Portable AC to Cool Multiple 480's

Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
602
Guys,

Anyone using a portable upright air conditioning unit near their system to cool thier room down while gaming with multiple GTX 480's or similar to dissipate the heat. I was looking at getting one of these to put in my office where my monster system will be churning out 200 degree temps and thought this might make things cooler.

Good Idea or Not?

Thanks,

DC :cool:
 
you'll have to watch the humidity and check the water levels. Most of those stand alones have a little bucket for draining water and will turn off when full. Some have a an optional pump that can be used to pump water out... much more convenient...
 
yeah, being we have 2 AC systems in our house I was going to see if I could just lower the temp on the one that is for my office and see if that will do the trick. If our bedroom though, which is also running on that system gets to cold for the Wife, I may look into one of these.
 
Are you going to cool just the room? If your using it to cool the room an keep the room at like 68-70 you should be fine. Watch what model your getting, some have a decent condensation tray, and some are crap. I use to have one, I used for my pc area also, worked great, and even helped lower my temps.

Good Luck!
 
Guys,

Anyone using a portable upright air conditioning unit near their system to cool thier room down while gaming with multiple GTX 480's or similar to dissipate the heat. I was looking at getting one of these to put in my office where my monster system will be churning out 200 degree temps and thought this might make things cooler.

Good Idea or Not?

Thanks,

DC :cool:

sense your still on air go for a drier house mod (ugly but it works) and just vent the hot air outside or you just going to be crazy with the power bill. and I doubt that one of those units would work well enough to over come the space heater that is your machine (tri sli 480GTX is literally as hot as a small space heater). even a wall mount is going to struggle. (remember its harder to remove heat then to generate it)
 
sense your still on air go for a drier house mod (ugly but it works) and just vent the hot air outside or you just going to be crazy with the power bill. and I doubt that one of those units would work well enough to over come the space heater that is your machine (tri sli 480GTX is literally as hot as a small space heater). even a wall mount is going to struggle. (remember its harder to remove heat then to generate it)

A 480GTX is no where close to a space heater, a space heater is generally 1500W, 3 GTX480s are about 900W worst case :p his whole Comp is most likely going to average around 1000-1100W load,so you're looking at what, 3700BTU of heat? my bedroom has my machine, with 5970 and an i7 920 @ 3.8ghz, it used to have another machine along with it, and a 12,000BTU in window unit, doesn't even struggle, add a 30" monitor, to the bunch.

Air or Water will both fail, if the ambient temperature in the room is too high.
*fixed*
 
Last edited:
What do you mean by two AC "systems"? Does that mean window units and not central air? I don't know what your office looks like but you could try placing your computer on a table near a window air conditioner so that the cold air blows at/around it, or just so that it blows towards the intake fans, anyway. Or if you have central air then place it near the air outlet so that the intake fans will suck the cool air up.

No, it's not easier to remove heat than generate it. Air conditioners and heat pumps use less power to move heat than it would take to generate that heat, which is why heat pumps are common for light heating duty in, say, the southern part of the US. And I have a Hallowell Acadia in my home which is a heat pump / AC unit that has some technology to still keep it pretty efficient even when it's below freezing outside.

You can try pumping computer exhaust heat outside but it's going to just get replenished by air from somewhere... Meaning outside...

DVX, most of the electricity turns to heat. Other than that which turns to mechanical rotation (HDDs, fans) and lights and such.
 
now you know the world is phucked up when people resort to using a dedicated a/c system for their video cards.......lol............
 
now you know the world is phucked up when people resort to using a dedicated a/c system for their video cards.......lol............

I've seen talk on this board and other boards about this before, and about putting a PC in a refrigerator before, and don't forget Vapochill.
 
Yes, I use an LG 9000btu portable A/C to cool my room from the 4x480GTX's, 2x280's, and 1x260 running in my room.

It keeps my room around 79-84 F during the day.
 
Yes, I use an LG 9000btu portable A/C to cool my room from the 4x480GTX's, 2x280's, and 1x260 running in my room.

It keeps my room around 79-84 F during the day.

What size is your room? 9000BTU is a lot for most rooms. I assume you're keeping it on a low setting or you have a rather large room.
 
Portable ACs are never as effective as window-mounted ACs (it's not even close). If you do get a portable, get one with dual hoses. Some portables only have one hose that blows hot air out the window, creating negative pressure in the room - which means it will suck hot air into the room from the surrounding rooms.
 
A 480GTX is no where close to a space heater, a space heater is generally 1500W, 3 GTX480s are about 900W worst case :p his whole Comp is most likely going to average around 1000-1100W load, and not all of that electricity will end up going to heat. so you're looking at what, 300W of heat? my bedroom has my machine, with 5970 and an i7 920 @ 3.8ghz, it used to have another machine along with it, and a 12,000BTU in window unit, doesn't even struggle, add a 30" monitor, to the bunch.

