What struck me funny was all of the effort and associated difficulties that go into trying to run as cold as possible. Special fluids, insulate everything, noisy, expensive, limited options, etc.
Why not find a cooling solution that would be:
Quiet - don't want to have to hear a compressor or a bunch of noisy fans
Sub-ambient - otherwise why bother with water cooling at all
Above dew point - don't want to have to insulate anything
High capacity - be able cool anything you throw at it. Needs to be able to "keep up" with the heat load.
Auto adapting - auto adapts to varying heat loads
Well here's my $43.82 solution:
5300 BTU window ac unit - $26.99 ebay
22 quart styrofoam ice chest - $5.88 Walmart
20' 3/8"x1/2" vinyl tubing - $6.99 Home Depot
4 gallons distilled water - $3.96 Walmart
Here it is laid out on my desk running and keeping my w3680 at a nice brisk 16c idle and max 50c (individual core temp) when running 20 passes of Linx @ 4.5Ghz.
Here is the inside showing the lines, evap, and the temp probe that keeps the water at the set temp. The suction line is the one by the evaporator. I use a DDC-3.25 pump (in next picture) which has enough flow (4-5 g/m thru CPU and mb blocks) to keep the water circulating very well. The inside is large enough to run an aquarium submersible style pump if that is what you want to do. The only negative was the handles that penetrated the wall. If they weren't there, I could have 4~4.5 gallons of water total and make it even more efficient. Speaking of efficiency, the extra cut outs are for ventilation
Here you can see my DDC-3.25 sitting on the desk. This is just a temporary setup until I mount the ac unit in the window behind it, after that I will make things more permanent and use 1/8" wall tubing for better thermal insulation.
In econo mode, with 3.5 gallons of chilled water @ 15c, the compressor only has to come on every 10 minutes or so, run for about 60 seconds and then shuts off. When I am doing max burns and stability testing, it comes on more frequently. Once I mount it in the window, the noise and what little heat there is will be outside, and I can use the remote to turn it on and off.
I realize this isn't for everyone, but I figured I would give another option to those folks looking at a chilled water solution.
Here is an update to my chiller setup.
As you can see I got rid of the styrofaom and went with a 24 quart Rubbermaid. I also added a filter for the supply line (bottom opening taped off) and some edge sealing/fin protection for the evaporator. This forces the water to go through it, not around it. Now all I have left to do is mount the ac unit in the window - which hopefully will get done in the next couple of weeks - to get the heat and noise outside.
To address some earlier comments:
Someone called it a slush box - a better term would be a high power water cooler. The coldest it gets is 60F - the limit of the ac unit.
Even though humidity may change outside, inside it is always low as long as you use HVAC for cooling and you don't open the windows. So no dew forms, even at 60F. Some condensate will form on the lines going to the evap when the compressor is running, but not much - and it quickly goes away when it stops.
Yes those are aluminum fins and no, I have no copper in my loop. My EK Supreme HF Gold is gold plated inside and the factory Gigabyte mb block (UD7) is aluminum. But as was mentioned, the evap has Copper, Aluminum, and Lead solder, so I do use a corrosion inhibitor. I picked up a 12oz. bottle of Redline's Water Wetter from AutoZone and used half of it (6 oz.). I recommend no more than 2oz/gal, otherwise it will clog up the filter. I see it sold as an anti-algae solution from Asetek. It has less than half the surface tension of water (better heat conductivity), is a corrosion inhibitor for a lot of different metals (among them Aluminum, Copper, and Lead solder), lubricates pump seals, and works with straight distilled water. You can read up on all of the benefits it has here:
http://www.redlineoil.com/content/fi...ech%20Info.pdf
You don't want to use an antifreeze/coolant or anything that increases the specific gravity of your water - this will reduce flow, add wear and tear to your pump, and lower your cooling capacity.
You can see from the pics that the DDC-3.25 really pumps out some water - I would guess 2-2.5 gallons a minute. I was a little concerned since this is an open loop setup. Capacity is 3.75 gallons so it gets completely turned over in 2 minutes (good flow rate through evap).
This is just temporary until I get the unit mounted, then I will run all new 1/8" wall lines.
The best thing about this setup is the cost - less than $85 - and it gets the heat and noise outside where it belongs.
A picture is worth a thousand words... so here are a few thousand
You can see the temps here at idle and load. BTW, all throttling has been disabled so the cpu is running full voltage/clock at idle. Also notice Linx GFlops is at 100 or better on all 3 runs - so no loose, slow memory to aid low cpu voltage.
Here is a 1 year update to my original post:
As you can see I have mounted my AC unit in the window, changed lines to 1/8" wall, insulated the runs to and from my PC.
Single loop cooling of my CPU, motherboard and 2 ASUS 6970's
2 Year Update
I have switched mobo to an Asus MVF running a i7-3770K using a Ek Supremacy wb and the factory mobo chipset block. Here are the results:
Daily Driver
5Ghz LinX club submission
5.5Ghz 32M super Pi
As you can see, the chiller is still working great and allows me to overclock my IB, which is very difficult to do.
By design, high pressure, high flow, high volume, temperature controlled 60~75F chilled water
NOTE: no condensation, no motherboard insulation, no constant running (cycles just like a normal AC unit would), no radiators, no fans, and no HEAT
Total cost of all items (including wood for AC mount) minus pump, res, water blocks, and fittings = <$100
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