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What are the levels in CPU coolings. EX: 1-Liquid Nitrogen, 2-Liquid cooling, 3-Air..

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x-Max

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Nov 29, 2005
What are the levels in CPU coolings. EX: 1-Liquid Nitrogen, 2-Liquid cooling, 3-Air..

I'm curious to know what the stages or evolutions are for CPU cooling. Another words, it starts with Air cooling, then it moves up to liquid cooling, and that's pretty much all i know of. I know there is liquid nitrogen, but that's just done by reviewers and experimenters who want to see how far they can go.
 
There is no real 'ranking' if you want to get into nitty gritty. There are some heatsinks that get beter results that water kits, but if forced to i would go:

Heatsink.
Heatsink+fan.
Heatsink, TEC + fan.
Water.
Evaporitive.
Water w/ TEC chiller.
Water w/ TECs on blocks
Water (fluid really) w/ phase chiller
Single stage Phase.
Dual stage Phase.
Dry Ice.
Triple stage phase.
Liquid Nitrogen.
Liquid helium.

Did i miss anything?
 
dont think so, but i was under the impression that LHe2 was simply too cold for our equip to run. i would love to be proven wrong however, seeing the chip at ~-220C would be absolutely marvelous lol until then, i guess im still impressed with LN2's -196C

Careface*
 
Careface said:
dont think so, but i was under the impression that LHe2 was simply too cold for our equip to run. i would love to be proven wrong however, seeing the chip at ~-220C would be absolutely marvelous lol until then, i guess im still impressed with LN2's -196C

Careface*
no, i think it would still run at that, but LHe has such a lower heat capacity that it's not as practical as LN
 
Superconductivity becomes an issue with Helium. I don't think transistors will hold up at temperatures much lower than those that can be obtained from LN2.
 
Phextwin said:
There is no real 'ranking' if you want to get into nitty gritty. There are some heatsinks that get beter results that water kits, but if forced to i would go:

Heatsink.
Heatsink+fan.
Water.
Heatsink, TEC + fan.

Evaporitive.
Water w/ TEC chiller.
Water w/ TECs on blocks
Water (fluid really) w/ phase chiller
Single stage Phase.
Dual stage Phase.
Dry Ice.
Triple stage phase.
Liquid Nitrogen.
Liquid helium.

Did i miss anything?
Personnally I would switch those two.

And isnt the official name for the multi stages a Cascade? Im a total extreme cooling newbie so maybe there is more than one thing so I dunno.
 
pik4chu said:
Personnally I would switch those two.

And isnt the official name for the multi stages a Cascade? Im a total extreme cooling newbie so maybe there is more than one thing so I dunno.
Cascade = 2+ stages. It's more technically specific to list it as double or triple stage (even quad stage...)
 
ziggo0 said:
What kind of temps do you see with a heatsink + tec/fan combo?
depends on a lot of things. Strength of pelt, strength of cooler, heat output of CPU. With a weak pelt, you might even see worse than air temps.
 
What is the tec in "heat sinc and tec/fan"

The list seems to be on par with some other that i found after posting the message. I just dont see how some people go to such extremes. But why dont they build refrigerator cases. Litterall like a mini refrigerator that you install all your components into. And when your system is off, then fridge goes off. When your system is running on low power, then the fridge will run on low power.

One solid design of such would be amazing.

But yeah, what is the tec in "heat since and tec/fan".
 
x-Max said:
The list seems to be on par with some other that i found after posting the message. I just dont see how some people go to such extremes. But why dont they build refrigerator cases. Litterall like a mini refrigerator that you install all your components into. And when your system is off, then fridge goes off. When your system is running on low power, then the fridge will run on low power.

One solid design of such would be amazing.

But yeah, what is the tec in "heat since and tec/fan".

All of the "phase change" systems listed ARE refrigerators essentially.. except instead of cooling a huge box all of the cooling capacity is directed toward the specific thing to be cooled. a "fridge" box will cool next to nothing compared to systems such as these.. I'm sure a standard freezer doesnt get much colder than -10C under next to no load.. imagine with your computer inside heating things up quite a bit.
 
yes but think about having a freezer case that used phasechange to cool the CPU, and allow the excess cooling to cool the air inside the case. only problem would be watervapor condensing inside the case. if it was airtight then it might be possable to remove the watervapor prior to cooling.....

anyone think this would work?
 
I guess it makes sense. Having cooling focused on what needs to be cooled rather than the entire system probably makes perfect sense.

But i still think a fridge with built in phase change that cools the neccessary components would be interesting.

But i also cant imagine that developers havent already thought of this.
 
b1029384756 said:
Superconductivity becomes an issue with Helium. I don't think transistors will hold up at temperatures much lower than those that can be obtained from LN2.

Yes, silicon doesn't become a conductor at wild temps. I presume the field effect transistors might start to experince a little something else.
 
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