Giblet Plus! re: high vs low flow systems.

[bellevegasj]

Hey Giblet. I thought that you might appreciate a couple posts that directly relate to the whole 3/8 vs 1/2 tubing question. It's a lot to read, but well worth it.

First.

Second.

Third.

 

[[S]nt|Mods]

Hey Giblet. I thought that you might appreciate a couple posts that directly relate to the whole 3/8 vs 1/2 tubing question. It's a lot to read, but well worth it.

First.

Second.

Third.

I suppose he'll still visit to read through the threads but dont expect him to reply at least under that banned username. Good articles though.

-Dan

 

[bellevegasj]

Holy crap you must read fast. heh

 

[chriski]

ive read all them before,
ive got little time for the stuff off procooling, its hard to take the advice of people who make money directly off high flow setups, cathar sells his blocks, and billa works for swiftech or someone, etc - the whole site is sponsered by cooltechnia i think - i wish there was another site like it based towards low flow that was not in german, to actually hear both sides, biased of course then go away and make up ur oen mind.

all low flow ideas get flammed and insulted in a team gang up after a pleasant start ive personaly found, they have no appreciation of watercooling and good looks combined - its all tupperwear pots and beaten up old rads off a truck, ive been flamed for saying i want it to look good.

high flow is cheaper to set up and will knock a few degrees off what a good low flow can do, but will be noiser, less efficient and uglier normally, but beautiy is in the eye of the beholder, or some ppl just dont care aout looks.

but what it all boils down to is this.

if my cpu is at 35 c or at 38 c i get the exact same overclock and not a mhz more, and thats about the diff were talking, so i dont know why people even go on about it - its not like with high flow u get monster overclocks, compared to low flow - ive never understood it - ive seen arguments rage about it as if the differance was between water and phase change.

 

[Cathar]

ive read all them before,
ive got little time for the stuff off procooling, its hard to take the advice of people who make money directly off high flow setups, cathar sells his blocks, and billa works for swiftech or someone, etc

Interesting. Not sure that you had actually read them.

BillA does indeed work for Swiftech, but Swiftech's blocks are actually primarily 3/8" ID configured, and do tend to offer superior very low flow performance by the nature of their design.

For myself, I just research water-cooling technology. I don't actually make any money from the blocks that I sell. The money just pays for the research. If you actually looked the blocks that I made, you'd find that they tend to be of a higher level of restriction than what "high flow" calls for.

In fact, all this "high flow vs low flow" garbage really stems down to what pump and tubing people are sticking in the system. The research shows that there really is no such thing as a "low flow", or really "needlessly restrictive" optimised design. Even the so-called "low flow" blocks benefit from increased flow rates, or really from increased pumping pressures. The "low flow" blocks generally perform best when coupled with the exact same pumps that the "high flow" blocks benefit from as well.

Procooling is not for the disillusioned. The site is about actually measuring and verifying claims, rather than simply pushing any one flow-regime philosphy. The site is based around optimising every single aspect of water-cooling, from pump selection, to radiator design characteristics, to tubing size selection, and block designs that will benefit from such.

Procooling is not biased insofar that the site explores the limits of what's possible, with no delusions influenced by marketing that "low flow" or "high flow" is better. It's a site for the performance end of the spectrum, and the level of work there revolves around that philosophy. I think that if you take the time to look a little more deeply, that the majority of posts do NOT blindly push "high flow", but rather push for balance of design and the removal of non-contributory elements.

 

[stumpy]

Giblet is banned for the time being but I'm sure he'll be interested in the articles...although he claims to read procooling regularly so he may have already seen them.

 

[bellevegasj]

chris != Giblet. I don't remember ever seeing Giblet post there and wanted him to read this information.

