Drop In Waterblock for the Ivy/Sandy Bridge (No Insulation Required)

[KrowniK]

I'm here on behalf of Mindch1|l to tell you about a TEC Waterblock that he made a while back. It just never got brought to this forum.



This is compatible with LGA1155/1156 and is designed to cool 130W loads with head room with some additional headroom. It is happy to run off of 12V from your PC's ATX Power Supply. There is the possibility of condensation with just the drop in block, so a controller was designed to help with that. When you pair the two, you get a TEC cooling solution capable of cooling your CPU below ambient temperatures without the worry of condensation. This was the design philosophy and it's damn good at it.

The block uses only 141W to cool your CPU when run at max power, and is controlled by PWM signals from the controller. A simple and cheap Rasa Kit (double radiator in push/pull or higher) is capable of cooling this block and your CPU.



H = Humidity A = Ambient (°C) B = Block Temperature (°C)
C = Duty Cycle D = Dew Point (°C) T = Target Temperature (°C)

The controller has a sensor built directly into the cold plate of the block for reading the temperature, aswell as a humidity sensor onboard the controller to calculate dew point, and measure ambient temperatures. Using the measured values, it calculates dew point and allows you to only change the temperature to a few degrees above that point. If you live in a humid environment, this is a very helpful feature when prolonging the life of your CPU.

A typical Ivy Bridge 3570K runs very hot on water cooling, even at stock temperatures (Depending on your CPU's Thermal Resistance, CPU waterblock and ambient temperatures). The processor that was used for testing had a Delta of 43.5°C. This means that when water temps are 27°C, the processor is sitting at 70.5°C. If you were to use the direct die blocks, you could really drop that temperature. If dew point protection wasn't enabled, at 77W, the block would have a Delta of 31°C from your water temperatures (27°C Water Temps = -4°C ColdPlate). Since we do have dew point protection, you're only going to go as low as +2°C above Dew Point. If dew point were 12°C, you're only going to be as low as 14°C. If your water temperature was 27°C, you would still have a temperature difference of 13°C. It may not sound like much, but if your water temps were to go up to 45°C, you could still have a cold block temperature of 14°C. Back on track. Using the processor that was described above with a 43.5°C Delta, you would be sitting pretty at 57.5°C. Which is quite a distance from the average water cooled temperature of 70.5°C.

I will update the testing when I'm able to preform it myself.