Chilled water vs phase change

[FrozenGPU]

I'm interested in stepping up to the top level of cooling but need some more facts before that happens.

Phase change cooling is the best but how does it compare to chilled water? Expense wise (I always have one eye on the electricity bill) which is cheaper to run?

[bias_hjorth]

Chilled water can be very very cheap.. Find and old fridge. Dismount it (the compressor etc) and ad it up in your h2o kit.. old fridge´s often come free... the "fridge" should be a tad cheaper 24/7-- as for cooling I would say around 10-20c worse than "normal" phase change.

[JWB]

You can also cool all of you components with a water chiller (CPU, GPU and NB) in on water cooling loop. Whereas direct die Phase change (which chiller water is really) you can only cool one thing unless you have more than one evaporator, which means two mach 2's (whatever you are thinking of getting) or a mod to it. On 24/7 you should get around $60 a month extra on your bill. This is why people have other every day rigs or do not leave phase change cooled pc's on 24/7. They (water chiller and direct die phase change) will cost around the same (see $40 above) because they use roughly the same parts (compressor, condensor etc). If you have the money go direct die phase change such as a mach 2 or if you havent and want to try your hand at it yourself a water chiller would be a great first step on to the custom build phase change ladder:D . For more inforamtion on any you should post in the chilled liquid or phase change forums. Good luck.

JWB

[berkut]

Let me explain it this way:

a direct die cooler is more specialized, its usually designed to cool only 1 thing, a cpu for example. It cools it very well, but can cool only it, point cooling. Heat losses are very small.

A chiller is very flexible. Sky is the limit and if you want you can even make a dehumidifier with it. You can cool as many warts as you want BUT:
- there are thermal differences between HX<>liquid
-differences between liquid <> block
- -----||----------------- block <>cpu where with a DD cooler you have only: refrigerant <> evaporator <> cpu
-much higher thermal load ccaused by bigger losses ((more surface to cool

All in all: if youre a hardcore bencher... make/buy 2-3 systems or make 1 for the cpu and a powerfull chiller for gpu/cpu/other or go with a mild chilled to ~-20 to -30C chiller

[JWB]

Yes sorry I did not explain that direct die will coll better than a water chiller. Roughly -30 for a good waterchiller compared to -60 for mach for instance (both at idle).

EDIT: You should listen to Berkut he knows what he is talking about.

[berkut]

We are not interested in idle temps. You'll get about -20C to -30C with a perfectly made chiller assuming you'ur cooling both gpu and cpu (pm Gary), and about -40 gpu, ~-45C with a lets say dual head cpu cooler. With chillers and right liquids you can do smth. thats called "jump benching" (im suprized nobody does this).

You have to make a chiller with a very large res, ~50-80l would be ok (lol, 80l of methanol in your room, LOL), tune the chiller up for ~-60C temps but a very low capacity. You cool the liquid down as much as possible. Bench. Cool bench. Actually the cooldown will take hours or even days but you can have a low budget supercooler.

[berkut]

Remember that when the temps go down more insulation is needed and the systems capacity lowers, thats why chillers a little worse in super low temps.

[JWB]

I know we are not interested in idle temps but could not predict anything else because we do not know anything about his system, either hardware wise or what he is aiming to keep it at. Also yes Gary (Gary Lloyd) would be a very good person to ask if you are having difficulties.

Is jump benching when you cool your liquid to the lowest temps it goes then turn the A/C off until temps rise until a certain temp 0C as an example and then turn the A/C back on again? If so what temp would you turn it back on at Berkut? or would you turn the comp off and wait till the lowest temp was reached again?

[berkut]

Turn everything off, pumps everything (depending on your project the pump may have to be on) and cool the liquid.

Turn everything on when its cool enough. Bench till it gets how (lets say your system is maxes out @ -40C so you can bench from -60 to -40C) and cool again turning everything exept the chiller off

[JWB]

oh I get it now, that would make benching quite abit easier actually because if you chip maxes out at -40 say you can just go back to -60 in an hour say and save your self time. Simple when you think about it:( Thanks for the info Berkut:) is there any update on that cascade you were/are building?

[saaya]

id say build a chiller first, that way you get used to compressor cooling and can learn how to deal with it and tweak it.