Mindchill vs Krow: All-In-One Liquid Chiller Build Off!

[KrowniK]

Ok, so here is the update I promised, however it is the pre-final stages; as I can't test it on a CPU until Mindchill sends me one of the waterblocks we designed (more on that to come later?).



Anyway, so this was the entire rig setup. It consisted of a 24v PSU, with the 50mm fan on the Meanwell PSU (it was pretty loud by itself). The TECs were wired up to receive 12V each, which is what I intend to run them at with an ATX PSU.

These are 4 Intel STS100C intended to be used on Xeon Processors at 130W TDPs. I will say now that because they're server heatsinks, their fans are in the ridiculously loud range when set to high speed; LUDICROUS SPEED!!! I didn't think they'ed be that loud but, ya full speed is too much for even me; and I run my GFX cards at 70% to 100% without flinching. If the fans became out of sync, it would create a fluttering sound, but that was due to me not buying all the heatsinks at the same time. The first one I bought came with a Delta fan that was rated for 12V @ 1.4A, the other 3 came with Foxxcon fans which are 12V @ 0.5A.

Another problem with the fans and my ghetto fan controller, is that the fan controller is based on resistive voltage limiting. So the controller only has 3 "channels", while I have 4 fans, 1 of which will use different power settings. This leaves me with the problem that the fans aren't being limited the same. So what I'm going to need to do is get an Arqtik Fan Controller to ensure that the fans are being limited to the same voltages. This however did not stop me from testing the High and Medium fans speed settings, even if they are not what they will be with a quality controller. When I tested low fan speeds, some of the fans would not even spin, so I negated that part of the test until I can do a fair benchmark with them working. Moving on from the fans...

I insulated the TECs this time, and after many leaks, it netted me about 4 - 5?C from my previous results, which definitely proved that the heat from the TEC was feeding back into my cooling loop just from heat radiation (kind of obvious but I didn't think it would be that much).

Next we move onto the coolant (1.5 - 2L of tap water). I know that this isn't a constant load, but the rate at which heat was removed from the water was pretty amazing. The hotter the water, the faster it cooled down; I don't have any pictures to back it up though. After all, what matters is the ability to chill the CPU, and I can't test that yet.




This is with the fans set to high speed (Ambient reads 22?C). I'm getting about 10?C delta between Ambient and Heatsink, which is a couple degrees more when I did my first tests. The STS100C contains heatpipes and something I've noticed with heatpipes is that, they work better when temperatures are higher. Which bodes well for having a cpu load on there. Unloaded the TECs are a load of about 65W, loaded with a 200W CPU, they are about 115W which can make a difference of 2 - 4?C with heatpipes. Doubt it will negate the temperature gained from the load though. Can't really predict their ?C/W as it changes with load.

Here is the results of Medium fans speed; I just took these pics tonight so it is a different ambient temperature.



15.2?C Delta from Ambient to Heatsink to deliver a delta of 15?C lower than ambient, at its coldest. In all honesty this means nothing with no ability to test it against a heat source. I wish this could be more conclusive but it just isn't in the cards at the moment. Those who want more of a review, will have to get on mindchill's case to send me one of the waterblocks but in all honesty don't. He's busy and I know he's got lots of work ahead of him. It'll happen when it happens. Testing is not a quick and easy process. So just keep updated with this thread and it will eventually be finalized on my end.

Sound clips recorded with my iphone at 2 feet will follow shortly, stay tuned....

[Puck]

Keep it up guys.

Can't wait to see both results.

[iNF3rN0]

why dont you use an electric hot water kettle, cut the cord on it and use an inline reostat/light dimmer switch and use and ammeter to accuratly create your heatload. It wont be 100% accurate but it should be pretty damn close.