• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

copper vs aluminum water block

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

brojoh2

Registered
Joined
Apr 5, 2001
I'm looking for input on a water cooling setup . . . Leufkens . . . it comes with either copper or aluminun water block @ $10.00 difference (copper higher). Anyone have any input on the pros and cons of these two materials?
 
If I'm not mistaken, you want the water block to be made of the same material as the core in the radiator, to avoid electro-chemical erosion (battery effect).

Hoot
 
Hoot has the right idea. Copper is better at heat tranfer and has a good thermal capacity, but aluminum is not far behind in either regard and you will probably not see much of a difference between the two different metals. Minimizing the battery effect will reduce the possibility of complications in 6 months.

Run deionized or distilled water with waterwetter in a single metal system or run 10-20% antifreeze, waterwetter and DI/distilled water in a mixed metal system.
 
To add alittle more to Fink's idea on Copper vs. Aluminum...Aluminum has less thermal transfer abilities compared to Copper of the same proportions. Now to your question of what decision you should make in spending the extra 10 bucks...A couple things you need to look at: is A) What thermal load (Wattage) your dealing with in your current chip and B) What chip will you be looking at in the future....As an example on average the marginally overclocked Duron will radiate 50 - 60 watts from it's 90 sq mm die size, and the T-Bird is higher, but has a 120 sq mm die (which leads to less load per surface unit vs. the Duron with a higher load per surface unit). The idea I'm trying to give is that you should base your decision on what type of load you are dealing with (and future load you may deal with) which is proprotional to the clock rate your attempting to acheive. Personally I would feel confident in purchasing a copper setup simply because it's only $10 more in ratio with the performance over the aluminum you'll achieve in any setup.
 
Back