[Skinnee Labs] Coolant/Fluid - Thermal Performance

Coolant/Fluid Roundup - Thermal Performance

Intro

A topic that seems to resurface every couple of weeks around the forums is what coolant/fluid is best; this usually ends up turning into a heated debate of opinions with no data to douse the flames. There is an ever-growing variety of coolants that are available in a rainbow of colors, which is great for those of you trying to achieve a certain color scheme where colored tubing just will not cut it or you have nightmares when your reservoir contains a clear fluid that just does not match your color scheme.

The variety of fluids on the market have been marketed as anti-corrosive, non-conductive, earth friendly and the list goes on and on. The anti-corrosive feature potentially holds weight for the times when you just cannot avoid a little aluminum in your loop, but the "no more aluminum" crusade eliminated nearly every aluminum product out there. Copper, brass and even silver make up our cooling products now, you have to search out aluminum on purpose to find a product that has it in the flow path. Non-conductive, well, all fluids will become conductive over time in your loop... so there goes that marketing angle.

So what are we left with you ask, color and thermal performance are the only things left in my mind. Those of you who frequent forums have all viewed the threads where colored fluids have broken down and clogged up micro-pins or impingement plates. Additives in our fluids will break down, this should be of no surprise, the piece not discussed on those gunk/clogging threads is that the coolant breaking down contains more than just water and color dye. I am of the opinion (opinion because I have no hard data on the matter) that the additives besides the dye are the real culprit.

Last but not least is performance, and that is exactly what were are on a mission to find with this round of testing and review. Let us not waste any more time with my introduction and get to the matter at hand...
http://skinneelabs.com/assets/images...t_prodshot.jpg

Included in the roundup is Distilled Water with PT_nuke, Feser One, Feser Ultra Pure, Fluid XP Nano-Fluid, Ice Dragon Nanofluid Formula C2, Ice Dragon Nanofluid retail formula, Minnesota Tap water, Primochill PC Ice, Primochill PC Pure, Swiftech Hydrx and Thermochill EC6. We tried to cover as many of the latest trends, popular fluids and classics as possible, we even have tap water fresh from my city water supply. Nanofluids are the latest advancement looking to knock good old distilled water off the hill; we have three, the early prototype formula from Ice Dragon (Formula C2), Ice Dragon retail and the most colorful selection in our roundup Fluid XP Nano-fluid.

Curious about the Test Spec and Methodology, head over and check out the full article for all the details.

Performance and Test Results

Individual Results

Compiled Thermal Results

http://skinneelabs.com/assets/images...art-cpuavg.png

http://skinneelabs.com/assets/images...art-gpuavg.png

Conclusion/Final Thoughts

Circling back around to the intro, the coolants included in the roundup cover quite a range of features or selling points. We have the classic distilled water and a simple biocide, vibrant colors, earth friendly, anti-corrosive, dye ready and Nano-particle coolants represented. Each possess something unique that captures the interest of liquid coolers looking to make their build stand out, simplify maintenance or bragging rights on using the latest tech in fluids. Coolants also come with their own set of drawbacks though, dyes and colors stain as well as eventually break down, and glycol tends to show signs of breakdown as well.

While coolant testing appears to be a simple and straightforward endeavor, that is just not reality. Due to the large number of marketing claims there are many different tests both short-term and long-term that would be required to bust or confirm all of the marketing claims. For those reasons, we decided to look purely at thermal performance as stated in the intro of this roundup.

Removing all the noise and getting back to performance, the primary ingredient in every coolant is water, which is why Minnesota Tap water was added into the roundup. The interesting outcome of testing all of these coolants was just how close thermal performance really is, even I expected to see more of a resultant temperature separation amongst the fluids. However, thinking more about each fluid and the fact that water is the primary ingredient in them all the results are not surprising. With our average CPU Core temperatures, we see a spread of 1C and average GPU temperatures spread of 0.7C when we exclude the FluidXP. I exclude FluidXP Nano-fluid from the equation due to the fact that performance was quite awful.

