teeny tiny little bit of air in the pipes? That makes a helluva irritating noise! Forget the fan, start thinking more along the lines of a helicopter!

        I imagine the same thing could happen to your computer when you start using pipes, fluids and the sort in there. Next time your computer hangs, you won't be able to just reboot, you'll need to call a plumber :-)

    • Re:Anything that makes less noise (Score:4, Funny)

      by einer ( 459199 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @11:10AM (#2778813) Journal
      I don't care what kind of cooling my system uses I just wish they will one day come up with something QUIET!

      I don't know if the noise would be a problem. In fact, I imagine it would be almost soothing... Like a perpetually used water bong.. ;)
    • Easy ways to quieten computers down:
      • Sound-proofing. Surround the entire case with cork, or some other sound-absorbant material. Then, place an "outer" case around that. That'll cut down on the noise enormously, and (relatively) cheaply.
      • Sound-eliminating. This will NOT work with fans, or other gas-based cooling systems. From that, you can probably guess this is something really nasty. Oh, look! You're right! This method requires that you heat the air up inside the case (without cooking the components), pumping the air out as you go. What you'll get is a partial vaccuum. The better the vaccuum, the less the noise. To retain the vaccuum, you need to reinforce the case (flimsy aluminium ain't going to hold up to an atmosphere of pressure), and seal any & all gaps. Cables can be fun, with this. You practically need to build the case around the wiring, to get this to work.
  • What about SMP systems?

    Do I have to buy 2 seperate systems for my processors or can I just pipe in a second waterblock? also has anyone done any examples of how this provides a significant improvement over a giant block of aluminum and a couple of good fans?
    • the cpu heat exchange block is probably the expensive part anyhow. ... splitting the piping would not likely get you even flow across the 2 cpus
    • Yeah easy enough to do. From the main pump line use a Y splitter to the two water blocks, then from the line out on the two water blocks use a nother Y spiltter to merge the two flows, I would also suggest useing a larger return hose. You DO NOT want to go from Block A to Block B, since the water will not cool, and a good chance exists that you'll cook your second processor.

      --
      Simple solutions to simple problems.
      --
  • A lot of things with solid state power amplifiers
    have had water or ammonia convection coolers in them
    for a very long time... I can't remember ever
    hearing of one leaking.

    Not to worry.

    • Big Problem! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HardCase ( 14757 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @11:39AM (#2778931)
      I can't remember ever hearing of one leaking.


      When I was a Sonar Technician in the US Navy, we used large display consoles with dual 21" display units in them. They ran on on 120v/400Hz power and the driving units got very hot. They were cooled with distilled water that ran through a fairly complex chilling operation (after all, it's a government operation, right?).


      One of the cooling loops inside a console sprung a leak and sprayed water around. Now bear in mind that the voltages inside these display units are like those in a TV set, so they're substantially greater than a computer's, but the resulting fireworks INSIDE the sealed cabinet just about sent me crawling up the nearest bulkhead. Noise, sparks and a tremendous mess that ultimately cost about $50,000 to repair. And it wasn't uncommon...about once a year a cooling loop would let go on some piece of equipment.


      Incidentally, the only reason that the loops used distilled water was so that there would be little or no mineral buildup inside the cooling loops. In some cases, the stainless tubing in use was quite small, perhaps a quarter inch in diameter. Believe me, once that water hit the equipment, even a bit of accumulated dust caused it to conduct quite well, thank you!


      -h-

    • Re:No problem! (Score:2, Informative)

      by morcheeba ( 260908 )
      Amonia heat pipe coolers are closed-loop systems that require no pump and are very reliable. We used them on satellites (to even out the "in the sun" side and the "in the darkness of space" side). These are more common in laptops (my inspiron 7000 uses one, and so does the titanium powerbook). If you want to play with one, the (now discontinued and cheap) dreamcast systems have two of them (pictures here) [gamesx.com], but the heatsink on the end of them probably isn't big enough for a standard desktop cpu.

