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How does liquid cooling actually work?

M

maime

n00b
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
2
Hi guys

I have a newbie question: how do you use liquid to cool your CPU? I mean, what kind of liquid do you use? I don't think it's water, because it would get hot pretty soon, I think. So then, what is it? I've heard of guys using liquid nitrogen, but isn't that expensive and dangerous? Or maybe it's just a myth...

So how do you use liquid cooling for your computer?
 
Distilled water with an additive. I personally use a little bit of antifreeze. Have been for 6 years now. Never had an issue. The radiator cools off the water.
 
water gets cooled down in a radiator. the benefit is that water has a much higher specific heat than air, allowing it to take away alot more heat energy before the temperature of the water goes up. with a good rad and decent flow rate its just a more efficient system.

an LN2 isn't all that dangerous. I used to mess around with it all the time in my research lab. nitrogen makes up 80% of the atmosphere, so its not exactly deadly. LN2 in computers is only for short duration bench-top speed runs since it'll boil off eventually
 
DriveEuro said:
Distilled water with an additive. I personally use a little bit of antifreeze. Have been for 6 years now. Never had an issue. The radiator cools off the water.
Click to expand...

that it what I have used for years, just recently switched to D water and silver
 
maime said:
Hi guys

I have a newbie question: how do you use liquid to cool your CPU? I mean, what kind of liquid do you use? I don't think it's water, because it would get hot pretty soon, I think. So then, what is it? I've heard of guys using liquid nitrogen, but isn't that expensive and dangerous? Or maybe it's just a myth...

So how do you use liquid cooling for your computer?
Click to expand...

Water has a higher heat carrying capacity than air, usually the advantage of liquid cooling is to spread that heat over a larger area. You can use say 3 120 mm fans, close to a fresh air source, as opposed to a single or par of fans on your cpu heatsink. It also can keep your temps relatively stable, since your temps don't start to increase drastically until you saturate your loop. However running furmark, and prime 95 concurrently can quickly saturate your loop.

In theory it will provide you lower temperatures, and lower noise. It used to be that it was by far the best option if you were after lower noise, in a cpu only scenario. However, Cpu cooling has advanced so far, that there is hardly a point to liquid cool for the vast majority of semi-enthusiasts. Although, liquid cooling will provide better temps for a normal overclocked i7, it will probably not do so at lower noise than a thermalright silver arrow. If you notice there is a point in an overclock that each increase in clockspeed starts to require a considerable ammount of power. In my case, I can clock my i7 930 at 1.16v for 3.6ghz using less power than I would at stock voltages and stock speeds. However, if I elect to go over 4ghz I will double my power consumption... 3.8 at 1.22v seems to be the sweet spot for me. 4.4 requires almost 1.5v, and an insane amount of power and heat. However at stock speeds, I'm not cpu limited in any games, so there's hardly a point for me.

Now if you happen to have say a noisy video card... then liquid cooling becomes a great option. An xspc rasa kit with a low resistance gpu block, or mcw60 with a heatsink is a great option to get into liquid cooling for under 200.00.

If you are considering one of the corsair kits, only do so if and only if, you cannot fit a large tower cooler. Otherwise there are plenty of options that will provide similar performance and stability at lower noise levels. The h70 can provide great performance but does so at extreme noise. Which for me is unacceptable.

Ultimately, it's sort of a niche hobby within the already niche enthusiast community, and it gets expensive quickly.
Spec out a Thermochill or similar Rad, an ek hf cpu block, a full cover gpu block, a laing ddc pump, a decent reservoir, tubing and fittings... and you'll be over 500 dollars before you can even blink.

In theory you can carry over your radiator, fans, fittings, pump, and some times your cpu block over various upgrades. In practice, when a new cpu block comes out and beats your cpu block by 4c, you'll probably buy it. it's addictive.





I think that, options such as the new silverstone cases with the vertically mounted motherboards really take alot of the necessity of liquid cooling for most people.
 
Dielectric fluid is another option... Feser One works well. Check out ++++.com for shipping to Canada.
 
Colonel_Panic said:
Dielectric fluid is another option... Feser One works well. Check out ++++.com for shipping to Canada.
Click to expand...
its a ripoff. deionized water is nonconductive too, but in the end its pointless since metals off all your fittings will leech into the water or "fluid" and make it conductive anyway over time. I checked the MSDS for feser one and its just DI water, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), a corrosion inhibitor and dye. Sounds like what most of us have been using in WC systems for years
 
Activate: AMD said:
its a ripoff. deionized water is nonconductive too, but in the end its pointless since metals off all your fittings will leech into the water or "fluid" and make it conductive anyway over time. I checked the MSDS for feser one and its just DI water, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), a corrosion inhibitor and dye. Sounds like what most of us have been using in WC systems for years
Click to expand...

thats halarious... i thought that it was something other than that such that dust and other minerals would not have as a disasterous effect if it leaked.

Personally my progression with liquid was initial research, boredom and demotivation, got it assembled, cool, started OCing. And now im tweaking my setup here and there trying to chase another couple degrees C so that i can juice some more clocks out of my setup.

Its good fun :)
 
Where'd you find the MSDS? I tried looking for them on a few of the snake oil coolants a while back but struck out.
 
Think of it like a boiler system in a house. You have a boiler that generates heat which makes the water in it get very hot. This water is circulated to various radiators, and because of the heat conductive properties of the radiator, the heat "evaporates" off of it. This actually causes the water to cool down as you cannot destroy energy, only move it, so when the water goes back to the boiler, it's cooler and has to be heated again.

In the case of water cooling in computers, the cpu is the boiler, the radiator is well, the radiator. It's shape makes it better at dissipating heat because of the fins and material. The fan on it helps speed up the process too.
 
DanNeely said:
Where'd you find the MSDS? I tried looking for them on a few of the snake oil coolants a while back but struck out.
Click to expand...
http://www.dangerden.com/store/files/images/water_add/FeserOne/corrosion/ex-liq-75.pdf :cool:

The good stuff (my comments in bold)
Section 2: Ingredients and composition:
Aqua Bidestillata (distilled water, they just put it this way so you think its something fancy)
Ethylene Glycol/ ethanediol (anti-freeze)
inhibitors (doesn't need to be more specific since its "trade secret", but probably a biocide and/or metal chelator)
UV pigment (self-explanatory)
Click to expand...

so yea, nothing fancy here
 
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