Liquid Cooling Myths

[jayhall0315]

My favorite water cooling myth is how each new block (or revision) from each company claims to be 2 deg C better than its previous best block. This is occurring right now with the Apogee HD block marketing as I type. Problem is, this means that over the past ten years and five generations of blocks, we should see about 10 to 12 deg C lower temps versus some of these companies first generation blocks (back in 2002 or so). In fact you see nothing of the sort. The real difference between 2002 blocks and 2011 super supreme high flow apogee tippy top grando blocks is about 3 deg C at best. All else, is parting you from your money to be the latest and greatest.

[Rise]

the only watercooling myth I know of is that people can agree on anything watercooling related

[eXa]

MCW5000 came in 2002, you can go ahead and compare that to the new ApogeeHD

[BeepBeep2]

My favorite water cooling myth is how each new block (or revision) from each company claims to be 2 deg C better than its previous best block. This is occurring right now with the Apogee HD block marketing as I type. Problem is, this means that over the past ten years and five generations of blocks, we should see about 10 to 12 deg C lower temps versus some of these companies first generation blocks (back in 2002 or so). In fact you see nothing of the sort. The real difference between 2002 blocks and 2011 super supreme high flow apogee tippy top grando blocks is about 3 deg C at best. All else, is parting you from your money to be the latest and greatest.

...intelligence says otherwise.

...

[jayhall0315]

Well I still have a Danger Den Maze 4 waterblock for cpus from about 2002. When I place it on a i7 980x cpu in the lab running at 4.4 GHz, I get the following:

At idle - 41 deg C with Apogee XT Rev 2, 42 deg C with the EK Sup HF and 45 deg C with the Maze 4.
At load after 5 min with only Prime 95 - 73 deg C with Apogee "", 72 deg C with EK and 74 deg C with the Maze 4.

Dont believe me or think I am making stuff up ? Test it yourself, ... you will be surprised.

[Boogerlad]

how many mounts did you do?

[jayhall0315]

Three each. Although, admittedly, this was done for my own personal curiosity back in August when I bought the Apogee XT Rev 2 internals.

I invite others to test this for yourself and see the marketing bs for what it is. The Apogee XT and EK Sup HF release more heat/surface area/time but the Maze 4 has much better flow with less restriction. IN the end the Maze 4 is not that bad off. This heat equation pde curve from laminar to turbulent vs heat release cannot be adjusted much with these two dimensional flat copper block designs. Everytime a modification is made to release more heat, it usually comes at the price of more restriction. Your only paying for marketing in most aspects.

[Furball Zen]

Watercooling VRM's is very benificial, and more so since we saw how fast they can blow out after skinnee pop'd one on his bed during his GTX's tests.

But you dont NEED FC to get good results. Take the MCW60-4870 for example... and who made you the WC god? LOL

Cooper can not look as nice as nickel plated copper. :P I noticed over the years a few people say how ugly copper is, but I must admit I find the raw material alluring, I can't be the only one. (I know this sounds wrong but it was the best way I could put it. )

Nickel looks awful, if youre gonna mimic chrome, might as well do chrome. I prefer the look of copper. And anyone who says copper doesnt look good hasnt seen an Aquatuning WB...

Putting more than 2 rice size drops of thermal paste is the reason for your temp that is 10-20 degrees higher than it should.

I see this all the time when someone is like my CPU is 10-20 degrees higher than it should be, first thing someone says is too much thermal paste. If you mount the cpu block correctly it should squeeze out the excess anyways.

Um, not...you need to spread it in an even layer. Enough pressure to completely squish it out would kill the CPU, socket and mobo.

Ill add some myths:

1. If you have more than 2 blocks you need a 655.
2. If you have more than a 360 rad you need a 655.
3. You need a 480 rad to cool anything newer than a P4.
4. If you put $2000 worth of BP fittings or EK blocks your system will be better.
5. You HAVE to buy EK to get any performance.
6. You cant have JUST distilled water in your loop, you need a kill coil too.
7. Silver coils cause corrosion (lol).

