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Hardware

More Cooling/Overclocking Fun 69

Posted by CmdrTaco from the its-all-fun-and-games dept.
heretic writes "Here's another construction article on cooling components down to -40. While not quite as insane as the mineral oil solution (heh), it's still quite extreme. For only $600, it's pretty neat that he can nearly double his processor speed. I guess these sorts of techniques will remain viable until we have massive N-way SMP. "
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More Cooling/Overclocking Fun More

More Cooling/Overclocking Fun

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  • I hate to kill the fun but... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With a trillion computers in operation, and the Internet costing a lump of coal for every 2 megabytes transmitted (source: Forbes), wouldn't it be more impressive to shower accolades on computers that use less power for *standard* performance? I mean, do we really need faster at the expense of greater cooling and less energy conservation?

    Slashdot never seems to bring this up, and yet cooling systems that rival refridgerators pop up every other day. Sigh.
  • Once you get to that point, you should switch to something like SGI's [sgi.com] crossbars and CC-NUMA arcitecture. Look at the architecture of the Origin 2000. Each Node board contains 2 MIPS R12ks, memory, and a router to talk to all of the other processors. The best part is, the memory is shared between all of the processors, so the whole thing runs as a single image. If you don't think this technology can be adaped to PC architecture, check out the SGI 320 and 540 class computers, Intel based but with a radically different "bus" that isn't really a bus at all.
  • AC is not a necessity, even if it's 110 degrees outside. Do you think all of Africa is equipped with air conditioning? Even in Greece, which is rich compared to Africa, the majority of people don't have air conditioning, even in the cities where it gets up to 120 degrees during the summer. Air conditioning is a luxury. Only a spoiled American would dream of calling it a "necessity."
  • Interesting that the previous post ("Why don't that fuker yze Linix!!! What a waist of some majer shyit!") gets scored -1 as a troll, while this, which has the exact same content phrased in a different way, stays at 1.

    Hmm.
  • What renders faster? an Empty-box (NT)
    Or a Linux-box?

    They render at approximately the same speed, with all other factors being equal.

    IS Linux faster rendering than NT?

    No.


    I would assume (yeah, dangerous I know) that he would
    be able to get the same savings and speed by running
    Linux as his rendering box. Not to mention how much more
    he would be able to take on after overclocking it at that point.

    That assumption is incorrect. Switching from NT to Linux would have almost no effect on the rendering speed. It would certainly not double it.
  • A/C is not a necessity right? Well, here in Phoeniz, AZ it *is*.

    Umm, not it's not. Even in Phoenix, it's a luxury. Many hundreds of millions of people live in hotter locales and do not have air conditioning.

  • SMP (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by Alonzo The Great:

    SMP has limitations. Once you get to a certian point you eat all your memory bus and can't expand any further. Dual Alphas is probably optimal. But to get the performance you want go to a multi *computer* architecture. I am investigating switching to a backplane system because I am sick of swaping out motherboards. Especially with intel's planned obsolessence. =( Concievably you could design processor cards that would have say 256 megs, and dual celeries that would be slaved off of your bus and you could run all your daemons and RC-5 off of them... =) It would probably use something similar to Beowolf.
  • Yeah. I read the article, and I've read the entire thing before. Although it may not have been linked to as an actual /. article, but as a link in the comments somewhere.

    Also, the version I saw was vastly cleaned up compared to this. I wonder if this is just a ripoff of that page...
  • For about $600 you could build ***Two*** K6-2 450MHz headless boxes to use as a rendering mini-farm. You could set it up to run Linux with Blue Moon Rendering Tools (BRMT) to accept jobs over the net from your favorite NT Modeling Software (if it is high end enough it will have options for submitting jobs, and if not you could probably hack a system via the use of scripts). You could administer the boxes with linuxconf web, a browser, and telnet.

    This setup will free you modeling station for creative work.