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Evil Twin ( 217345 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:57AM (#2778746) Homepage
    In the days of the Celeron 300a this made sense⦠but now? I mean how much difference, REALLY, do you notice between 100 and 120 fps? Or how much better is your life going to get if your kernel compile is 1.2 seconds faster?

    Donâ(TM)t get me wrong⦠faster is always good⦠but the costs⦠some people spend more money on overclocking gear for there machine then it would cost to just buy the faster processor in the first place. There is also the noise that all this stuff generates. I would much rather spend the extra money to make my computer more quieter.

    Just my 2 cents CDN (about 0.3 cents USD)
    • one of the best thing I see are the hard drive cooling plates. SCSI drives are still dang hot and cooling them is important in keeping that $250.00 18 gig hard drive working for more than 24 months.
      I just wonder about the effects of cascading these items.. can I add say 3 hard drive cooling plates on one system? or do you have to have 3 huge radiators hanging off the system?
      • You would have to do the math to figure it out.

        Add up the heat input into the system (in watts) from the 3 drives. Then find the specs on the radiator, which should be a graph showing watts dumped at different CFMs of air thru the radiator, as well as different flow rates of water, at different temperatures. The temperature will balance when the watts into the system equals the watts out of the system, so you solve for this equilibrium.

        To make a first order estimate: if you put in heat from 3 drives instead of one, you need 3 times the air flow thru the radiator to keep the same water temp., assuming the flow of water is still adequate to move the heat around without too much temperature rise.

        In practice, you may be able to live with the water temp rise created without increasing the airflow thru the radiator.

  • Water coolong - with salt water (Score:3, Interesting)

    by freeio ( 527954 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @10:57AM (#2778749) Homepage
    Many years ago I worked in a lab where shipboard sonar equipment was being built. Their cooling system for the high power units consisted of aluminum plates with embedded copper tubing carrying filtered sea water right through the rack of electronics. It carried away the heat quite well, but the whole thought of using sea water was antithetical to everything I would normally consider.

    On the other hand, large high power vacuum tubes have been water cooled for many decades. The most impressive were the vapor-phase cooling units in which the cooling was done by boiling the water off of the external anode of the tube. The steam was then condensed back into water in an outdoor cooling tower.
  • Looks like these guys in taiwan [senfu.com.tw] have been doing water cooling for amd processors for quite a while.

    Dont know how good it is, but this article has a huge peice [dansdata.com] (fnar)on how it all works if you're interested (its a bit old tho', May 2000 sometime according to google)...
  • Actually, if you use distilled water, you don't have much to worry about. Distilled water is a very poor conductor. If you were to use tap water(which has salt, among other minerals in it) then you'd be in some danger. It's the minerals that make water a conductor(albeit, a pretty poor conductor at that).
  • Watercooling could be a real nice way to have a fast but silent system. All watercooling kits I have seen yet, still have fans and aren't really silent. I would really like to spend $200 on a watercooling kit or case if I could get a system without fans and without the danger of damageing my hardware with leaked water. A water or oil cooled case that includes a fluid cooled powersupply would be really nice. I think there would be lots of firms that would spend $400 more on a silent system for there highly payed it-professionals because it makes them more productive.
  • Did anyone else notice, or was anyone else bothered by the fact that Tom's super-deluxe testing station has a Innovatek sticker on it?

    Innovatek is, of course, the brand of water cooler Tom found to be superior in his testing.

    Groovy.
    • Or are you suggesting that some one who spends all day with multiple PCs run an inferior solution? Tell ya what if I had unlimited resources I would contact Tom and ask him what he runs for his own system. Think about it. Course, then again if I had unlimited resources mayhap I would have better things to do then sit in front of a puter all day.
  • I don't feel that the conclusions reached by Tom's Hardware are quite fair. Yes, the Innovatek coolers cooled better than the Swiftech models, but not by all that much. It may very well be that the Innovatek has better quality hardware as well. However, I found one key element missing from their tests. They posted no accoustic measurments, even though they posted a picture of their "sound level meter". If the Swiftech kit can cool better than the premier aircooled device, but do so without a fan, that sounds like a good deal to me. I would also like to see the prices of the various systems.
  • Innovatek is a popular name, but this [innovatek.de] seems to be the web site for the manufacturer referenced in the article. The English version isn't ready yet, so be German or be Babelfish.
  • With the price of CPUs being what they are, why would anyone overclock? If you motherboard can handle it, just spend the $67 and buy a faster CPU.

