Copper, Gold and Galvanic Corrosion - for a noob

I have a midly embarassing question -

Gold and copper have different values for the whole "galvanic ladder" thingy, but I also have read that gold is relatively inert, and seeing as I am relatively inept, I could use some help.

I am looking at having both copper and gold in a loop (the gold block is oddly the cheapest chipset block I can find...sadly I do need a chipset cooler) and am wondering if this is going to cause serious problems with galvanic corrosion.

I have searched a few sites but havnt found anything that answers the question directly and I'm not sure I trust myself to figure it out on my lonesome.

So, copper and gold, really bad, kinda bad or just pretty much "eh" in the same loop?

Thanks
Twill

i dont know about the corrosion part, but from what ive heard, if you get like the blue zalman passive heatsink it'll probably be still pretty close to temps that the water block would do, and be ALOT cheaper, im talking $10 cheap.

also what system do you have? it'll help alot of us create the perfect water cooling system for you, with very good performance and not such a high price.

also personally, i would try and stick with just copper in the loop, so that way you wouldnt have any chance of metal interaction

reading this:

http://www.overclockers.com/tips1041/

then finding those reduction rates in these charts:

http://www.jesuitnola.org/upload/clark/Refs/red_pot.htm

you get this equation:


Au + 3 Cu(+) ==> 3 Cu + Au (3+) galvanic potential of +0.06 volts

so the gold will very very slowly deteriorate, while the copper will very very slowly corrode.

its much better than the Al + Cu reaction, which has a galvanic potential of +3.22V

WCing ur block isnt really worth it if ur cooling ur video card and CPU also, I imagine it adds alot of restriction (small block?), and its not really worth it..

Thanks for the quick replies guys.

A little more info -

I'm running a shuttle SFF and am WCing for silence more than performance.
I have a swiffy MCW6000 CPU block, laing DDC and BIP2 so far. Will be adding a GPU block later.

The reason I am cooling the nb is not for performance but because of heat dissipation problems in such a small space with the amount of hardware I am putting in there - there isnt enough airflow to have a passive sink do much.

If anyone knows of somewhere I can get a cheap block to throw on that nb and is copper then let me know, because I will take anything that is easy to attach and cheap

The two I am considering just because they are cheap are :
http://sharkacomputers.com/ko18goplvgwa.html (gold)
and
http://sharkacomputers.com/ingrapvgacco.html

but not from those guys sadly, links just for ref.

If there is a better way to get that heat away, please let me know, I'm open to suggestions

Twill

why not just plate your copper blocks gold?

It would look blinging

Or you could just find a way to get the gold plate off of the other block