    But of course this will take the handyman do-it-yourself fun out of the equation.
    _______________________________________ ______________
  • I doubt that you would see any significant performance difference between Linux and NT for a task such as rendering, provided that you run the same software under both. The OS isn't particularly relevant to such CPU-bound tasks since its code simply doesn't get executed very much, assuming that nothing but the rendering task is running. There may be some minor difference in performance due to things like scheduler and interrupt overhead, but nowhere near the improvement you would get by any significant increase in CPU speed.
  • Ok, I'm getting sick and tired of people saying you can buy an Alpha 600MHz setup for the price of a P3. I want just a motherboard and chip, nothing else, and I want to buy one, not a 10 pack. Please give a URL of a company that is in the US. If such a thing exists, I would be suprised.
  • Wasn't this posted here about a month or two ago?
  • Have a look at the Compaq GS140. 8 Alpha 21264's on a point-to-point bus EV6 bus...

    Compaq are also working on even bigger 64+ CPU Alpha machines with by interconnecting EV6 buses with a switching fabric, ie sets of 8 CPU's interconnected via EV6. And 4/8/16 sets of EV6 busses interconnected...

    Switching fabrics are the way forward. Can't wait till technology from OC48 class routers get's used in PC chipsets!
  • How many alternatives? Uhmm... Alpha? For about the same or less money as a P-3 setup you can buy an Alpha 600MHz. Runs NT aswell. For a couple of hundred extra you can have a 667MHz.

    Or for the price of an AMD K6-3 you can buy an 21164A 533MHz and clock it to 600MHz...
  • you're sick? I'm sick that no-one listens and keeps buying high-end intel chips. People say that Alpha's are too expensive and yet will still go out and spend money on P-3's, or worse dual P-3's! Seems people still need to be educated as to the choices.

    re: your question, some of us aren't /lucky/ enough to live in the US, *grin*, but in britain you can buy a Samsung Alpha 21164A for £149, and a UX board (2MB cache, intg. net+scsi) for £452 from www.compusys.co.uk. All the Samsung 21164A parts (533, 600, 667) are from the same process so the 533 should clock to 600, even 667. If you really want to pay for 600MHz (silly), it costs £480.

    So 533MHz + UX = £600 -> $970. same price as a P-3 and cheap motherboard.

    600MHz + UX = about £200 more than a P-3 and expensive board.

    Prices in the US should be better than in the UK, check out www.alphalinux.org for links to dealers there. Or have a look on Ebay, there's people selling Alpha components there regularly.

    -paul.
  • I think we're talking about overclocked with a higher electricity bill vs. not overclocked with a lower electricity bill. I don't see where the OS fits in. Overclocked running Linux would be faster than not overclocked running Linux, the same way overclocked running NT would be faster than not overclocked running NT.

    Anyway, I don't think that the OS will have any significant effect on the machine's rendering capabilities, since the OS isn't used much for that. But even if it does, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

    ---

  • No one with half a brain thought the world was flat in 1492. However, Columbus did fudge the numbers quite a bit to get Earth's circumference small enough to make a westward route to the East plausible. If the Americas hadn't gotten in his way, his voyage would have ended at the bottom of the ocean.

    On the other hand, Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth to pretty amazing accuracy about 1,500 years earlier.

  • Hmm... couldn't you get another computer for 600 bucks, thereby increasing your processor speed as you set up a processor farm of cheap machines? .. and saves all that plumbing work too. Very pretty but not very practical.

    Sure it might be amusing to get a dual PII/620 machine going but I'm sure intel will be there soon anyway with room temperature processors and they'd probably cost $600 anyway..