So where does this leave us... In terms of thermal performance, there is a such a small difference between any of the fluids that coolant choice will not make any difference in thermal performance for your setup. Additionally, we can take the previous statement one-step further and apply it to overclocking and with certainty say that coolant choice does not influence your clocks either. Knowing full well what the potential issues are with any fluid that contains additives, yes, I am referring to tube staining and chemical breakdown among others, your coolant choice really comes down to whatever you want to put in your loop and price you are willing to pay.

For me, I go through so much fluid in the lab that cheap distilled water and PT_nuke is my best choice, even Minnesota tap is used on the pump test bench. For those of you who do not have distilled water readily available, Feser Ultra Pure comes to mind... just know you are more than likely buying water from China that was shipped to Germany, then to your favorite reseller only to be shipped to your door. If color is your thing, you have a wide selection and can make your choice based on which coolant best matches the colors in your build. If you are looking for a coolant that has a bit more science and technology rolled in, Ice Dragon Nanofluid is available and has had colors tests with Mayhem dyes to show it can be made into any color you wish if the white is not the look you are after. Same goes for distilled water as well, Mayhem dyes can be added to achieve almost any color if you cannot find a pre-mix that suits your color palette. Just remember, all dyes/color will breakdown and fade over time. Personally, I would avoid the FluidXP Nano-Fluid though as the performance is abysmal. Just to reiterate, thermal performance differences amongst the coolants is very small, hopefully this puts the age-old question to rest.

Before we close the chapter on Coolant Performance, we need to extend our gratitude to Gigabyte for providing a motherboard for system level testing and FrozenCPU, Thermochill and Ice Dragon Cooling for sending coolants over to the lab for testing. Without the help and support of these companies, this test would not have been possible, thanks again! With that said, put the cork back in the bottle, thermal performance testing of coolants is complete.

:toast:

Awesome stuff skinee :)
Surprised at the FluidXp Nano fluid.. just another confirmation that good old distilled cant be beat :)
cheers you mythbuster you :D

Great review! Thanks!

DI/PT Nuke for me.

OCM :up:

this was needed and is well done, thanks

YOU are my review! GJ on the review ! Have you thought about maybe doing some testing with the NEW air coolers out for cpus? I saw you have a few already but with whats out now, maybe you can grab the top 10 most used or common heatsinks? By the way i love the new MB you got! im picking up the x58 UD5 :) hehe

:clap:Awesome work as always, its refreshing to finally see some scientific and controlled test on this.
Bravo!!:clap::up:

Thanks for the work Skinnee. For years, the race car industry has been trying to make something that cools and flows better than just plain ole distilled water, and for the most part, after many millions in research and deep chemical engineering work on the properties of fluids, ... they have failed. Aside from a few one off experiments with crazy exotic fluids, that ever so slightly have better properties than water in one area, ..... the hydrogen bonds of water just cant be beat. Both as a wetter and heat absorber, water is da $hit.

So funny that we seemed to have evolved on a planet where our whole biochemistry seems to have revolved around water. Makes it hard to imagine a world where say the xenobiology developed around a different type of chemistry, like say flourine.

awesome, bookmarked for me. this will solve tons and tons of arguments i see around on different forums!

Thanks for the test Skinnee, though it took you a while to post it here. It's been on Skinneelabs for like 3-4 days :eek:, but that's up to you of course ;).

You need to start bottling up that "Minnesota Tap":D. Put a fancy sticker on a bottle with an chunk of silver in the bottom and call it "Nano-Silver-Sota-Ultra!".

It should sell for at least $30 a liter...:)

i'd buy it =)

I would say sell it as skinnee water but do we realllllllllllly need that many pissed of diet fanantics in here

Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk

Again, great work as always Skinnee :up:

I am just amazed that something with the "nano" moniker could be so bad. I mean were they on a mission to find the smallest particle that sucks at transferring heat??

Pure brutal :shakes:

Upside is you stopped some poor souls from buying it LOL

Made me decide ! GJ Skinee!

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Originally Posted by turtletrax

Upside is you stopped some poor souls from buying it LOL

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I very much doubt that. a lot of people by on impulse and because of its price people will instantly think "its got to be better" ....

