- Joined
- Mar 15, 2004
- Location
- Hidden Mountaintop Research Lab
Well if you have reached this far you must be interested in some of the ways that people have found to cool their PC's. You probably know about heatsinks, fans, and possibly that people can water-cool PC's but what else is out there? Well if you do enough digging you will find that there are a lot of differen't types of cooling being used on today systems. Nearly all newer components are putting out more heat and thus requiring large bulky heatsinks. I believe this post is a nice primer for those looking into other cooling methods but are unaware with what is involved in setting them up, we start at the beginning and go into some rather extreme methods, I hope you enjoy.
Passive: Usually just a hunk of aluminum or copper with fins. No fans to drive the movement of air. About as basic as you get, you will see this on older chips and some North Bridges on motherboards.
Passive: Usually just a hunk of aluminum or copper with fins. No fans to drive the movement of air. About as basic as you get, you will see this on older chips and some North Bridges on motherboards.
- Advantages: Simple, no moving parts, noiseless, and cheap.
- Disadvantages: Cannot handle a large amount of heat.
- Required Materials: Heatsink, possibly some thermal paste.
- Price Range: $0(cut up some old ones) to $50.00
- Example: Zalman ZM-NB32J Passive NB Cooler
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- Advantages: Common, relatively cheap, and moderate performance.
- Disadvantages: Low limit on cooling potential, can be loud.
- Required Materials: Heatsink, fan, thermal paste.
- Price Range: $10-60.00+, depends on quality and fan combination.
- Example: Thermalright SP-97 (Socket A)
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- Advantages: Better performance, quiet, fun.
- Disadvantages: Can be costly, risk of hadware loss, moderately difficult to setup.
- Required Materials: Waterblock(s) (CPU, GPU, NB, Ect), Pump, Heater Core/Radiator(s), Tubing, Distilled Water, Fans/Shrouds (For any radiators) Anti-Corrosion/Algae Additive, Hose Clamps, T-Line/Bleed Kit/Resivour (Can be Optional).
- Price Range: Average $120-150 but can be MUCH higher.
- Example: Project: Flush Zero
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- Advantages: Very quiet, can acheive moderate to great performance.
- Disadvantages: Extremely difficult to setup.
- Required Materials: Same as basic water-cooling without fans and shrouds.
- Price Range: $100+ Depending on method used.
- Example 1 (No radiator): Ron Wlock's Passive Water-Cooler
- Example 2 (No pump): The 'Convection Plant' Prototype
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- Advantages: Ability to achieve great temps depending on enviomental conditions (works best in low humidity)
- Disadvantages: Can be noisey, requires a moderately powerful pump in most cases, may dislike look of tower.
- Required Materials: Same as basic water-cooling without the radiator and the inclusion of a cooling tower.
- Price Range: $50 (tower alone)-$250
- Example: Wes Bower's Cooling Tower II
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- Advantages: Sub-zero CPU load temps, quiet.
- Disadvantages: Condensation, huge power requirement, moderately difficult to setup.
- Required Materials: Appropiate Peltier/TEC's. a second PSU, an insulation kit, basic water-cooling setup.
- Price Range: $100+ (TEC's & PSU)-$250 (with water-cooling setup)
- Example: Dr Rom's Peltier Cooling
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- Advantages: Can reach sub-zero temps.
- Disadvantages: Condensation, can be difficult to setup, may take up a large amount of space, and large power requirement.
- Required Materials: Inline cooler (Usually TEC based) or refridgerator/air conditoner guts.
- Price Range: $100+ (Fridge/Air Conditoner)-$250+ with the cost of the water-cooling stup included.
- Example: Stevo's Water Chiller
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- Advantages: Possible -50C temps, commercially available.
- Disadvantages: Very expensive and large power requirement.
- Required Materials: None if commercially bought, if DIY: Refrigerant gas, compressor, condenser, evaporatpor, capillary tube, housing, and HVAC training (reccomended).
- Price Range: $800+ (VapoChill LightSpeed)- 1,160+(Promethia Mach II GT)
- Example: VapoChill PE
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- Advantages: Able to achieve -111C Temps.
- Disadvantages: VERY dangerous, extremely difficult to build/setup, condensation, very expensive, large power requirement, and huge size.
- Required Materials: Twice the materials it takes to build a single phase-change system. HVAC training and other various related materials are required in almost all cases.
- Price Range: $1000+
- Example: Dual Cascade -111C Cooling Unit
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- Advantages: Insanely low temps.
- Disadvantages: Not sustainable, hard to obtain, difficult to setup.
- Required Materials: Liquid Nitrogen, large open space, Heatsink/container, insulation, and guts.
- Price Range: $125 (LN2 heatsink/conatainer), $2/Gallon for LN2
- Example: 5Ghz Project
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- Advantages: Ability to use unique combinations, gaining expierence with differen't cooling methods.
- Disadvantages: May be difficult or expensive to setup.
- Required Materials: Nearly anything
- Price Range: Depends on cooling methods used.
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