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BachOn

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Aug 4, 2011
OK. I admit it. I was unfaithful and went to another site. I saw a discussion where someone wondered "aloud" if we’ve reached the peak of progress in watercooling. It started me thinking - a dangerous thing, for sure!

First, the major issue that every watercooling project has had to accept is that no matter how good your radiator and fan system is, it is currently impossible to get the liquid in your reservoir lower than the ambient room temperature. The best we can hope for is to get the water temps down to something very close to the room’s temperature. Currently, it appears we are stuck with that limit. But cooler water has greater potential to cool our chips.
I’m wondering if there might be any ways to overcome this limit?

People willing to invest in refrigeration systems like the VapoChill systems can reach temps much lower than the ambient temperature of the room. As a result, they must deal with condensation. But these systems are allowing for huge overclocks – much greater than even the best watercooling system. Cooler temps create opportunities for greater overclocking.

Let me toss out a couple of iinitial hair-brained deas for giggles and maybe a little discussion:

1.A swamp cooler (Bing’s Bong) approach: Could something like this be used to cool the water temperature in a watercooling system? Example: a mister sprays water onto the fins of a radiator. Fans blow on the radiator – as in a conventional watercooling system. Would there be greater cooling within the radiator as this water evaporates? This water would be totally separate from the fluid in the loop. Problems, why sure – but think about this. What was your initial reaction the very first time you heard someone talking about watercooling a computer? Right! Is it a hairbrained concept that could ever be made to work?

2. Could an electronic TEC cooler (a Peltier device) be used to chill the water used in a watercooling system? A conventional radiator would still continue to be used. But maybe TECs could be used to lower the water in the loop even more. Maybe the water could be chilled in a separate chamber by TECs before before returning to the reservoir; cooler water = better overclocking potential.

Note: As an example, I have an ice chest that plugs into the cigarette lighter plug of my car. This thing uses a Peltier device to cool the interior of the ice chest. You put no ice in it. It can easily reach temps of 33-36 degrees.

I don’t claim that these ideas are easy. But often the practical issues can be solved if there is real potential for success.

Anybody feel like tossing in their thoughts? Think of this as an unmoderated BS session of brainstorming. How 'bout it? Are there any crazy wild-eyed ideas you've had?

If not, then this thread will die a quiet death. No big deal. :p


BO
 
We've gone over the TEC + Rad thing. It is a bad idea, as the TECs suck huge power, but more importantly, the ambient air is working against the TEC. You essentially will get almost no benefit, and the TEC will suck massive wattage, and dump serious heat into the air you are using to cool the RAD.

Swamp coolers offer marginal improvements over traditional loops if executed very well. Combining one with a traditional loop is a cool project perhaps, but it makes things a lot more complicated for also nearly zero benefit compared to a well configured traditional loop.
 
I.M.O.G.,

I certainly agree that TECs really suck up the amps. My ice chest draws 6 amps. But it really cools down the contents of that ice chest.

You say it is a bad idea. And that's probably very true. But do you have a good idea for getting the water below ambient temps? You're focusing only on the problems and seeing the negatives. Is there a way to make the idea work?

Swamp coolers used to be the only version of air conditioning available. Then what we now know as air conditioning was developed. And it is far superior. But, again, is swamp cooling possible?

BO
 
1) I think this may be adding too many steps to cooling the processor and would have higher temperatures than just running a normal bong setup. I'm sure it could work, but I don't think it would be worth it.

2) I agree with IMOG, for the risk and power draw, it isn't really worth it. If I had to absolutely use a TEC to cool my system, I'd rather bolt it to the processor and water cool the hot side of the TEC. This should be the most effective. If you exceed the capacity of the TEC, in which case you have a run-away effect and the whole thing overheats. You also have an increased fire risk due to the TEC itself and the extra load on a power supply.

If I wanted to go sub-ambient, I'd just go with a phase change unit. :shrug:
 
I guess the real question is whats the realistic 24/7 benefit of running a cpu below room temperature?

most cpus fail far above ambient isn't the goal to keep them below a failure level?

the goal is 24/7 stable isn't it that's what i get out of your post.

unless your talking for benching and obviously we have already delt with that with short term solutions.

If you wanted to run say a vapochill setup 24/7 you could take some time and have the entire board / cpu / vapochill unit dunked in epoxy or a sealant of some sort to avoid shorting due to condensation of course this is a permanent ordeal.

