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Things That Are on Your Mind

TheGreatCthulhu

Composer of the Night.
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Jan 22, 2016
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United States of America
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Very much a dude.
People that get all uppity about semantics and turns of phrases.

For example, when I was discussing water cooled PC's, and I mentioned that the order of the loop doesn't make a difference, a lot of first year engineering students said it does.

When I retorted with, "Is 1 to 2 degrees Celsius really that much of a practical difference?" they started shutting up.

In fact, it's something that bothers me as a whole. I write an answer on Quora that keeps things succinct, but someone else has to add in a caveat that I already knew about and start an argument over something I clearly think didn't make a difference.

And it's always incredibly minor things. Obviously when I'm answering a question about computers, history, or whatever, I'm of course not going to condense an entire field of study or an entire industry down to an answer about a few paragraphs wrong.

Another example, people felt the need to point out to me, no less than ten times, that a 2L soda bottle isn't 2L, it's 20 fluid ounces.

-_- I CAN ****ING READ THE LABEL!!! People in my area call those 2L bottles, and have been forever. We know it isn't 2 liters exactly, but that's what we call it.

Not everything is a ****ing peer reviewed scientific paper, where you have to be precise.

Rant done.
 

TheGreatCthulhu

Composer of the Night.
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United States of America
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Very much a dude.
Ok ao the water is in tube?? Ive never heardof water cooled pcs..
A water cooling PC sort of works in the same manner as the cooling system of a car, but instead of maintaining a temperature within a very narrow margin, we're mainly concerned with namely the CPU and GPU to not get so hot that they throttle themselves. Throttling means the part is slowing itself down so it doesn't kill itself due to the heat.

Typically that's north of 80ish degrees Celsius. Since a CPU and GPU don't have moving parts, you can technically run them as cold as you want to.

Water cooling is a perfectly sound way to cool a computer.

A heatsink works by a basic principle in thermodynamics, that heat moves from warmer objects to cooler objects. As the cooler object gets warmer, the warmer object gets cooler.

The heat is taken from the CPU, in the case of a heatsink, and then blown away by the heatsink's fan and the case's case fans.

In a water cooling setup, fluid is running from radiators, to cooling blocks that sit on the CPU or GPU. It works much the same way, except water is more efficient at this process of heat transfer. The water is then taken from the blocks to the radiators, where the heat is dissipated.

I use a water cooling loop All In One as my CPU cooler. It has a radiator, tubing, block and pump built in all one unit.

But other people, namely enthusiasts, build their own custom loops using certain fluids, different size radiators, specific reservoirs, pumps, and custom water blocks.

Like so:

40179

Specifically, this water cooled PC uses hardline tubing.

There is drawbacks to water cooling. Specifically troubleshooting a broken part, and you have to be diligent about leaks, because while you may start off with a non-conductive fluid, it eventually becomes conductive over time.

There's also other esoteric ways to cool a PC.

I've seen dipping the whole system in mineral oil, I've seen dry ice, liquid nitrogen, and phase change cooling. Mostly the last three are with extreme overclockers, looking to overclock a chip as far as it will possibly go.
 

Jirohnagi

Braava Braava
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Geosexual
A water cooling PC sort of works in the same manner as the cooling system of a car, but instead of maintaining a temperature within a very narrow margin, we're mainly concerned with namely the CPU and GPU to not get so hot that they throttle themselves. Throttling means the part is slowing itself down so it doesn't kill itself due to the heat.

A heatsink works by a basic principle in thermodynamics, that heat moves from warmer objects to cooler objects. As the cooler object gets warmer, the warmer object gets cooler.

The heat is taken from the CPU, in the case of a heatsink, and then blown away by the heatsink's fan and the case's case fans.

In a water cooling setup, fluid is running from radiators, to cooling blocks that sit on the CPU or GPU. It works much the same way, except water is more efficient at this process of heat transfer. The water is then taken from the blocks to the radiators, where the heat is dissipated.

I use a water cooling loop All In One as my CPU cooler. It has a radiator, tubing, block and pump built in all one unit.

But other people, namely enthusiasts, build their own custom loops using certain fluids, different size radiators, specific reservoirs, pumps, and custom water blocks.

Like so:

View attachment 40179

Specifically, this water cooled PC uses hardline tubing.
Never looked at water cooling before, does it ever need changing out or anything? what are the chance of it breaking and probs more importantly how difficult is it to install, for that matter how do you install it?

Apologies about the questions but, never actually met anyone who knows about it and kinda curious ^^
 

TheGreatCthulhu

Composer of the Night.
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Location
United States of America
Gender
Very much a dude.
Never looked at water cooling before, does it ever need changing out or anything? what are the chance of it breaking and probs more importantly how difficult is it to install, for that matter how do you install it?

Apologies about the questions but, never actually met anyone who knows about it and kinda curious ^^
It's its own thing really, so it comes with its own set of considerations.

Chances of leaking and it destroying something is thankfully low these days, due to the fluids being better, and due to the components themselves being more robust.

Difficulty in installation depends on a few things.

  1. How many parts are you looking to liquid cool?
  2. How many radiators are you planning on using?
  3. Can your case accommodate multiple radiators?
  4. What type of tubing are you looking to use?
  5. How big is your reservoir?
  6. How many loops you looking to do?
Generally, most people only liquid cool the graphics cards and CPU, as they're more important than the motherboard VRM's and other components where air cooling is more than sufficient to keep them cool.

For radiators, this is the most important consideration, since much like a heatsink, you want ones that can handle dissipating the heat out of the system. How big or how many you need is entirely dependent on what you want to cool, and what the parts are.

Installation is a bit tricky, but thankfully easy. If you buy your own custom water block, they come with instructions on how to attach them to your CPU and GPU.

GPU blocks are a little more tricky, as you not only have to cool the GPU die itself, but the VRAM and the VRM's on the graphics card's PCB. Again, the blocks you get for GPU's come with instruction manuals.

For tubing, that's a bit of a different beast. I'd suggest soft tubing because it's nice and pliable, and allows for a wide margin of error. If you don't quite get the measurement right, you can still end up using that length of tube anyways.

For hardline, that's another story. That has its own set of techniques of measuring, cutting, and bending the tube (without kinking it) to get it just right.

Carbon fiber is another can of worms.

As far as pump and reservoir, I'd suggest a pump + reservoir combo unit. The order of the components doesn't matter, but the only one that does is having your reservoir feed the pump. If your pump runs on air, it'll kill itself. Thus you want the reservoir feeding the pump, and I'd suggest having your reservoir sit higher than the pump to let gravity aid you in priming the system a bit easier.

For fluids, honestly, the best type of fluid is distilled water and a couple drops of Biocidal agent and call it a day. Water is cheap and plentiful, and agents that stop corrosion and creatures forming in the loop is relatively cheap too.

If you want to get the benefits of liquid cooling, but are fine with having the GPU being cooled by its own heatsink (as most video cards have their own dedicated coolers anyways), I'd suggest going my route and buying an all in one unit. They're relatively affordable compared to custom loops, and contain everything that you need in one unit. Corsair, Cooler Master, and NZXT make great AIO liquid coolers. So that's another option afforded to you.

Thankfully, making your own custom loop is much less painful than it used to be.

There was a time when companies weren't making custom waterblocks and we had to rely on used aquarium parts to water cool.
 
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