Part about watercooling that drives me MAD!

[Alan McCloskey]

Well after some much required research and frustration I have come to a conclusion that has turned into the water cooling road block. I believe this may apply to most if not all the people who wish to get the best results with water cooling.

Now lets think about what we more or less require for water cooling our pc's.
Hoses, pump, rad, waterblock, coolant, rad... I could go on and be more elaborate but those 6 things are pretty much the required unless you do the submersed method of cooling your computer.

when you have those 6 things installed and running, great. Your computer is now water cooled. no matter if you go with really expensive parts or if you luck out and get some cheaper parts that work the same. Your going to end up with similar if not the same results varying from computer to computer based on there power outputs.
Unless your willing to spend(I could be wrong) 600 to 1500 buckarooes for just the cooling system with some fancy freezer cooler from a refrigerator or that phase cooling technology. IT'S JUST NOT REASONABLE!!!

So in the end, we have what I call... "The Average Joe Dilemma"
This applies for me and well anyone who's not willing to spend there savings on there computer. (I will admit, I have spent ALOT of money building my system and having my toys along with it)
But how can I get better results with those 6 things without spending a bundle?

I think I only have one option. Peltier Junctions. They are cheap and they turn to frost in 30 seconds. I can't tell you the actually numbers simply because I did not keep a record of them.
There is a problem with this though. They require a power source. Fortunetly you can use a 12V line right out of a computer power supply. If you have a really powerful one in your computer already you can use it. If not you will have to get a secondary one and pull the old Green wire over ground maneuver to get you started. I personally have been using a second power supply for as long as I can remember to power fans, lights, and even a peltier junction which I was using in a different method to use on my own water cooling.

Unfortunetly the peltier was not being used to directly cool my Processor's but to cool the coolant in my system. This proved to be VERY inefficient.
I tried VARIOUS ways to use the peltier to cool my coolant efficiently. However in the end it was a lost cause.

So my conclusion to this long and tedious read. EBAY!!!!!!!!! BUY A PELTIER. I just found one that will cost my 5 dollars canadian. To buy a water block with a peltier already attached is a very good idea as well.

I can't avoid this simply because I want better results. Don't get me wrong, you can stil get great results using a standard method, but nothing special. When it comes down to it... a VERY high quality air cooler can achieve near the same results.

Agree or Disagree, it's not matter to me, I just need to voice my opinion.

[Alan McCloskey]

One great product that just came out is CoolIT's Freezone, which is an all-in-one peltier/watercooling hybrid. Not only is it much simpler to install than watercooling, but it is significantly cheaper than the $1000 you were quoting for watercooling hardware. In my tests, I was able to cool my E6600 to 15 degrees C!
The Thermal Control Module is supposed to keep the peltiers from getting too cold (and thus forming condensation), but I've had condensation build up on the peltiers when running full blast.
If the $400 pricetag is too much, you can look at CoolIt's Eliminator, which can be found online for $150, which is the same basic concept, but uses only 3 peltiers (instead of Freezone's 6).
There are a few drawbacks to consider, though. The fan is rather noisy at full blast, but you could easily replace the noisy 92mm fan with a 120mm fan (using a 92 to 120mm fan adapter). The unit only cools your processor, but CoolIT is working on a system that will cool your graphics card, too.
Using a standard peltier directly on your processor is kinda dangerous. It's hard to keep the peltier in check, else condensation will form right on the block, right next to your motherboard. Also, if the peltier malfunctions (or you don't have adequate air cooling) then the peltier can get so hot that it fries your CPU. Using a peltier on the coolant itself is alot less risky.
There's nothing wrong with air cooling, though. One of my favorite air coolers is Zalman's CNPS 9700 NT. It is very quiet and cools my E6600 to 35 degrees at idle (41 at load), which is alot better than many other air coolers (and alot cheaper than water cooling).
So if you're fed up with air cooling but aren't quite willing to go full-blown watercooling, then you might try one of these TEC/Watercooling hybrids... you'll also get cooler temperatures than an expensive watercooling setup, too.