    Still, that said .. well done to the guy for making it work.
  • Years ago, there was a company that was working on a cheap vector computer (crayette) based on CMOS chips cooled with liquid Nitrogen. They said that the CMOS chips ran substantially faster when cooled to cryogenic temperatures. Does anyone know what happened to that project?
  • There are such problems as heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and they do claim lives. The fact that your brother survived is beside the point - maybe he lived in a naturally cool region of Arizona or spent the worst of the day (working hours) in an air conditioned office. Or maybe he was just young and in good health. Anyway, Arizona is relatively dry, so by contrast to some regions, it's 'safe' heat - just drink a lot of water. In the deep south, the humidity reduces the ability to lose heat by sweat evaporation because the air is already near saturation. I have heard news reports detailing deaths due to heat stroke in the deep south during particularly cruel heat waves. I can't say the same for Arizona - which doesn't prove anything, of course, anymore than the fact that your brother survived one summer proves anything.

    Now, (and to bring it back around to on topic) you wanted to say that CPU super-cooling was not a necessity or that R12 Freon was not a necessity, you'd probably be correct.

    I do wonder, though, whether or not hotter climates make computer operation impossible... in which case A/C would become a necessity - for productivity, thought not for survival.

  • I lived in Texas during the early 80's heat wave (over 100 F for about three months, usually over 110 F). Aside from sleeping, I spent the entire time outside. Didn't even suck according to my flawed human memory. A/C is nice, but by no means a necessity.

    I was a dry heat though...
  • Could you be more specific on the source? 100 computers for every man, woman, child and fetus on the planet seems a little steep. Unless you're talking about the computer in my car, toaster and TV.

    Agreed on the energy thing though. The refridgerator is the most energy-intensive device in most homes. While computers have resulted in a drop in energy consumption as a whole (instant communications vs. snail mail/fax/delivery) they still have a long way to go before becoming true environmentally correct devices.

    The six computers at home running 24/7 is evidence of my hypocrisy.
  • It wasn't given a 1, it started with a 1. Go read up on the moderation system as it works here.

    ::runs off, mumbling about "fucking morons"::
  • As far as I heard, it was....it's now second to narcotics on the list of what is smuggled across the borders....

    You can use butane or amonia instead....but it's illeagal to use them in Canada & the US....the ammounts needed were hazzardous 40 years ago...refrigeration technology has improved, but the laws haven't caught up yet.....
    (where have I heard THAT before....)
  • But I think he has way to much time on his hands. Go buy an Alpha, get your favorite flavor of UNIX, and work on a real machine.
  • it's really great how people take the time to read articles before replying to them.

    --neil

    (ObContent: that was another zany cooling scheme. a considerably more zany one.)

  • While I always get a kick out of someone over-clocking there cpu to some extreeme point, using liquid cooling, I have to wonder about the longterm costs. It seems to me having a pump, air conditioning, or some gagle of women with fans would cost more over 3 months than a faster processor, and this is without considering the hours spent toiling away at such a project.



  • Wasn't the use of freon banned worldwide?

  • Old. (Score:1)

    by toolj23 ( 24597 )
    Hmm... this was on slashdot a while ago.
  • boo hoo.. let them burn.
  • Im spoiled. I use air conditioning even when its not blazingly hot outside.. I like to live at a constant 68 degrees all round. Im sorry if my air condition(ers) are killing you tree hugging hippies. My comfort is more important. Go outside and sweat and burn all youd like. I have nothing against that.
  • -40 heck, I'd settle for room temperatures under 100F. The building management shuts off the AC on weekends, I lost a 5 way stripe set and my Sunday to the heat.
    How about temperature tolerant computer gear?
  • High end xeon processor.
    Uhhh.... No
  • You'll have some 500-600 MHz Alphas, then you could put one of these cooling systems on it and possibly break the 1 GHz barrier before any consumer product is available.
  • You don't have to be licensed to buy anything but the one pound canisters actually, but the price of a 30 lbs canister is steep so it is not like the average joe schmo would buy it and just leave it sitting around.
  • Finally somebody who knows something, Schlumberger a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company is tossing all of their Alphas world wide because the support is shit and you can buld a better intel based machine. And no Schlumbereger is not an NT shop nothing critical runs on NT.
  • Been there done that with the Alpha.