[overdoze]

7. Silver coils cause corrosion (lol).

I would have to disagree.
Corrosion occurs when there are 2 different metal in the watercool system and the water is not pure and slightly conductive. So if you have copper rad and silver block corrosion will occur on the copper rad.

Please see this doc to verify yourself
_http://www.gewater.com/handbook/cooling_water_systems/ch_24_corrosion.jsp

[NaeKuh]

explain please?
your saying that there is no movement?

no there is no movement minus convection if you have a heat source.
In a closed loop, which most LC systems are its sealed.
You can not get an increase in kinetic without a decrease in potential, otherwise you just solved the free energy question.

this is also why when you turn on a pump, you notice your res water level drop... because the water is being pulled, and the only thing in the system which is compressible is the AIR.

That is why we need pumps... so we can move the coolant inside the loop.

Remember the basics rules of physics:
1. You can never get something for free
2. You can never cheat the system. (meaning equal or greater value is required to get results)
3. You are DAYAM'd to always play with the system. (meaning, you can never quit)

But you dont NEED FC to get good results. Take the MCW60-4870 for example... and who made you the WC god? LOL

-face palm-

i dont even know how to argue with this... the MCW60 is a great core only block.. but guess what? Swiftech realized they needed more cooling for the MCW60 and did what?
OH yeah.. its called a Culdera heat sinks...


and OMG WOW what coincidence that it makes it like a full cover block... -sigh-


Now u guys see about my statement about all these wannabe skinnee's trying to run and break my soap box.

(now im running away b4 skinnee actually comes around and busts my soap box)

[Church]

Naekuh: those heatsinks are simply compromise right in the middle between FC & core only. Not universal as core only blocks, yet you won't throw out 100$ when upgrading card, but just third of it. It's not like FC, but right in the middle of both camps.
I wonder when and how someone will make purpose-built universal vrm waterblocks to accompany core only blocks. Ones that will fit wide range of cards and will be somehow easier to connect to main block without big extra mess of additional tubing/fitting pieces. I see those both areas as good targets to innovation, and would prefer such solution to existing FC blocks. I'm guessing though that such will need modded main block tops with extra inlets/outlets for short/near interconnect to companion vrm blocks.

[Computurd]

That is why we need pumps... so we can move the coolant inside the loop.

the way it was worded led me to believe that you were talking about with a pump there was no net movement.

[Manicdan]

I would have to disagree.
Corrosion occurs when there are 2 different metal in the watercool system and the water is not pure and slightly conductive. So if you have copper rad and silver block corrosion will occur on the copper rad.

Please see this doc to verify yourself
_http://www.gewater.com/handbook/cooling_water_systems/ch_24_corrosion.jsp

your probably mixing sliver with aluminum

copper + aluminum is bad
silver is added by a very large part of this community because its great at killing off algae

[skinnee]

the way it was worded led me to believe that you were talking about with a pump there was no net movement.

The longer you talk to him, the more you realize there are always silent/un-stated implications in his argument.

[pascal333]

what about the myth that water-cooling gets you more chicks

Rats, I spent ALL that money to get started and NOW you tell US?

So would peltier help

[NKrader]

Koolance is Junk, they only use ALU <--- LOL u wouldnt believe how many people still think this... :\


Its almost hard to believe koolance is where they are now... seriously guys... they did a complete 180 and made all of us go OMGWTFBBQ.
Its like TT saying we messed up our Bigwater... and they started busting out high end stuff which rivals EK.

lol i feel the same way, feels almost weird wanting koolance product. feels so wrong almost..



this is such a perfect thread for you nae i will proceed to troll you in a minute hehe

[bds71]

Watercooled TEC's break physics and can handle an inifinite amount of heat as long as u keep the hot side cool... <--- u wouldnt believe how many people think this... this is again myth.

what?? this isn't true ?!?! BLASPHEMY!!

/sarcasm off

[Furball Zen]

Forgot a fave peeve of mine, adding a small rad before/after a large rad allows you to total your rad space as if it were a single rad.

I.E.: putting a 120 after a 480 make it a 600.