    Once before, you could buy a $200 celeron and make it run as fast as a $800 pIII. There was really something to be had there. What are you going to do today, make a $60 CPU run as fast as an $80 CPU? What's the point? Why don't you just get the $80 CPU? I'm sure your mom will give you the extra $20.
  • Anyone who's owned a car KNOWS that it's only a matter of time before their cooling system springs a leak. Granted the conditions under the hood are quite a bit more demanding than inside a computer; but the fact remains the same-- IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.
    • one of the people I work with has a water cooled athlon system. He was worried about the same thing. Pesky Leak. He looked at the inside of the case and looked to see what would get dripped on if it sprung a leak. There was alot. But, if you tipped the tower on its side the only thing water would hit would be the plastic door. So that's what he did. He runs his tower on the side *just in case.*

      The only problem that he had so far was scummy water. Something was growing inside the system. Fixed that pronto.
    • By your post I can tell your not a mechanic, I was. I can tell you that while yes a cooling system on a car will eventually leak but you have to remeber that this is compleatly diffrent from a water cooling solution.

      In a car you have a closed loop system under 13-18PSI @ 212-240F at highest non-engine damageing tempatures. Most common failures in modern cars is the platic tanks on the radiators cracking. This doesn't count on vibration, contstant heating & cooling, & lack of proper maintance.

      Hell the rad hoses on my saturn have 120,000 miles on them. Why? Because I know I have to change the fluid, see anti-freeze eats rubber and alunimum when it gets old. Hence the reason you change it. My old lynx was 15 years old and had 290,000 miles before the engine went but had factory hoses on it.

      Anyway I guess the point I'm getting at is there is a huge diffrance between a car cooling system and a computer cooling system. While some people will disagree, I can tell you now your not takeing your computer down the road @ 65mph, with an engine speed of 3100rpm, with potholes all over the place. With your car you are, and that's alot of wear and tear.

    • With "IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME" as a qualifier anything is possible (It's only a matter of time before you fond yourself spontaneously transported to the surface of the moon). Also remember that automotive cooling systems are pressurized, run at 150+ degrees F, have to deal with constant vibration, and still go years without leaking. I'd say that your computer is almost certain to be landfill before it leaks with a really well engineered water cooling system.

  • What's wrong with Tom? I believe he neglected to use fans on the swiftech kit, and it still came close to performing aswell as the other kit. What's that tell you? Tom never does proper reviews on watercooling. If you want real information head to www.overclockers.com or hardOCP forums.

  • Koolance (Score:2, Informative)

    by SmackDown ( 246562 )
    For $200, just get a Koolance [koolance.com] PC2-C case. Cools perfectly, huge capacity, pre-assembled solution. I got one a month ago, and it is wonderful. Plus, it comes in a very nice-looking case, with a space for the tank, radiator, fans, etc very nicely planned out. Plus, they offer hard drive and video chipset coolers as add-ons that you can simply put in-line.
  • I am looking at installing a vary cheap water cooling system, the trick is to use a vary large heat sink, in my case this will be the Mediterranian. I am installing a PC in my boat for Navigation and Entertainment. The almost limitless supply of cool water is too good to resist (Plus no fan noise if I can work out how to get +/- 5v and -12v from my boats 12v DC system). Maybee I will have the first salt water cooled PC :-)
  • USD200 for a cooling "solution" that does worse than a good old fashioned heat sink and fan? Check out this link [lostcircuits.com] over at Lost Circuits [lostcircuits.com]. I could /.'ed any of the many roundups out there but randomly chose this one. The best performing heatsink kept their test chip (a 1900+ overclocked to what should be around a 2000+) at 46C at full load, and that cooler runs for about USD72. Heck, for a top of the line (for the moment) Athlon XP 1900+ you're putting out about $250 and going a step down saves you USD60.

