• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

Cooling Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Air v Water

The D5 is good enough for me,
Same here.
The D5 VPP655 pump i am using in my current build i recycled it from a res/pump combo i bought in 2016

December this year the pump is 5 years old and still works smoothly.

In this thread from 2015
you can see from the list of hardware/components i was selling that i owned a VPP655 that was already 2 years old, i sold that pump to a Techpowerup member.
 
I mean, unless you have a lot of money, I don't see why anyone would get anything other than a Vetroo V5 CPU cooler for $25 shipped. It literally beats a Noctua D15 in temps if you set a slightly aggressive fan profile... but even then its not all that bad sound wise. also it comes with extra bracket if you have a spare fan to do push/pull with. most people have an extra fan these days.

jayz2cents has it cooling a 5900x at like under 63 celsius... and that's stock, no fan curve... for $25 its literally insane how good it is. add in two fans in push/pull which is basically free to do, and add a slightly aggressive fan curve, and you are matching 360mm AIO $180 water coolers... again if you have a lot of money and want your build to look a certain way, by all means go all out, but I'm glad I spent the $25 on the V5. I might even talk my dad into upgrading his Ryzen gen 1 APU to a 5xxx series APU and replace stock cooler with the V5. would be a nice bump in performance for him, even though he really doesn't need it.

watch at 15 mins in: its actually a lower temp than an AIO water cooler... $25...

GN just took a look at that cooler, and ... well, there must have been something off with Jay's test setup. My guess (based on GN pointing out how easy this is) is a bad mount on the Fractal AIO used for comparison.
Tl;dw: the Vetroo fails at 200W noise normalized (expected with a 150W rating, so no issue there), barely scrapes by at 200W at full fan speed (but is noisy), falls way behind at 125W noise normalized, is 3rd worst at 125W 100% fan, but does quite admirably at a 65W load, just two degrees behind the Noctua NH-U12S Redux. Definitely nowhere close to beating a 240mm AIO though.
The "Block" of the setup are the heatspreaders on the sticks themselves so you can think of it as a CPU with it's waterblock permenantly attached, all you have to do is hook up the hoses/tubing.

And I just finished sealing up the sticks, no leaks from the system itself but the sticks were a different story - Leaks everywhere.
Nothing a liberal application of some Form-A-Gasket coudn't fix.

That's why for the application test I did have them on the board but no power was applied and even has the PSU unplugged and unhooked from it, that way any leaks woudn't do any harm to the system or even me.
It has to be tested in the situation it's going to run in at first for such issues to see if "Where it is" will cause any problems. This way I'll catch those, deal with them and try again which I will be doing shortly to see if all the leaks are now sealed.
Did you make your own RAM water blocks? That's pretty neat, but is there any particular reason you didn't go for one of the off-the-shelf options available?

Then don't come and try to make mainstream arguments when people use water coolers to make them perfect. You are really in conflict, but try to project it. Which won't work when you cannot hide the flaw in your overconfidence in contrast with your incompetence. Either be good, or don't try to argue people out of making good points.
Damn, man, way to go on the offensive when people criticize your arguments. How about actually presenting some actual on-topic arguments instead? This is just a list of insults and attempts at dodning criticism.
Not when it comes to thermodynamics, then it is as clear as 1-2-3. It is all rationally ordinal, to the unfortunate dismay of yours.
Sorry, but thermodynamics is extremely messy. There's a reason literally every company doing something where this is relevant has engineers dedicated to thermal modelling, and spend huge resources on things like computational flow dynamics modelling. Thermodynamics in a real-world setting is extremely complex, as there are far, far too many variables in play in any given scenario. Sure, for some things you can eliminate variables to such a degree that you can get all the way back to applying the base equations to find your answers. But in most cases? Not even close.
Still haven't managed to hide the facts. You aren't the sample size, quit making self references.
Which facts? What am I hiding? I'm just saying that your ridiculously unrealistic scenarios are completely irrelevant to a discussion of PC cooling. You're doing nothing but moving the goal posts every time your arguments are countered, going further and further into the realm of absurdity. Here's a rough summary of our discussion so far:

Me: My CPU runs at 80°, and I have a water loop.
You: 80° loop temperatures will kill your system
Me: I never said my loop was 80°, but that my CPU is.
You: But with an 80° CPU you can have 78.9° fluid
Me+others: eh ... that's not going to happen, the radiator will cool the fluid down, and you don't have perfect thermal transfer from your CPU to your liuqid.
You: but you can insulate your cooling system!
The entire world: ????
You: If you insulate your PC from the outside world you can eliminate all annoying variables, and thus we're back to thermodynamics.
Us: ... but PCs aren't insulated? They tend to be in rooms that are well below 80°C. How is this relevant?
You: You don't understand science!