Yea, 600 in terms of surface area, but not cooling capacity.

[Tom128]

OMG seriously WTF has happened to this forum while i was gone?

The number of soap boxes dropped?

lol couldn't resist

[defect9]

I don't know if it's just a myth or me, but for about the first year of my getting into watercooling I believed that watercooling would dump way less heat into the room because the cpu temps were lower.

if it is less, it's not much.

[NKrader]

I don't know if it's just a myth or me, but for about the first year of my getting into watercooling I believed that watercooling would dump way less heat into the room because the cpu temps were lower.

if it is less, it's not much.

doesnt it? lower temps = less heat.

LOLOLOLOLOL

[Olly_K]

OMG seriously WTF has happened to this forum while i was gone?

The number of soap boxes dropped?

lol couldn't resist

ROFL ! Did the sales of full cover blocks drop as well ?

[malkiewicz]

what?? this isn't true ?!?! BLASPHEMY!!

/sarcasm off

The TEC thing worked for me until I received my power bill....

[stephenswiftech]

My favorite water cooling myth is how each new block (or revision) from each company claims to be 2 deg C better than its previous best block. This is occurring right now with the Apogee HD block marketing as I type. Problem is, this means that over the past ten years and five generations of blocks, we should see about 10 to 12 deg C lower temps versus some of these companies first generation blocks (back in 2002 or so). In fact you see nothing of the sort. The real difference between 2002 blocks and 2011 super supreme high flow apogee tippy top grando blocks is about 3 deg C at best. All else, is parting you from your money to be the latest and greatest.

We at Swiftech optimize our blocks for the most current CPU generation(s). Which is exactly why there are jumps in performance when a new block is released. Apogee XT was designed for LGA1366 not for 1155. As opposed to the Apogee HD was designed with both sockets in mind.


While designing the Apogee HD I tried the Apogee GTZ so to get an idea how good it was doing on socket 1155. Its best mount (out of 5) was behind the Apogee HD by 4.5C. back on socket 775 while designing the GTZ, it was 7.5 C better than the Storm...

I can't speak for other manufacturers but I know well that the numbers we publish are precisely what we measure from real CPUs (and not die simulators). And because CPUs IHS quality/shape may vary from a batch to another, we even test multiple CPUs to validate our tests.

Sorry but this one isn't a myth

[jayhall0315]

Thanks for the reply Stephen. No disrespect, but I cant replicate your results. My ole Danger Den Maze 4, is about 3 to 4 deg C back from the Apogee XT Rev 2 for the socket 1366 testing I did in August. Dont get me wrong, I like Swiftech. In fact, I have your blocks on my home system (bc I like the easy mounting system and the MCW 82 universal gpu blocks which save me money). I also use your stuff in my lab, but I sure dont see any 8 deg C or larger difference between early blocks and the Apogee XT rev 2.

If you are the block designer, or even better, a real university educated engineer, then you know the thermodynamic limits of 2D gaped array heat exchange. You may not be solving it by hand (hehe), and using some cfd software for quick estimates, but the heat equation and Navier-Stokes are very specific (although 3D N-S is of course extremely chaotic bounded by initial condition). You can cut this groove, or add this inlet, but only so much water can be forced thru for a given pressure with a given Reynolds turbulence. Of course if you add in 2, 3, ...10 more inlets, you will see marginal Delta T drop, but 2D array is limited. The current crop of Apogee XT, EK super duper, and Koolance Super Star Destroyer are rounding the bend on what you will get from a 2D finned array. I suppose if you add in 4 inlets and 4 outlets with finned gaps to match each channel and four pumps to push it, etc...then you will see real gains. But, I am restricting the discussion for my part to blocks which have one 1/2 inch inlet and outlet.

There is a way forward with copper blocks, but not in the manner in which most companies are copying each other now (or making very incremental improvements). Unfortunately, the patent process is in the final leg so to speak, so I would not like to reveal it just quite yet. (nor will I be making it myself once the patent is finalized). It is common idea that comes from submarine propellor design and N-S optimization is all I care to reveal now.