Air or Water will both fail, if the ambient temperature in the room is too high.
a small space heater (not a full size one, I said small) is around 500 to 750 watts. here I will even show you http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/productdetails.aspx?sku=998956923&source=GoogleBase and that is a pretty good comparison to tri sli 480GTX. I am not even counting the rest of the equipment. that room is going to be pretty toasty when he is gaming.

and yes all that power is going to heat, where else do you think its going to go? into the ether? even the light from his monitors is going to end up as heat.

I don't think a portable AC is going to cut it here. at least a good wall unit like you had.
 
a small space heater (not a full size one, I said small) is around 500 to 750 watts. here I will even show you http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/productdetails.aspx?sku=998956923&source=GoogleBase and that is a pretty good comparison to tri sli 480GTX. I am not even counting the rest of the equipment. that room is going to be pretty toasty when he is gaming.

and yes all that power is going to heat, where else do you think its going to go? into the ether? even the light from his monitors is going to end up as heat.

I don't think a portable AC is going to cut it here. at least a good wall unit like you had.

Sorry confused myself, my small $20 space heater is 1500w, so not sure how much smaller/cheaper it can get. ended up typing that message over a few minutes of start and stop :D

it's not all that much heat, 1100W ~ 3700BTU, I have a wall unit in my office(not bedroom), and I have a portable in the living room, which also had an HTPC, and a 50" plasma which can put out around 500W, the portable is 15k BTU, and it can keep the living room / dining room / kitchen @ 22-23c without any issues with the TV / comp running.

either way, if you're really worried, setup water and run the hose to a rad which sits in your window?
 
Sorry confused myself, my small $20 space heater is 1500w, so not sure how much smaller/cheaper it can get. ended up typing that message over a few minutes of start and stop :D

it's not all that much heat, 1100W ~ 3700BTU, I have a wall unit in my office(not bedroom), and I have a portable in the living room, which also had an HTPC, and a 50" plasma which can put out around 500W, the portable is 15k BTU, and it can keep the living room / dining room / kitchen @ 22-23c without any issues with the TV / comp running.

either way, if you're really worried, setup water and run the hose to a rad which sits in your window?

I have actually considered doing that. I wonder how much an open system like that would run to operate. either that or install an wall unit like you have (I would have put it on a different breaker) but I can tell you this, with central air, I have to have a fan blowing in my office to help circulate the air out, esp by the time I have two or three rigs going. in my last place I actually installed a drier vent with a fan on each end to vent my case outside during the summer. dropped my bill considerable. (to be fair my unit was pretty old and probably a power hog)
 
I had to move my machine out of my bedroom because of what it did in there. You could walk out of the room for a while and back in to notice an extreme difference in temperature. It truly amazed folks to aren't normally into custom computers. I had a thought of the same idea with a portable AC, but I was satisfied after moving it into the dining room with a ceiling fan. It connects to the living room, so the heat is not so concentrated in a small room.
 
I've got a space heater with a 600watt switch, a 900 watt switch, or i can flip them both on for 1500 watts. Even the 600 watt setting is enough to keep my room comfortable on most cold nights, so 3 480's can certainly keep a room toasty.
 
I always drop the AC to around 70F 30 mintues before gaming. Get the room nice and cool then boot up.
The room never gets hot no matter how long I play.
 
Make sure you get a model that doesn't need to be emptied. This is the one I have and WORTH every penny. http://www.coolerstores.com/commercial-cool-heat-air-conditioner-22283-prd1.htm

I have a watercooled rig (vid/cpu) so heat is worse in my game room.

The pros of having 2 480s for you will be not needing a heater for winter.
Portable ACs are never as effective as window-mounted ACs (it's not even close). If you do get a portable, get one with dual hoses. Some portables only have one hose that blows hot air out the window, creating negative pressure in the room - which means it will suck hot air into the room from the surrounding rooms.




Also look into getting a window mount one if you can. My game room is on the first floor so security is an issue which is why I got a portable instead. Anyone trying to break in your house can push in a window mounted one.
 
Theres a reason why this hasn't been done before. Its because you would fry every single component in your system from condensation. And damn dude.. this is like the 20 thread in 3 days you have started.
 
What about water cooling using a 100gal fish tank. when you want cooler temps just add ice.....
 
What about water cooling using a 100gal fish tank. when you want cooler temps just add ice.....
Why not just create a huge water loop with powerful pumps and a modified A/C unit to chill the water? :p

EDIT: That would definitely be an investment, as you'd just have to get new waterblocks for new GPUs. :)
Plus, whenever you want to game, you can brag about quad-SLI and some powerful and overclocked CPU all at an ambient temperature below 15*C. hahah
 
Yes, an AC can cool a computer room. You are the first to have thought of this. Just get a window unit if you can. They are much more effective.

ACs dump the heat waste outside. I think some guy in the early/mid 1900s thought of it.
 
I know a few people who run Window AC units in their bedroom/office for the heat. When you walk in you can feel the temp difference. In one situation my cousin actually watched a guy run small tube ducting to the pack of his PC. One end was attached to the PC the other end was attached to a fan system to drain the heat from his case & desk unit like a vacuum. You couldn't see the duct because of the large desk & book cases.
 