Thats life and we are human ....

Frackin LOL at FluidXP :rotf:

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Originally Posted by Aedubber

YOU are my review! GJ on the review ! Have you thought about maybe doing some testing with the NEW air coolers out for cpus? I saw you have a few already but with whats out now, maybe you can grab the top 10 most used or common heatsinks? By the way i love the new MB you got! im picking up the x58 UD5 :) hehe

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Pretty simple. Send Skinnee all the HS YOU want tested and about 300 to 500 hours of your reality...............be thankful with what you have.

Or you could follow his lead and do it.:up:

If Martin and Skinnee can, so can you!

I am just thankful for his efforts. Not gonna ask for anymore than he gives.

:toast: folks!

@Conundrum, you can ask all you want... :p:

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Originally Posted by Conumdrum

Pretty simple. Send Skinnee all the HS YOU want tested and about 300 to 500 hours of your reality...............be thankful with what you have.

Or you could follow his lead and do it.:up:

If Martin and Skinnee can, so can you!

I am just thankful for his efforts. Not gonna ask for anymore than he gives.

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OK so RE read my comment, i do appreicate his work as i have made it clear in my post lol . Is it a crime to ask a ? , i never demanded it :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by mlwood37

I very much doubt that. a lot of people by on impulse and because of its price people will instantly think "its got to be better" ....

Thats life and we are human ....

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Originally Posted by turtletrax

Upside is you stopped SOME poor souls from buying it LOL

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Fixed :)

nice test as always, but im confused why any1 making or selling the fluids would send them to u to test. they cannot have actually thought that they were better could they.

:clap::clap::clap:

Another awesome comparison from you Skin.

Ty sir for all your efforts!

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Originally Posted by zanzabar

nice test as always, but im confused why any1 making or selling the fluids would send them to u to test. they cannot have actually thought that they were better could they.

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Maybe they just wanted to prove they werent as bad as some people thought?

Although the FluidXP kinda made me :rofl:

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Originally Posted by zanzabar

nice test as always, but im confused why any1 making or selling the fluids would send them to u to test. they cannot have actually thought that they were better could they.

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Its called independent testing !!!!

Some people like to buy premixed liquids, some like to buy pre built units ect ect..

Personally i think its good of them to have faith in some one like skinee to run these tests. :up:

hi there

i have nanofluid in my rig and it performs better than distilled, not really sure why your results came up like that.

it takes a few days to settle down. admittedly, my temps were a little higher when i first filled the loop but i put that down to the blooeding process [and the newley added GTX480]

also, it is slightly more viscous than water with sort of an oily property to it, i found that i needed to turn my pump up slightly to get best results.

fluid goes in the res and is cloudy

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...7/DSC01970.jpg

fluid goes clear after a few days and works better [i noticed a 4'C-6'C drop in temps across all 6 cores of my cpu and a 3'c drop on the gpu but again put this down to air in the loop/ambient temp change]
the suspended cloudyness disappears

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...7/DSC01517.jpg

fluid level in res remains the same, therefore its not really likely that i had/or have trapped air in the loop

quite surprised as my d5 on the 5th setting pushes fluid far faster than the 2x 18w ddc with EK tops that i had prior to that.

i just find it really odd how the fluid that has performed the best in all of my testing, is by far and away the worst in this test.

Very nice roundup - good to know Hydrx was a right choice :)

Btw, rjkoneill, you've done some major sleeving there mate, pretty preeeety good ;)

Very nice comparision... it will be super if you can add up pure distilled water performance. Since many people use pure H20 so it will be nice for all..

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Originally Posted by rjkoneill

hi there

i have nanofluid in my rig and it performs better than distilled, not really sure why your results came up like that.

also, it is slightly more viscous than water with sort of an oily property to it

i just find it really odd how the fluid that has performed the best in all of my testing, is by far and away the worst in this test.

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By your comments, I can assume you are using Fluid XP nanofluid, which did perform the worst in skinnee's tests.