    If I never touch an Alpha again it'll be too soon.
  • Well, for your average gamer that is more then true, but in gfx, where rendering takes massive amounts of time, small gain in processors can have a big diffrence in work output. for him, OCing is a hobby, and with it comes faster rendering, so he wins both ways. he gets to tinker in his hobby, and see an increase in work output.
  • I remember reading in a scientific magazine(unsure of the name) in high school. That CFCs from the freon and aerosol cans were not causing the hole in the ozone. They even found evidence that the hole existed several years before CFC were even developed.
    I'm fairly positive this is what was said but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.(I was over seven years ago when I read this.)
  • Just a quick note from an EX-mechanic.
    R-12 isn't illegal at all... You have to be licensed to get it is all. The reasoning behind that, is to educate all the mechanics on proper handling, and to keep the "Shade Tree" mechanics from letting it out into the atmosphere.
    Another thing, all they really did was stop producing R-12, but you can still get it in most all of your local parts stores. As a matter of fact, the demand has apparently dropped, since the price has dropped also. I have seen prices around $40 a can, and you can get it for about half now if you are certified.
    And why would the Govt do this to us? Well, it sounds like something to boost the economy to me (or at least that is what they would have you believe). Look at all the expensive new parts and tools being manufactured!!
  • I'm not sure I want Ammonia flowing thru my cars ventillation system...
    One thing is for sure, you would DEFINATELY know if there was a leak!!!
  • Not to mention the fact that when everyone uses air conditioning to cool their homes and cars the average temperature will rise causing other people to be 'forced' to use air conditioning. Seems like a ludicrously vicious cycle to me.
  • I have the update ready to that 6 month old story: Http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/rev iews/718/ , be the first to visit eh?

    Steve 'Supercoolin' Foster

    The peep who built the damn thing.
  • This system is four months old and was an very early prototype. With the aquisition of 'ES' samples of the PIII and a continual evolution of cooling system design and effeciency, the results have been staggering. Watch www.hardwarecentral.com for the Supercoolin to 1Ghz. Future - beyond 1Ghz. Everyone starts somewhere in the 'tinkering' and only your imagination is the limit if you only have half a brain.

    Conventional thinking is buy only whats out there. Real minds are never satisfied. Just think if Columbus had accepted that the world was flat, kinda like Intel wants you to believe they control how fast your computer will run.

    And for you Alpha freaks, mainstream program for program, perforance v $$, not even close, and never will be. Support is crap fo Aplha software and hardware.

    Supercoolin
  • Well, how many alternatives are there for dual 620 MHz PIII performance (to run NT -- ugh) at any reasonable price? I think the price penalty for production machines competitive with this overcooled baby is higher than you may think!

  • In some places, A/C is a necessity, especially in areas of the world that experience hi summertime temps.

    In a matter of fact, thanks to en nino and la nina, the tropics aren't the only areas that have to worry about heat waves. The temperature outside my apartment right now is about 110F degrees, which is above normal where I live(normal hi temps are in the mid-upper 80's, sometimes lower 90's, in the summer). Even with two fans, and the A/C, It's hovering around 82-84 degrees inside. Uncomfortable, but it's better than what's outside.

    FYI, the only way that the refrigerant used will get anywhere near the ozone layer is if it leaks out of the unit. If your A/C is leaking, you better have a technician fix it. The refrigerants that are used have a nasty habit of being toxic in large enough quianties...