[Alan McCloskey]

Chibi,
Check this review out concerning water cooled vs air cooled.....it is a great read. I was debating what I should do but after reading this review I am now reconsidering my options for my new system build in the first half of next year. I am waiting for the release of AMD's new platform, and as Alan stated above I was going to get the CoolIT's Freezone cooler but now reading both reviews I have time to consider what to do. But Air is cheaper and just as good...well better in some cases concerning a water cooled system.
Just read the review, let me know what you think....

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling...oc.aspx?i=3097

AMD....Well.....maybe3 is better than 2 or is it better than 4 or maybe .......WTF......lets just release it... now its a BIOS nightmare .....

[Alan McCloskey]

I read that article and it validated what I've been thinking. Air coolers are not always noisier than water coolers, and some can cool just as well.

The best air cooler I've used so far is Zalman's CNPS-9700 NT. It cools almost to the level of water-coolers and is very silent, even with the fan running full blast.


In theory, the performance of air coolers can be compromised when your case is polluted with heat from high-performance cards. I normally didn't worry about this, but my new 8800 GTS can get up to 169 degrees F, which will certainly increase the ambient temp inside my case.

Water coolers may be less affected by your case's ambient temp

[Alan McCloskey]

What you have to realize is that "water cooler" are really just air cooling. The heat is still evacuated from the case using air. True liquid cooling solutions dump to facility cold water, like the Cray X1E.

[KillerCroc]

I've often considered Peltier cooling but I haven't found a satisfactory solution to prevent condensation - seems if you run the peltier "hot" enuf to cool the CPU it causes too much condesation; run it too "cool" and you might as well re-install an air cooler. Any thoughts?

[W3AP0N]

You can knock down the cost of watercooling considerably if you DIY some of it and do a little extra parts shopping (or just find someone who has done the parts shopping and still has the links...)

Very extreme DIY route: built my own waterblocks (one peltier block) with copper bar from onlinemetals.com, insulation and tubing from mcmaster.com, mounting hardware from mcmaster.com, pump is the same I have used forever (original model of a rainbow lifeguard quiet one - the pump that apparently never dies or gets tired of my crap), heat exchanger is a converted heatercore with a weapon shroud (either a dual 120 or quad 120 per side core and shroud...I don't make them or sell them for the time being so I am not pimping my own gear here ) and a solid copper res 3" diameter (built this as well).

Very extreme DIY Supercooling. All of the above with a slight larger (longer) and more insulated 3" diameter copper res but with a tube evaporator (solid copper) that runs to a 115ac Danfoss compressor/condenser unit. With the right coolant mix, it will do better than -40c.

Less radical approach.
Factory built blocks, Laing H2O pump, tubing and any other needed fittings from mcmaster.com, heat exchanger = a modded heatercore, t-line instead of a res.

One of the main benefits of watercooling is the ability to move all the heat out of the case (provided it is setup correctly) especially if you are using peltiers. Of course peltiers have their own set of problems: you have to insulate everything (neoprene around the socket and back of the board, conformal coating on the board and all around the seams of the socket, dielectric grease in the socket and usually a conformal coating on the surface of the processor just to be safe) and the power requirements often require an additional and some what expensive power supply (depending on the capacity of the peltier). Of course, the same problems apply to chilled liquid cooling plus you have to insulate the tubing. The insulation issues also apply to straight/direct phase change systems.

The most insane cooling system I've built consisted of all of the above and it was a PITA x 10 to put together and almost as bad to maintain. It was direct phase change (R134a + R290) on the CPU and water + peltiers on the gpu and northbridge. I had to coat the entire board with conformal acrylic lacquer coating and conformal silicone coating, fill all the sockets and slots with dielectric grease and neoprene essentially everything. When I first tested it, I never considered the cooling effect making it through the insulated board and all the way up the DDR -- condensation formed on the outside of the copper heatspreaders on my OCZ DDR despite the fact the memory was hotwired off the 3.3v rail. oops...luckily, I caught it in time and nothing fried.

If you have eons of time to waste - take up DIY phase change cooling. There is a ton of stuff to learn and you can spend hours just sorting through the different refrigerants....you get to play with torches and glowing, red-hot copper a lot as well.