And that's where we are right now.

I mean, it's pretty obvious that you, instead of just admitting that you misread the initial statement, have been working very, very hard at shifting the goal posts further and further in order to avoid admitting that you made an incredibly small and inconsequential mistake. Instead of saying "oops, I misread that, lol", you've been digging yourself ever further into a hole of implausible (and impossible) scenarios in order to prove that the thing you said was somehow actually right all along (despite the fact that it never was, and indeed never was applicable to the thing you responded to in the first place). It's clear that you're so invested in never, ever admitting even the smallest mistake that you're willing to follow this whereever it goes. The problem is, people here will keep calling you out on your nonsense. I suggest you take a step back and reconsider your plan going forward.

At this point you're arguing that there is such a thing as a CPU block with perfect thermal transfer (which conveniently sidesteps things like materials science, surface area, thermal density of the CPU, and more - in other words, there is no such thing, there can't be, because of physics), and that there are somehow conditions in which you could maintain a 78.9-degree liquid temperature with an 80-degree CPU (but conveniently forgetting that the entire premise for this discussion is that this is supposed to be about cooling actual, working PCs - in which case said scenario would be impossible).
Hi,
100ml is hair more than a shot glass though so that can't be right lol
Last I checked shot glasses are 40ml? So 100ml is 2.5 shot glasses :)
 
Sorry but I just realized something....didn't my question about aquarium chillers destroy this debate?

Surely adding a chiller to a custom loop greatly lowers temps compared to ambient air therefore cannot be beaten? That's what my desire is anyway it's winter here ATM and ambient temps float around 30°c which isn't too bad but summer is generally 40+ sometimes 50+ with Ambient temps that high no cooling solutions work that well so the addition of a chiller which can only work with a custom loop.

Though thinking about it I've also come to the conclusion that this is another confrontation thread and cooling is purely based on preference and environment.

My tower cooler works better than your custom loop.... Yes but you live in Norway and it's minus 50 I live in the tropics where it's plus 50.... Catch my drift?
 
Sorry but I just realized something....didn't my question about aquarium chillers destroy this debate?

Surely adding a chiller to a custom loop greatly lowers temps compared to ambient air therefore cannot be beaten? That's what my desire is anyway it's winter here ATM and ambient temps float around 30°c which isn't too bad but summer is generally 40+ sometimes 50+ with Ambient temps that high no cooling solutions work that well so the addition of a chiller which can only work with a custom loop.

Though thinking about it I've also come to the conclusion that this is another confrontation thread and cooling is purely based on preference and environment.

My tower cooler works better than your custom loop.... Yes but you live in Norway and it's minus 50 I live in the tropics where it's plus 50.... Catch my drift?
Well, chillers and other sub-ambient cooling systems have their own drawbacks, from power consumption, size and noise to the ever-problematic condensation issue. EK/CM/Intel's recent peltier+water setup attemtps to sidestep this (by automatically staying just above the dew point, thus not causing condensation) but still consumes 100-200W in order to function. That's more than half of most gaming PCs. Chillers aren't exactly efficient either. But they definitely work!

IMO, that's part of the fun of the discussion - what are the conditions you're starting from, and how are you adapting to them? What is the rationale behind your choices? That's where the interesting stuff comes from IMO.

Also, this thread was started precisely because this discussion arose (for the millionth time, as the title suggests) in the tech purchase thread, so yes, it is indeed a thread about arguing for your choices and preferences. Not necessarily confrontation though - that's hardly productive (though at times its necessary when people start actively derailing the debate).
 
Ok now you have me worried about condensation......
 
I use both regularly. Custom water for my own rigs almost exclusively. Air for client rigs. I used to build wced rigs for people but most are utterly lazy and ive learned that i really don't like cleaning up after other people. Particularly when ive left them very easy, very specific directions to follow, with which to keep their loops clean and functioning properly.
So air it is, unless on the rare occasion, they're someone that shows a modicum of understanding and motivation.
Aio or clcs have never been something that drew my attention. I figure if im going to put a rad and pump in a case they will be ones that i choose. Settling for anything proprietary seems blasphemous to my old school way of thinking lol.
 