    BTW, some time ago, I heard something about experiments in developing a cooling system that uses high frequency sound waves as the coolant, instead of the chemical coolants used today(I don't rember where I heard of it ,sorry). I don't know what came of that, but it would be nice if ultrasonic A/C's and refrigerators started appearing on the store shelves...
  • My older brother's live in AZ. One of them couldn't afford AC. It wasn't fun in the summer, but they survived. (They have AC now though)
  • Thats right. There is something wery much wrong with people who put down time,energy and money on things that are and will be totally useless. Of course if he does not have more of a life than that he might just as well put an end to it with a bullet....or maybe he could freezee him self to death.
  • Has anyone ever tried to use a sterling engine to
    cool a CPU? I know sufficiently powerful sterling
    engines can liquefy helium (~4 degress Kelvin I think?)
  • before the wide-spread use of freon in a/c. There also seems to be a problem showing a mechanism that gets the freon up there. And to top it off, ozone is constantly created and *destroyed* by UV, so there's a furhter question of whether the freon would even make a difference in the quantity present.

    And of course, these are all ignored by those rabbidly eager to ban freon, and taken as proof that there's no problem (rather than an unknown answer) by those against the ban.
  • It's a hobby. And a darn fun one at that.

    I mean, for all of you saying "he should've spent his money on an alpha", would you had rather loaded up a fairly boring page with pictures of an alpha box?

    Sure, the costs and time involved in putting together a system as he did are fairly high. So is buying one alpha or xeon processor. Plus you wouldn't get the fun factor and enjoyment from tinkering around when you just slap down a few thousand on a typical high end system. At the cheapest, overclocking means taking some $50 celeron processor and juicing it up (usually with a few fans and a peltier unit) so that it runs faster than a $400 processor. The -40 C goal is to take advantage of properties of CMOS components when they get that cold (there's a graph of potential speed vs temperature at the hardocp [hardocp.com]). Once you hit low enough temperatures, you have the possibility of doubling the clock speed.

    It's not going to be the same as spending $3000 on a high end xeon processor, but it's a lot more fun, something a lot of you are forgetting in the name of price.

  • That's an interesting point...
    Being able to take on more rendering projects would increase his pay... however...

    What renders faster? an Empty-box (NT)
    Or a Linux-box?

    IS Linux faster rendering than NT?
    I've never done any myself. (nor have I used NT)
    Does only M$ stuff run the rendering software He uses?
    I would be most curious to find out.

    I would assume (yeah, dangerous I know) that he would
    be able to get the same savings and speed by running
    Linux as his rendering box. Not to mention how much more
    he would be able to take on after overclocking it at that point.

    Just curious
  • the thing about overclocking is the fact that tommarow you can allways overclock the next proccssor... sure he can get Alphas, but he can apply his cooling system to the next generation of CPUs as well, and continue to Overclock them higher and higher. if he can allmost double his current clockspeed, imagine what he can do when 800mhz comes out running at current cpu temps, and he can achieve 1.4ghz by applying his cooling system to it....
  • The chiller and pump require 145Watts and the peltiers rewires 210W. At 7.6 cents per KW/hr. Running it continuously for thiry days will cost an additonal $19.45. Less than you internat service. And if you take into account the thirty hours a month that it saves you in rendering time at $45.00 per hour, thats a $1,330.00 dollar a month savings because you can take on more work each month. I who said speed doesn't pay.

  • Figurative, not literal, freon :) (Score:3)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Saturday June 05, 1999 @07:23PM (#1864964) Journal
    R-12 was banned (and all leave the debates about whether the science involved was schlocky enough to toss it to other sites :).

    We now get R134a, which transfers substantially less heat. Don't convert your old R-12 a/c units unless you have to; post-conversion, they don't cool as much. You need a heat exchanger about 50% larger to get the same amount of cooling, and there just isn't room for this in your car. Mercedes switched early, and the result (at least if you lived in the desert) was a $60k car that couldn't cool itself down to comfortable temps . . .

    Also, R134a has a nasty tendency that R12 didn't--under the right conditions, it can explode. Some time back, i read a snide op-ed piece suggesting an exploding refridgerator as the new symbol for the extreme-fringe of the environmentalists :)

  • Comment removed (Score:4)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday June 07, 1999 @11:34AM (#1864965)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

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