I hope you realize there are 2 types of nanofluids on the market, Ice dragon which has zinc oxide in an attempt to increase thermal performance.

Then there is fluid XP nanofluid, which is NOT an attempt at increasing thermal performance, it has ~50% propylene glycol (which accounts for oil like viscosity you noticed) mixed with distilled water, and nanoparticles that scavenge ions in an attempt to decrease the rate at which the fluid in the loop becomes conductive. If you are using Fluid XP nanofluid, it should not be possible for 50% propylene glycol + distilled water + ion scavenging nanoparticles to perform as well as distilled water, since the thermal conductance of propylene glycol (.147 W/m*K) is roughly 1/4 that of water 0.6. If you look at the thermal conductance of say feser one, which is roughly 85% water (0.6W/m*K and 15% ethylene glycol (0.258) the thermal conductance should be around .85x0.6 + .15x.258 or 0.55W/m*K, which would explain why 15% ethylene glycol or feser one is only a degree or less off. However the thermal conductance of fluid XP nano would be .5x.6 + .5x.147 or 0.37W/M*K, so one would expect it to be at the bottom of the pack. And, again their nanofluid particles scavenge ions, not enhance thermal transfer.

Read their web site about chemical properties and the fact their nanofluid was designed for fuel cells, then read this.

EDIT: I just realized that even fluid XP's website lists the specific heat in J/g as 3.23. Water is 4.18. So even their website shows reduced thermal properties.

@rakesh...feser ultra pure is distilled water (double distilled apparently), then he tested tap water and both were same, so any purity of distilled between 2 should be same, not to mention he tested distilled with few drops pt nuke, which is distilled water, again.

Skinnee: A few thoughts...

First off, that test looks to have been a PITA. That said, how much full-load cure time did the MX-2 on the CPU and GPUs have prior to running the tests (thinking back to Vapor's experiments in charting TIM's thermal characteristics)? I didn't see that information in your methodology section (you mentioned no mount changes, but that was it). Also, looking at the averaged data from the CPU and GPU DTS, I'd wager all of the results (aside from the Fluid XP Nanofluid) fall within or pretty close to the margin of error--a heat source and sensor equipment that wasn't live computer components may have been a better choice....then again, it could also complicate things further.

...bah, I'm tired... I think I'll just shut up and go fix my car. :rolleyes:

I don't recall the exact amount of time, but there was well over a week of sensor calibration and pre-testing that occurred prior to data being captured for the logged results. With the sensors deployed for testing, margin of error is +/- 0.125C, so there is some separation but nothing I would consider significant or note-worthy, FluidXP Nano-fluid excluded of course.

On the heat source... that really doesn't work for the intended audience and indeed does complicate matters. With an representative system, the entire audience can relate to each piece of gear, applications used and so on. This same scenario plays out for every test we take on, it is a balancing act and trying to find the proper mix of testing to engage the LC community. I assure you, this is something Vapor and I discuss each and every time we are in the planning stages for each test/review.

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Originally Posted by skinnee

I don't recall the exact amount of time, but there was well over a week of sensor calibration and pre-testing that occurred prior to data being captured for the logged results.

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Well, so long as it had a chance to cure to a point where the performance wouldn't change significantly over time (digging through my PMs, I recall Eric mentioning 12 hours or so). Either way, it's a detail which should be included in the methodology page.

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With the sensors deployed for testing, margin of error is +/- 0.125C

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So, the accuracy, precision, and linearity of the DTS is no longer an unknown and/or has been properly cross-calibrated over a wide temperature range against a known, good reference? If that's the case and +/- 0.125C is your calculated margin of error/uncertainty, then it should be stated in your methodology.

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On the heat source... that really doesn't work for the intended audience and indeed does complicate matters. With an representative system, the entire audience can relate to each piece of gear, applications used and so on. This same scenario plays out for every test we take on, it is a balancing act and trying to find the proper mix of testing to engage the LC community.

