Full Immersion Cooling Comes To Desktop PCs

mr_sifter writes "After three years of research and around £100,000 of R&D costs, UK-based Armari has unveiled its XCP prototype. It's a full immersion liquid cooled PC which supports standard ATX components. Unlike conventional liquid cooled PCs, the components are all easy to swap in and out as they're swimming in liquid, rather than under waterblocks. It also looks amazing, pumping around 70KG of electrically inert cooling fluid (salvaged from an old Cray) around its military grade perspex shell."

Re:"You can't use water, of course"

[nycguy]

They used flourinert [wikipedia.org].

Re:Fluorinert

[dfn_deux]

Heh, looks like my recollection on the pricing is a bit off: 250ml for 555.35USD [artchemicals.com] at one retailer and 3Gal for 2,450USD [parallax-tech.com] from another.

Re:Been done before... what's original here?

[Chad Birch]

The summary said that the R&D costs were £100,000, not that it was the price of the PC.

I know, actually read the summary, must be new here, etc.

Re:Been done before... what's original here?

[Ian Alexander]

Um, it never says that the case costs £100,000. It says that bringing the case to completion took them that much in R&D. Making something is cheap. Working out how to make it right is expensive.

Re:Unrealistic

[VeNoM0619]

Apparently its approx $500 a gallon [octools.com] for the Fluorinert solution.

Once again, an article that sparks my interest, then someone comes along and destroys it with reality...

Re:Been done before... what's original here?

[PitaBred]

...right. OSHA totally rates mineral oil mist [osha.gov] as a 1 (slightly flammable). Mineral oil is even used commonly in HV transformers, which reach MUCH higher temperatures than will be experienced by even malfunctioning computer parts.

Re:Practical use?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

since when do computers get twice as fast every 18 months? That hasn't been true for a couple years.

Big deal...

[Pedrito]

This has been done before with fluorinert and mineral oil. In fact, there was a posting here on Slashdot [slashdot.org] back in 2000 where the guys did liquid nitrogen-cooled fluorinert. Definitely more cool-points (pun intended) for that.

Fluorinert is definitely a better choice over mineral oil if you ever intend on being able to upgrade or fix the PC, since fluorinert evaporates without a residue, but it's a bit pricey.

Re:Been done before... what's original here?

[MadnessASAP]

They don't, Mineral Oil is used in cooling large transformers though. And yes it is flammable and they do make a HUGE fireball when they blow up. Fortunately it takes some pretty extreme conditions to light it up like say a lightning bolt.

WTF is a KG?

[Anonymous Coward]

A KG doesn't exist. Neither a prefix of K nor a unit of G exists.

Re:Fluorinert -- heat capacity vs water

[electrostatic]

Water has the highest heat capacity of any common liquid. It takes more energy to raise the temp of a given amount of water one degree than for any other substance. High heat capacity is one reason it is so efficient for power generation and cooling.

For example, one BTU of energy raises one pound of water one degree F. In metric units, the specific heat of water is about 4185 J/kg/K (15C). Whereas the specific heat of Flourinert is about 1049 J/kg/K, or 24% of water. OTOH, Flourinert is about twice as dense as water (1.85). This means that the flow rate would have to be 2.25 (1/(1.85*.24)) times that for water to remove the same amount of heat, given the same temperature drop. I would have guessed that Flourinert would be a better heat remover at such a high price. It's utility comes from its inert nature in an electronics environment.

Deionized water is also a good electrical insulator as well as the best heat transfer agent. But with the wide variety of materials in a pc, some would dissolve and cause water to be conductive. Shorts.