The information on procooling is the best I've seen on the net so far. Every single person on there shows exact testing procedures and back up their claims with real numbers and proof. If they don't, there's dozens of people ready to flame away. I'm so sick of seeing these online reviews where every item reviews gets the sites sacred seal of approval. I'm tired of people making claims that x setup cools within x degrees of ambient without any proof or reasoning to back it up. You see this daily and accept it blindly. I find it hilarious that you would make these claims against the people of procooling for a couple reasons. Cathar has a real job. This is his hobby. He's an enthusiast that doesn't do it for the money. Obviously he has to pay for materials/labor/testing/etc. He makes the best blocks available, period. This helps the WHOLE water cooling community. You don't see him spamming message boards pushing his product. You do see him trying to progress all water cooling and make it better as a whole. BillA says that the Swiftech 6002-3/8id is better than the 6000-1/2id, ask him. That pretty much kills that theory. On the other hand, there's someone on this site that sells a product and pushes it here all the time. I read a post here by someone that bought some some items from him and his setup included a single loop and 2 $70+ reservoirs. Why not flame that guy?! Holy crap, you've got to be kidding me.

I really don't see how you could say that the site is biased either way. pH just tested a NexXos XP on the site. He tests all blocks from at the lowest reasonable flow to the highest. I found it extremely interesting that people call the Nex XP a 'low flow' water block, but it actually performs great, not at low flow, but at high flow rates. Without procooling, I would have thought that the Nex XP actually performed BETTER at low flow rates, but it doesn't, neither would that make any sense.

 

[stumpy]

On the other hand, there's someone on this site that sells a product and pushes it here all the time. I read a post here by someone that bought some some items from him and his setup included a single loop and 2 $70+ reservoirs. Why not flame that guy?! Holy crap, you've got to be kidding me.

The people who keep bitching about no reviews being available are people that aren't going to buy the products anyway. Why bother flaming someone who just wants to spend a lot of money on something HE likes? I understand if they're actually looking for opinions on the products, but most aren't and have already made up their mind...so unwanted opinions aren't appreciated.

And also, if you would take the time to read the aqua-computer threads, you'd see it's mostly information and questions about that particular line of products, not a 25 page sales pitch. The mods approve of SNT being able to answer questions about his products on this site, and that's it.

One more thing, procooling is an excellent site for watercooling resources....I do believe they do accurate reviews...however, you have to realize, not every thread in this forum is like that, and the aqua-computer thread does not have to be about reviewing and testing...hopefully at some point we will start getting some results back, but right now it's mostly setup and q&a.

 

[[S]nt|Mods]

I found it extremely interesting that people call the Nex XP a 'low flow' water block, but it actually performs great, not at low flow, but at high flow rates. Without procooling, I would have thought that the Nex XP actually performed BETTER at low flow rates, but it doesn't, neither would that make any sense.

I would have been able to tell you that block performed well at high flow rates since I have actually seen the NexXxos CPU blocks. The NexXxos SP and Pro are nothing more than low flow blocks due to the small ID of the inlet and outlet, the XP and XP Bold on the otherhand were designed to be more compatible with larger tubing setups like 1/2" ID. You could almost say that it was SNT's influence that got Alphacool to make the block in the first place (at one time we had a good relationship with them).

You may never see this block in large quantities in the US though because there is almost no demand for the XP Bold and the rest of the Alphacool line of products, which in my opinion are not well machined and poorly designed and constructed. I have about $1000 worth of waterblocks sitting besides me right now that proves that.

My hat goes off to the Alphacool NexXxos XP Bold though, one of the world's greatest waterblocks that just wont ever see the LEDs of your computer due to lack of interest.

And thanks for bringing me up bellevegasj, I really appreciated it.

-Dan

 

[chriski]

geeze i have a lot of replies to catch up on,

firstly hello cathar nice to meet you your blocks are fantastic, i have a lrww somewhere.

now your blocks - arnt they geared towards very powerful pumps for best results - thesedays i dont consider 3/8th small tubing if its getting a ton of power behind it, and also your blocks are not high flow, they rely on massive turbulence dont they from again , a very powerful pump - so i still have both u guys in the high flow category - at least i came to that conclusion with your mauling of pug of wizard, my idea of low flow is less than 3/8 really - low flow to me is a low powered pump.

i agree with u fully that low flow v high flow is ultimatley a pointless debate, the only gripe i have with pro - cooling is that they are very very set in there ways - i admire there full scientific approach - it has no peer.
i dont know if i started reading up on procooling at a bad time but the forums had loads of gripes with pug, now i understand your going for every degree temp drop, but other people arnt, its the hostility on the fourms that most angers me, there is no other point of view.

its not the site that angers me really so far as the forums, i apolgoize if i was took the wrong way.

and to everyone else i do aplogogize as i have not checked on pro cooling for about 6 months, i stopped going there out of digust along time ago, after it all got nasty about low flow.

looks like i hit procooling at a bad time, ill check back.