There are already components that come from factory's sealed like this for use in corrosion heavy environments btw.

just to add.

another solution is to have a self contained sealed case being fed a Air conditioned environment with a refrigerated cooling system 1-2 *C above the air conditioned environment to avoid mass condensation.
 
Sure, the TEC thing should work, and there are a couple good ways to try to go about it in my opinion.

One is a dual loop. One loop for the hotside, one loop for the cool side. Use 2, 3, or more 226W TECs, and sandwich all TECs between 2 custom waterblocks. On the coldside, its just tubing and waterblocks to cool your components. On the hotside, its just tubing and radiators/fans. Keeping the radiator/fans on the hotside means your air cooling portion isn't working against the cold side.

The other way is very similar, except the TECs are attached to a resevoir, and the hotside is handled with air cooling or a secondary loop. Same as the other situation, the air cooling portion is only active on the hotside, never on the coldside.

In both situations, you'd want to insulate the tubing and blocks, as they'll get below the dew point (condensation) when the system is idle if you've done it well. You'll also get better performance if you use more TECs at lower power than fewer TECs at higher power - run 226W TECs at 50-75% their rated wattage with enough to hit your target cooling capacity. They operate at better efficiency that way, so they generate less wasted heat per unit of cooling capacity.

The problem with TECs in modern systems is that the heat output in the cooling loop is so much larger than it was 5 to 10 years ago when TEC's were more popular - back when, you could just smash a TEC between the processor and your cooler, and you are rocking... Now it is fairly easy to exceed the capacity of a single TEC so the whole setup is a bit more complicated. To get good subambient temps you need to use multiple TECs, have a dedicated PSU for them, and handle more than twice the heat from the components alone. That's a lot of heat dumped somewhere, usually your room.

Swamp coolers work. They get decent temps, they can be a bit complex, and a bit noisy, and require higher maintenance. Several examples of ones that have been done and worked well. It takes work though, especially without an autofill system, as they depend on evaporation and dirt in the loop is also something to address.

I think for these reasons, and the importance of convenience and reliability for daily rigs... The popular thing to do now is dry ice or liquid nitrogen for subambient, or phase change/cascade though thats less common for various other reasons. A LOT of people doing far subambient cooling now compared to 5 years ago. And it gives ridiculous performance while using it compared to only marginal improvements for subambient... Its a hobby in itself, overclocking just for the sake of overclocking and seeing how far things can go. What is reasonable or convenient, or even what hardware survives, isn't part of the equation for that sort of stuff.
 
defying condensation in general would just be costly no way around it tbh
 
Okay, great point in your post Bachon. Once you have been around for a few years, hang out on a few leading 'cooling' forums, you have read others experiance in these many varied cooling methods. So of us really need the lower temps or just have the bg to try different things.

Watercooling simply is cost effective and is low noise. At the expense of the initial cost. Easily $300+ for a CPU/GPU setup, maybe I need to add another + to that.

Vapoichill premade setup is pretty nice. Till you have to insulate the mobo/GPU, the sockets including the PCI, make changes that ruins any chance of RMA, your hoses etc etc. Then the sucker ain't that quiet. Also adding the energy the Vapochill needs to run. It increases the ambient room temp because it takes extra energy to chill the water (physics isn't free) and the added energy costs. Look up the amp draw of a vapo at max load.

Bong coolers need a cooling loop (the bong) and a seperate heat transfer loop where the rad etc is put into the cooler liquid. Evaporation in a swamp cooler is how it works. You also need to keep nasties growing, the chemical you use is released to the air as water vapor. Your room humidity climbs, cooling is less effective, and you can (has happened) have bad stuff in your lungs.

TEC cooling is pretty neat. But been proven to be a waste of $300++ electric bills. Material science ain't there yet. 40 amps of power and blown boards and CPU's, you can afford that leading edge?

You been reading a lot, good for you. But once you have a 1000 hours of being a forum junkie, your just doing the noob thing. Dreaming of the 10000 mile electric car. Physics and material science isn't there yet. You have learned new terms, but haven't read the accounts of folks in the trenches.

We got a Bonger, with major issues in the forums. Find read the LONNNNggg reply and post issue, just start at the bottom.