    If we were still in the days when major steps up in CPU speed were measured in the hundreds of dollars then these coolers would be a good idea, but we're not anymore. Buy a decent heatsink and a couple quiet case fans with filters and you're far better off in the long run.

    • The thing you are missing is QUIET. I have one of those 1.4G AMD space heaters, and I looked at review sites and picked up a high performace copper heat sink with a 8K fan. It does keep things cool, but at the cost of 47dB. Way too loud for me. I'm playing with some ducted 2x92mm aircooling right now, but may hit the machine shop again if I can't keep it cool & quiet enough.

      My older 566/800 is watercooled - modded the CPU, PS, HDD, and Video card - and you could not tell if it was running (without looking at the NIC card). Not something you take to a LAN party - but really nice to work in the same room with for hours at a shot. As a side bonus, the temps stay cool enough that it makes the box super stable.

      If you buy a kit, expect to spend 200+. It can be less if you can roll your own. In practice it ever seems to work out that way, however...
  • Okay, is it just me or does anyone else get suspicious of graphs that only show ONE axis?? I'm assumeing that the x-axis is supposed to be wattage produced by their mock cpu's, but what's the scale?

    Hell I might even be wrong, for all I know they're measuring body temperature over time as the tester realizes he's fried another cpu due to faulty cooling.
  • That way i dont have to worry about leakage from othar than my memory all the time. Residues inside the pipes may be able to fry your cpu over time aswell. Besides, with cpus running at 2.2 Mhz, isnt the biggest speedblock right now the pipe between the cpu and the periferals? No big gain to have a cpu that runs circles around the mem/hd/internet connection is it?
    • ...and then what do you do with the heat the peltier adds to the mix? All a pelt buys you is a cold plate to chill your cpu with but it costs btu's to do that.

      Eventually, you're going to have to dump the heat to the room - water does it better than fans + heatsinks. Quieter as well.

  • Water cooling (Score:5, Informative)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Thursday January 03, 2002 @01:53PM (#2779804) Homepage Journal
    Water cooling is interesting, solely because water has an extremely high specific heat, relative to many other liquids and solids. The specific heat is important, as it is a measure of how much heat is required to raise the temperature.


    eg: Many metals have a specific heat in the low hundreds. Water is in the mid-thousands. So, a one degree celcius temperature change in the water is in excess of a 10 degree change in the metal.


    (This is why water-cooling is popular. Not because water is magic, but because finding a liquid with a lower freezing point and a comparable specific heat is a royal pain.)


    Typically, what someone would do is add something to the water, to lower the freezing point. This almost invariably lowers the specific heat, too, but it's a decent compromise, usually. The water is then piped over the relevent components, dragging the heat with it. The water is then cooled by a second cooling system, often freon-based refrigeration. This takes the heat from the water, and (hopefully) gets rid of it fast enough.


    The science of heat transfer is not impossibly complex, but it's not trivial, either. The heat and the specific heat are what are important. The temperature is merely a function of these.


    (This is why liquid nitrogen sounds good, but isn't really used much. The specific heat is too low, so the temperature rises comparitively quickly. Useless for cooling, unless you have a LOT of liquid nitrogen and are piping it at a decent pace. That makes the pump more expensive, for a start, and would make it essential to use large reservoirs, which you'd need to keep refilling.)


    Talking of cooling, there's a pelzier device over on one site linked to from extremecooling.org, which has a delta T of 140 degrees celcius. It's cheap, too. Dragging that kind of temperature off a chip could make cooling -seriously- fun. Again, you'd only need water cooling, to transport the heat, but you'd end up with a chip temperature about that of liquid nitrogen, without the expense, hastle or complications.


    Oh, one other thing. Condensation is a killer, when supercooling. Usually, overclockers seem to just waterproof the relevent chip, but heat doesn't stay put. It dissipates. This means that heat will flow from hotter points to colder points. Which means that any water vapor in the air is not guaranteed to stay in the air.


