Direct CPU cooling

[D_o_S]

Well, I must admit I have never seen a waterblock like this:

http://www.vodnechladenie.sk/index.php?page=pag7

This is for direct cooling of your CPU (AMD 64 or Pentium 4). It has no bottom, so the coolant makes contact with your CPU's heatspreader directly. Any opinions on this? Is is a good water block?

[koei]

That's like walking on the edge of a knife. I don't see how people can enjoy their machine having to constantly pray that nothing leaks.

[killzone]

thats pretty sweet id try it just for the heck of it i wish they would show some results with that

[D_o_S]

That's like walking on the edge of a knife. I don't see how people can enjoy their machine having to constantly pray that nothing leaks.

For you guys, the following is not an option, but on their web they say that if you bring your PC there they will install the block and give you a lifetime guarantee. Also, if you're using a non-conductive fluid, I guess you have nothing to worry about.

[Psyche911]

But using a non conductive fluid usually means higher temps, right? Which would probably cancel out any benifit this would offer.

[koei]

A bit too much trouble and risk involved for potentially a few more degrees of cooling.

[MaxxxRacer]

i highly suggest not doing that.. for two reasons.. for one hte posibility of leaks is HUGE. especially for someone with little watercooling experience..

second is that it would crack eventually.. or get cracks in it.. thats what acrylic does.. my acrylic tdx top is already getting micro fissures in it.. its just a matter of time before they spread.

[Wicked Klown]

Direct die watercooling is kinda old. I did it three eyars ago with a celly 800 running at 1066. Temps load and idle never went above 21.7C. At the time there was one guy that did it to a T-bird and it lasted about 6 months my lasted 1year. Looking back on it sure it was nice cause of bragging rights, but not worth the hassle of protecting the mobo.

[Butcher_]

Any evidence to suggest direct die is actually better than a block? You loose pretty much any benefits of jet impingement with a direct die block, is it still any better than a normal block?

[MaxxxRacer]

well one of the guys around here is designing such a block that is diret die.. hopefully he doenst kill his comp.. and hopefully it gives some good temps...

[Wicked Klown]

Any evidence to suggest direct die is actually better than a block? You loose pretty much any benefits of jet impingement with a direct die block, is it still any better than a normal block?

Lets see you have the cool water hitting the heatspreader instead of the bottom of the block. So there for it's not having to mess with a 1/4" of copper or silver, it's directly cooling what needs to be cooled.

[MaxxxRacer]

wicked Klown dont make asumptions. Ancient wouldnt bring up that point unles there was some validity to it. it brings up the question if whether or not the water will be able to absort the heat better from just a flat surface such as the die, or will the water be better able to absorb heat from a design like hte mcw6000, tdx, or storm.. all of which have considerably more surface area than the face of a heat spreader...


would you like to revise your previous statement now Klown?

Im not saying which one is better, im just laying out some plain old facts here... Facts are much easier to deal with than conjecture.

[Wicked Klown]

It's not an asumption and no I would not like to revise my previous statement. As said before this is something I have done in the past.At the time I went from a all copper maze design to direct die watercooling. My temps went down roughly 5C. As I also said before at the time my idle and load temps were the same. Thing it is better cooling but is it worth the risk. After all one mistake and you rig is pretty mucj dead.

[caLume]

imho the block looks great.
logically it should have some really nice performance?

but i think on the whole thing its too dangerous. ^^

[SewerBeing]

I am joining Wicked Clown on this one. Yes even though there is more surface area you are still dealing with the fact that even silver has resistance to moving heat and then the resistance from the water. Also the fact that even with thermal paste you cannot get a perfect seal so there is more room for error. All in all direct die is better. Also the extra surface area doesn't help all that much.

[[AK]Zip]

I did it on my T-Bird a few years ago. Lasted for about 7 months. Temps were definatly better then using copper. Temps were only about 2*C higher then room temp at load. Would I do it again? yea maybe, but I don't have any time anymore to make another block for the P4 system. I used epoxy to keep it from leaking and it worked great. I ended up selling the entire system so I don't know what happend after the 7 months that I had it. If I find some pics of it I will post it up.

-Alex-

[Wicked Klown]

[AK]Zip by any chance were you the one on the OCF that did this??

[Holst]

Your better off and safer to take your heatspreader off and use a normal mounting copper waterblock.

Interesting idea, although not something I think is a good idea (or will give good performance)

www.spodesabode.co.uk

Wonder if that site still works?

[[AK]Zip]

[AK]Zip by any chance were you the one on the OCF that did this??

I did post there, but I wasn't [AK]Zip though. I forgot my old password so was unable to get back on. New name on there is [AK]Zip

[Holst]

Lets try another more specific link
http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/directdie3

Very crazy direct die cooling there... read the other articles as well.

Allot of people tried DD watercooling at AOA a few years aggo.. quite a few good solutions but nobody made anything that was better than a block, or that was reliable.
IHS does make the job easyer... but its not the same thing IMO.

[Wicked Klown]

Your better off and safer to take your heatspreader off

Not really safer as the heatspreader is soldered to the core. So most likely you try and take the new heaspreader off you will break the core.

[[AK]Zip]

Not really safer as the heatspreader is soldered to the core. So most likely you try and take the new heaspreader off you will break the core.

I have taken it off. Its not soldered. Looks to be some sort of glue.

[Wicked Klown]

Really cause I remember reading and people saying it was soldered on.

[Butcher_]

It's not an asumption and no I would not like to revise my previous statement. As said before this is something I have done in the past.At the time I went from a all copper maze design to direct die watercooling. My temps went down roughly 5C. As I also said before at the time my idle and load temps were the same. Thing it is better cooling but is it worth the risk. After all one mistake and you rig is pretty mucj dead.

2 points:
1. A maze and a jet impengement block are not the same thing by a long way. Current impegement blocks a several degrees better than the old maze style blocks.
2. You were measuring on an old motherboard before the time of on-die sensors. Additionally stock sensors are useless at the best of times.

I'd like to see a proper test of direct-die vs a storm or similar block before making any judgements about whether or not it's worth it. And by proper test I mean the sort of test accuracy pH manages, not just slap a cpu in a motherboard and use mbm to take readings.

Having seen this debated before a lot of people with significant amounts of knowledge (cathar for one) are of the opinion that the heat density of a cpu is too high for direct-die to work effectively. You need a waterblock to spread the heat to a larger surface area for effective cooling.

[MaxxxRacer]

Butcher: I was just about to ask you if Cathar had made any comments on this. Knowing cathar he would have designed a block if it was effective cooling compared to other things.

And you make a very good point about the temp readings... we need a very large mallet to hit ppl with to get the fact that bios/mbm/any software tool's temp readings are so far off half the time that its scary and the other half of the time its in the general vecinity (sp).