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I suppose we're just going to have to remain in disagreement there... pandering to the perceived level of understanding of a given audience is all fine and dandy when it comes to the analysis of data and conclusions; however, such "audience tailoring" should not play a part in the design of a test or in the presentation of data. In the end, though, they're your tests and you can conduct them however you like. Carry on :)

hrm this goes against the the other dragon nanofluid tests, not that is was a huge difference to begin with. one of which was done by yourself or vapor if i recall correctly. any thoughts?

I wouldn't say it goes against the previous test I performed. Completely different test bed, test procedure, Nanofluid formula's and so on.

FWIW,
I think tailoring the test to what the audience both understands and accepts is critical....even more so than the test accuracy.

I don't know how many times I've had someone ask me which direction is better on a pump curve. Is it up or down?:(

I think we do have to modify methods sometimes..the old accuracy vs acceptance/understanding dilemma..

This confirms what I thought in theory. I have been using Feser Ultra Pure distilled water since day one. Thanks Skinnee for the test.

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Originally Posted by Martinm210

FWIW,
I think tailoring the test to what the audience both understands and accepts is critical....even more so than the test accuracy.

I don't know how many times I've had someone ask me which direction is better on a pump curve. Is it up or down?:(

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My point on this particular matter is that I'd rather educate the audience through explanation than dumb-down the test and presentation of data. This way, those who already do understand are presented with what they want and those who don't understand just have to read a bit (yeah, reading... what a horrible thing to expect people to do :shakes: ). Compromising a test just to make the results nice and easy for the lowest common denominator is damn near a crime in my book (note: I'm speaking in general, not in specific).

BTW, I read that first line of your post to my wife and it sent her off on one of those 10-15 minute "everything that's wrong with society when it comes to basic math/science" rants :rofl:

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Originally Posted by Petra

My point on this particular matter is that I'd rather educate the audience through explanation than dumb-down the test and presentation of data. This way, those who already do understand are presented with what they want and those who don't understand just have to read a bit (yeah, reading... what a horrible thing to expect people to do :shakes: ). Compromising a test just to make the results nice and easy for the lowest common denominator is damn near a crime in my book (note: I'm speaking in general, not in specific).

BTW, I read that first line of your post to my wife and it sent her off on one of those 10-15 minute "everything that's wrong with society when it comes to basic math/science" rants :rofl:

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Yeah I know...but not everyone is like us and thinks science is fun or even wants to learn more..:D

I never did a very good job in my testing at articulating the information...but then again, I was doing the testing for myself..out of my own curiosity. I did learn the hard way about presentation and understanding who your audience is. That's an "Art" all in it's own...:eek:

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Originally Posted by Petra

My point on this particular matter is that I'd rather educate the audience through explanation than dumb-down the test and presentation of data.

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HAHAHA I loved your youtube video pouring water and coolant on live motherboards.

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Originally Posted by Petra

So, the accuracy, precision, and linearity of the DTS is no longer an unknown and/or has been properly cross-calibrated over a wide temperature range against a known, good reference? If that's the case and +/- 0.125C is your calculated margin of error/uncertainty, then it should be stated in your methodology.

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I agree their is no easy extrinsic method for validating DTS accuracy, but you can simply do a paired t test on his data and show sensor error is statistically improbable to scientific standards of 95% (p<0.05) or even 99% if more runs (but not necessary). I had same question in past, and ran 10 tests of same cured tim at different ambients, and no question i7 DTS sensors are capable of .1 to .2C relative accuracy within above tested range and are linear within a few degrees C. Even on his 3 runs here of each, T paired assuming null hypothesis, comparing 3 feser one cpu temps to 3 distilled water cpu temps their is a 98% probability that a difference is significant and not do to random chance, ie same 98% chance not due to random sensor error. Doesnt rule out systematic error (other controls for that), but that alone to a scientific standard eliminates DTS error, and you can show 95% confidence that error DTS is less than 0.2 and i dont feel like redoing skinnees math, but his cpu error is likely around .125.

I guess you were looking at the discrepancy between GPU results and cpu, for example minnesota tap. Some of the gpu sensor data had SD of .4 vs cpu all were near .1, so perhaps GPU data/sensors have higher error causing slight discrepancy. But always some screwed data points in any testing.