I know a few people who run Window AC units in their bedroom/office for the heat. When you walk in you can feel the temp difference. In one situation my cousin actually watched a guy run small tube ducting to the pack of his PC. One end was attached to the PC the other end was attached to a fan system to drain the heat from his case & desk unit like a vacuum. You couldn't see the duct because of the large desk & book cases.

that sounds a lot like my drier hose mod. works great. I think next year I will have to. I just don't like having my work space hot all the time (or having to have a fan.
 
Hear me out on this one, I think I have a winner. Use you computer to heat your water heater. Just overclock the crap out of your rig and you kill two birds with one stone.
 
What size is your room? 9000BTU is a lot for most rooms. I assume you're keeping it on a low setting or you have a rather large room.

My room is around 220 square feet. The A/C unit isn't as efficient as the window unit I used to have. But after I got new windows installed (pivot out casement style), I needed a portable unit. So I got a single hose A/C with a plexiglass window installed.

Also to note: my tri-SLI 480's are watercooled using a Feser Quad radiator with 4x120x50mm fans.
 
A 480GTX is no where close to a space heater, a space heater is generally 1500W, 3 GTX480s are about 900W worst case :p his whole Comp is most likely going to average around 1000-1100W load,so you're looking at what, 3700BTU of heat? my bedroom has my machine, with 5970 and an i7 920 @ 3.8ghz, it used to have another machine along with it, and a 12,000BTU in window unit, doesn't even struggle, add a 30" monitor, to the bunch.

Air or Water will both fail, if the ambient temperature in the room is too high.
*fixed*


I wouldn't be so sure about that. On air, those suckers definitely put out a tremendous amount of heat. Hell, prior to using an Accelero cooler on my 4870x2, it alone heated up my room a decent amount. 3 480's would definitely help compensate for the cold in the winter (almost a good idea if there was less concern about the high temps of the GPU).

I use an electric space heater in the winter and it uses about 750 watts, 3 480s would exceed that so it would definitely work effectively as a space heater.
 
Submerge your PC in A/C chilled oil (forgot what kind you're supposed to use).
 
I use a hydroginated oil cooling loop for my 480's. The oil flows from the video card's to a loop I made that goes through the bottom of the windows and out under the dirt in another loop to transfer heat to the ground.
 
Sorry confused myself, my small $20 space heater is 1500w, so not sure how much smaller/cheaper it can get. ended up typing that message over a few minutes of start and stop :D

it's not all that much heat, 1100W ~ 3700BTU, I have a wall unit in my office(not bedroom), and I have a portable in the living room, which also had an HTPC, and a 50" plasma which can put out around 500W, the portable is 15k BTU, and it can keep the living room / dining room / kitchen @ 22-23c without any issues with the TV / comp running.

either way, if you're really worried, setup water and run the hose to a rad which sits in your window?

A 50" plasma can really put out 500w? I didn't know it put out that much heat.:eek:
 
A 50" plasma can really put out 500w? I didn't know it put out that much heat.:eek:

Yeah, plasmas are power hungry. They have been getting less bad, but they're still hogs. But unless you have it on a LOT then it doesn't cost that much to run.
 
A 50" plasma can really put out 500w? I didn't know it put out that much heat.:eek:

Yeah, plasmas are power hungry. They have been getting less bad, but they're still hogs. But unless you have it on a LOT then it doesn't cost that much to run.

They don't always put out 500W, 500W is a worst case scenario, I think full White, where as for LCDs full black is worst case?

Average draw between a 500w plasma, and a 250W lcd tv, the LCD draws about 20-30W less hovering about 200W average for the LCD and 230W for the plasma?

something like that. but it "can" hit 500w
 
Yes, plasmas vary their power draw by screen content, and yes, full white draws the most power. Typical power is under half that. But they are still quite hungry compared to LCDs. But hey, I have a 50" Panasonic G10 plasma. I like the image quite a lot though it's a shame that the black level on these sets gets higher (worse) over time: /
 
I use a 5000 btu unit to cool my gaming room that contains

1. PC
2. Yamaha HTR receiver
3. 360
4. PS3
5. Wii
6. LG 32" TV

more than sufficient even with the PC, TV, Receiver, and 360 or PS3 on at the same time....
 
I've seen talk on this board and other boards about this before, and about putting a PC in a refrigerator before, and don't forget Vapochill.

Vapochill wasn't about keeping a room cool though, it was merely to maximize overclocking back in the days when it took serious effort to reach 1Ghz and that seemed like such a huge target. That's quite a bit different from thinking - "I'm literally going to need an AC unit to offset the heat from my stock videocard."
 
A vapochill dumps the heat from the graphics card and the vapochill's waste into the room. Exactly the opposite of what is desired. More heat. All too often we see people equate cooler components to a cooler room. Watercooling does not help your room (unless the rad is outside), and vapochill like any refrigeration system by not being 100% efficient, will always add heat as well. If not exhausted outdoors it is a heater.
 
Back
Top