new interests in waterblocks

[The Overclocker]

i have noticed that after hoot's article on the four (more like 3 and a 1/2) waterblocks, there has been a large interest in the Gemini waterblock, and also to a lesser extent the spir@al.
The veiw of the majority is that spiral design is a good one which makes blocks like that better then the rest, this is not true. When the designes are consided with the three most improtant factors, flow rate, surface area and turbulance.
The spiral design is starts to look poor, not because it is small, because it does have lots of surface area. But because the design of the channels means the water is constantly turning and has no sharp bends, this mean there is a sever lack of turbulance. The Maze and Swiftech waterblocks do have added turbulance, the maze has it every corner and the swiftech has it everywhere, especially over the core where the water comes in.
I think the main factors here is, as Hoot sugested, the hold down devices. There is nothing wrong with the swiftec hold down devidec, because Swiftech also make heatsinks which have given them the edge over hold down design because the heatsinks they use are very heavy.
I remember when i first made a hold down for my becooling jagged edge waterblock, the temprature was around 28 degrees celcus. when i redesigned the hold down to use rubber washers instead of springs so i could increase the presure, i also added a shim to avoid any breakages.
after that my temprature droped to 24-25 degrees.
If the maze2 had a better, or stiffer hold down then it would have won. it has the largest surface area and also has more turbulance then the Gemini or other spiral designes.

mabey they should be retested with the hold downs at full presure and the cpu with a shim (it will not affect results because all of the waterblocks are using them and the results are only afected when a fan is use because it prevents air cooling the temprature diode)

 

[michael westen]

hhmmm maybe the spiral block's work's so fine because it IS one corner the hole way and spiraling so the angle change all the time cosign turbulence
but I never seen any calculations ore simulation on it so what do I no its just what I think of it
I only no that if we measure the gas (m3) at work we have a what we call a measure street and it need's to be around 30x the pipe diameter in lengt to get writ of most of the turbulence

 

[Tecumseh]

First let me conjecture that the Maze2 could probably
use a shim. OMG...Shim???. Yes, a shim. Why is
that? IF you look closely at the mounting you will see
that is is very possible to get the block ****-eyed
ever so slightly. The forces cannot be easily balanced
over the die. Now if you use a non-conductive,
anodized aluminum shim you are increasing the
spanning distance out to the edge of the CPU.
This would force the WB to "square" with the die
when force is applied. -------Anyone having strange
behavior with their DD Maze2 should try the shim
trick.....What? Real OCers don't use shims? Nooooo,
we use whatever will work.

 

[Tecumseh]

Remember that turbulence is a function of fluid velocity
and not just obstructions. The "little" gemini works great
because the water is moving thru the spiral fast enough
to cause turbulence. In Hoot's test the "big" gemini didn't
do any better that the little one. Yea, it had a lot more
surface area, but it looks like the tradeoff was less
turbulence...thus it was a wash at the flow rates tested.
It's more complicated that that, but close enough.

Are we close to the endpoint in WB evolution? No,
not by a long shot.