    Three possible solutions to this: First, strap on some kind of air conditioner for drying the air, so that there is no moisture in the case to condense. Might work, provided the case was otherwise air-tight. The second option is to not have any air in the case, in the first place. Again, make it air-tight, then set up a partial vaccuum inside. If there's no air, then there's nothing to hold the water. The third option has already been given a Slashdot article, and that's to flood the case with a non-conducting medium that does not mix with water, such as mineral oil. This will keep the water away from anything vital, and might actually help with the cooling effort, across the entire motherboard.


    When dissipating the heat, however you build the case, don't forget to have a reflective surface between your dissipation system and the computer. Otherwise, half the heat goes right back into the case, and you're just baking the other chips.

  • I propose... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I propose a new topic for cooling. I enjoy hardware news as much as the next geek, but last thing I need is to see a Cooling-Story-of-the-Week. Please, 90% of us don't care in the very least, and we're the most hardcore of the hardcore. Make it a topic (icon possibilities are endless! think about it!) for this so we can filter it.

  • Innovatek fan looks like it has a wiring error! (Score:3, Informative)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @02:01PM (#2779848) Journal
    I'm not too sure I'd use the fan speed monitor that comes with the Innovatek... it looks like it could do some damage to a motherboard!

    This image [tomshardware.com] on page 3 [tomshardware.com] of the article shows a 4-headed cable. Two connectors form a short disk drive power supply extension cord, with the two outer pins (+5v and +12v) tapped off to supply power to the fans. This trick allows the fan to run off of 12-5 = 7 volts (uh, they messed up the math, calling this 8 volts). These red and black wires go to what looks like a male connector to go to the fan. Then, a yellow wire comes from the fan and seems to go to a motherboard fan connector. That's the problem.

    First, a little background. As I understand it, the speed feedback is essentially a switch that connects the yellow wire to ground two times per revolution. The motherboard must supply a little bit of power (in the form of a pull-up resistor) to actually get a signal out. This works well because, since the motherboard is supplying the power, it can make sure it doesn't supply too much voltage. If the chipset is 5 volts (impossibly rare nowdays), it'll supply 5 volts. If it's 3.3, it'll supply 3.3. This way, a fan can be used with any voltage chipset.

    Ok, the problem is that the ground pin of the fan is connected to the 5 volt power supply. This is the trick used to get 7 volts. The fan will spin and connect the speed feedback wire to the 5 volt "ground". If you've got a chipset that uses 3.3 volts (most likely), you'll be feeding 5 volts into your 3.3 chip - a big no no that could burn out the speed input or the chip (which probably handles lots of other functions you wouldn't want to lose). The voltage on this pin will oscillate between 5 volts and 3.3 volts - not the 0 to 3.3 it expects. If you have a 5 volt chipset, then this pin will oscillate between 5v (shorted to "ground") and, uh, 5 volts (pulled up by the chipset)... so, while not doing any damage in that case, wouldn't work.
  • now I just need to hook one end up to a water supply and the other to a coffee filter with an IV tube for that extra shot of high adrelanine computing :)
  • Mineral oil, distilled water, etc... Why not go all the way and hook up a car radiator to the CPU? Cool it with anti-freeze (ethylene glycol), and cool that with air run through a radiator. It's extremely efficient for cars, so why not chips?

  • I watercooled my work computer, runs great.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Thursday January 03, 2002 @04:23PM (#2780783)

    For anyone who's interested in watercooling a work/production machine, I had great results and gained a LOT of stabilty. Just be sure to install a GFCI on the outlet! The importance of this isn't mentioned in a lot of the commercial kits and could be a life-saving precaution.

    The URL to the install, where I got it, how I managed to make it all fit inside a standard mid-tower case along with 4 hard drives and 2 cdroms, etc, can be found at: www.nyx.net/~smanley/watercool [nyx.net]

    Definately a great learning experience!

  • Overclocked it to 25MHz.
    Doubled the speed.
    Didn't make it run any hotter.
    The 286-12MHz is Bill Gates' favorite chip, afterall.

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