We's glad your here, you very inquisitive and have generated lots of fun discussions, keep it up! I don't mean to beat you down, but I always been a realist, and considered a valuable addition to many focus groups.

I know when to raise the 'bullshoot' flag and time members on meeting inputs etc. In my blood, but I feel focus and friendship can be 100% opposite and it hapens, but we achieve our goal. I'm here to build you a respectable OFC watercooling system. The rest is fluff and of no issue.
 
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I've spent my fair share of time drooling over various sub-ambient cooling solutions. Phase change is super hardcore, and very DIY, with people getting HVAC licensed to so they can buy refrigerant. I could see getting into that. I've seen guys who just take apart an air conditioner, stick the cold side into a bucket of water + antifreeze, and use that for their reservoir. I even saw one guy who used an office water cooler :rofl: This all could be a lot of fun.

I ended up concluding that sub-ambient is just not for 24/7 use. There are the condensation issues and the ridiculous power draw to start out with. But beyond that, there's just no reason for it. A good ambient-temp watercooling setup is very sufficient to run any hardware at any overclock you could want -- until you start pushing voltages so high that you'd kill your hardware by running it 24/7 anyway.

It's great for hobbyists and for benchers, but just not practical. Nobody drives a Lamborghini to the supermarket.
 
I've fiddled with sub-ambient cooling. No refrigeration or anything like that.

My first: A 5' bong got me to 5°F below ambient water temps. It worked great, as I designed it to take several gallons in reserve (fill once daily).
That got tedious.

My second: I tried adding a TEC to my line returning to my computer from my external heatercore.
Nothing special or high-powered...3 5watt little ones the size of a postage stamp.
It took a whole 30 minutes for the line to ice shut and water flow was stopped completely.
Temperature differential was that day's lesson. It doesn't take long for 35°C water to start forming ice when it contacts a sub zero surface, even at speed.

My third: I drilled holes through the floor, and hung my heatercore in the basement, where it's always ~52°F. My water delta temp dropped 20° right along with it.
That's when I built my Super System, using a much larger truck radiator down there.
The huge rad was efficient enough to keep the water at 1° above basement temp, giving me a room temp @idle processor (no small feat with a Prescott!).
To foil condensation, I built a custom air-tight case with my old heatercore inside of it to cool the case air to ~54°F.
Twas a thing of beauty.

That's when mITX's came along and I discovered a slashed electric bill. :D

Ask around enough, there's been all sorts of things actually tried by the membership here.
 
As a follow-up, when you say we've "reached the peak of progress in watercooling", I have to disagree, at least with the undertone of that statement. Here's my point: most people buy the best components they can afford, take them out of the packages, plug them all in, and call themselves computer builders. There's little skill involved, much less creativity. With watercooling, a carefully-designed loop with well-placed fans, radiators, etc. will be a lot more effective and a lot quieter than someone who takes the same hardware and just throws it together with little understanding or forethought. Ingenuity has a quantitative payoff with W/C. Just look at the W/C pictures thread -- I always get a kick out of how creative some of those builds are.
 
Diggrr said:
My third: I drilled holes through the floor, and hung my heatercore in the basement, where it's always ~52°F. My water delta temp dropped 20° right along with it.
That's when I built my Super System, using a much larger truck radiator down there.
The huge rad was efficient enough to keep the water at 1° above basement temp, giving me a room temp @idle processor (no small feat with a Prescott!).
To foil condensation, I built a custom air-tight case with my old heatercore inside of it to cool the case air to ~54°F.
Twas a thing of beauty.
Click to expand...

Diggrr, you are the embodiment of what I was talking about in my previous post. I've always dreamed about doing something like this when I have a house I can destroy. Using your heatercore "in reverse" to cool the air in the case -- that's brilliant. Do you have a link to pics of that build?
 
On #1: Yes. That in fact is what the turbo era F1 cars did with their charge coolers.

#2 has been fairly well gone over at this point.
 
Some interesting context, OP; both of those methods of cooling used to be much more common, but have fallen out of favor as the TDP of processors went from ~60W to around 200W. They're much harder to execute on a six-core Sandy Bridge E than they were on a single core AMD Thunderbird. :)
 
I actually miss that one. Always performed nicely, no matter the system. Easily adapted from AMD to Intel. Impossible to leak.
Wish I could find it, thought about buying another from fleabay.
 
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