 

[chriski]

heheh bellevegasj, i missed what you wrote originally.

what most people dont understand is that people pay for looks and function
if i wanted i could pay for 10 phase changes, or a tank of flurinert - but i dont, i have spent 1300$ on german watercooling for one pc as i want the best for looks and to a extent performance, and the sad thing is i get flamed also by people out of sheer jealousy as they cant afford it, thats that attitude i got on procooling so i left.

you sum it up nicely

 

[Cathar]

now your blocks - arnt they geared towards very powerful pumps for best results - thesedays i dont consider 3/8th small tubing if its getting a ton of power behind it, and also your blocks are not high flow, they rely on massive turbulence dont they from again , a very powerful pump - so i still have both u guys in the high flow category - at least i came to that conclusion with your mauling of pug of wizard, my idea of low flow is less than 3/8 really - low flow to me is a low powered pump.

i agree with u fully that low flow v high flow is ultimatley a pointless debate, the only gripe i have with pro - cooling is that they are very very set in there ways - i admire there full scientific approach - it has no peer.

Hi Chriski,

I see the forums are finally back up so I can respond.

The blocks that I made never demanded strong pumps to perform well. Every block I've ever made has always needed just an Eheim 1048 in a well designed loop (meaning not having needless restriction points) to do well. What the "high-flow" vs "low-flow" debates were all about wasn't really Procooling peeps pushing high flow, but trying to explain that all waterblocks benefit from higher flow/stronger pumps. Procooling recently reviewed the Alphacool NexXxoS XP and found that it has just as much to gain from the use of stronger pumps as any number of other waterblocks.

Pug and I also sorted things out privately via email. We came to an amicable understanding and if you asked him about it I'm sure he'd agree that there's no bad blood about what went on six months ago. I certainly harbor no ill will. Pug got a bit of flack because he was proposing a system that was pretty much the same as any US manufacturer would propose, with the only small difference being the tubing ID size (8mm for Pug's system) vs US-size (3/8" or 1/2").

For me, I don't see things as "high flow" or "low flow". I see things in terms of the pumping power required to achieve a certain level of cooling performance, since people put pumps in systems. An Eheim 1048 can be both a "high flow" and a "low flow" application sort of pump, depending on how much resistance it works against. Can easily get >1.5gpm (high flow) flow rates with an Eheim 1048, or you can easily get <0.5gpm (low flow), depending on various factors.

The following graph, which was constructed with Procooling.com's independent test data, and analysed and proposed by lolito_fr, demonstrates waterblock cooling efficiency vs pumping power. Note that an Eheim 1048 applies around 1-1.5W of hydraulic pumping power depending on where you sit on its pumping efficiency curve. I believe the following graph perfectly explains the situation with respect to "powerful pumps" being needed for various blocks:

This of course brings up back to the issue of small and restricted tubing vs large and open tubing, or what many people mistakenly call "low flow" vs "high flow". If a system is plumbed with small and restricted tubing, the pump will be spending most of its available hydraulic power overcoming the flow resistance on the tubing, meaning that the hydraulic power available to make the block do its job is less, resulting in lower performance.

Now it is okay to use small diameter tubing, but only if the tubing is not needlessly sapping away hydraulic power that really should be spent on making the block perform well. It is this analysis that should be used to determine what is the smallest tubing size that you can get away with using if you're after the best balance of "looks" coupled with "performance".

At present, it really looks like 7/16" ID tubing with 3/32" wall thickness (or 5/8" OD) is actually a better solution than the really fat 1/2" ID with 1/8" wall (3/4" OD) that many people use. Tubing that large (1/2" ID) really is of no real benefit for almost all of the so called "high flow" blocks too, in terms of hydraulic power wasted/saved.