Ok now you have me worried about condensation......
Hi,
Know your dew point and stay above it with your fluid
1632429808110.png
 
Wouldn't the dew point be different indoors where the air temp is higher(usually)
Hi,
Not really sure but I do know even at 48df as that image states that's just under 9c where as my room temp 25.5c and water is about 28c
I'd have to take 9c water seriously :D
 
What's your point?
That everything has drawbacks :)
Wouldn't the dew point be different indoors where the air temp is higher(usually)
Yep. The dew point depends on the specific temperature and relative humidity where the PC is located.
Hi,
Not really sure but I do know even at 48df as that image states that's just under 9c where as my room temp 25.5c and water is about 28c
I'd have to take 9c water seriously :D
If your indoor temperature is higher than the outdoor temperature, then the dew point is likely higher as well. Regular water cooling will never go below ambient though (that's physically impossible), so no worries there.
 
Ok now you have me worried about condensation......
If you're in the tropics and using sub-ambient cooling, you need to be worried about condensation. Well, anyone using that needs to, really, but the hotter and more humid your ambient air the higher your dew point.
If your ambient is 20°C and 50% relative humidity, your dew point is 9°C.
20°C/90% RH = 18°C
30°C/50% RH = 19°C
30°C/90% RH = 29°C
35°C/50% RH = 23°C
etc., etc. Calculator here. Remember that indoor environments are nearly always less humid than outdoor ones (as houses tend to be built to not encourage mold and rot), and indoor and outdoor temperatures are also often very different. The only relevant measurement for avoiding condensation in a PC is one taken directly next to it, or at a minimum in the same room. Adding a decent safety margin on top of that is recommended, as no measurement is perfect.

I would like you to mention it
I was specifically responding to someone arguing "well, both water and air are beaten by a chiller", which was presented as if it had no drawbacks or inconveniences attached to it. The context ought to be pretty clear IMO.

Edit: also, literally the first sentence in my response that you quoted:
Valantar said:
Well, chillers and other sub-ambient cooling systems have their own drawbacks
... so I did mention it? Quite specifically?
 
Second thing, pump failures. Has anyone in here with a custom loop every experienced a pump failure?

My D5 has been running no stop since Dec 2017, which is in my current system picture above, and no failure.

Th only thing that has failed were the original fans on my radiator.
Only on a cheap pump given free with my Tt, Kandalf, but it did do 3 years and I likely funguessed it to death or boiled it or something as I recall a few kettle type scenarios.

Never make your own shit reservoir out of random ally boxes tut.
 
Ah pump failures. I've had several ddcs of all types go belly up over the years.
A koolance submersible pump back when i first started wcing didn't actually die but the acrylic housing cracked leaving it useless and most recently an alphacool ddc 310.
So nothing i build uses a single pump anymore.
 
Ah pump failures. I've had several ddcs of all types go belly up over the years.
A koolance submersible pump back when i first started wcing didn't actually die but the acrylic housing cracked leaving it useless and most recently an alphacool ddc 310.
So nothing i build uses a single pump anymore.

Does a double pump not mean double flow? in any case, i cannot fit 2 pumps in mine.
 
Does a double pump not mean double flow? in any case, i cannot fit 2 pumps in mine.

It can mean alot more pressure. I generally run my ddcs at less than half speed or the noise from the water blasting through the tubes and res is way to loud. Not to mention its almost impossible to bleed most normal sized loops with dual 3.2s at full speed. The head pressure is just to much.
With the d5s in my main rig i can run them at full speed with no problems. Its nice and quiet. I actually need to run them at full speed to bleed the loop.
 
It can mean alot more pressure. I generally run my ddcs at less than half speed or the noise from the water blasting through the tubes and res is way to loud. Not to mention its almost impossible to bleed most normal sized loops with dual 3.2s at full speed. The head pressure is just to much.
With the d5s in my main rig i can run them at full speed with no problems. Its nice and quiet. I actually need to run them at full speed to bleed the loop.
When I ran dual/triple 35x I had something like 3000mm of radiator and it was still kind of hard to fill and bleed because realistically, your res is only so big. What I would do is put a fitting on the res top, tube from that to a gallon jug as my fill funnel. That provided enough reserve fluid so it would not suck dry so fast but the flip side it's a pain in the ass to do logistically. Oh the old days of quad gpu blocks...
 
Did you make your own RAM water blocks?
The "Blocks" are the heatspreaders that came with the sticks - I CAN make such if I had the right materials to do it with but I don't.

That's pretty neat, but is there any particular reason you didn't go for one of the off-the-shelf options available?
What's pre-made is that and not really designed for what I'm doing, related to that I can spec it to how I want it to be and go from there.
And there is the fact sometimes I get bored and just have to do something, this was one of those times; It helps I like making stuff, solving the problems in how to make it work and then to make it work well.

And obviously it does work:
Bones`s SuperPi - 32M score: 11min 51sec 703ms with a Phenom II X3 720 BE
The pic of the setup is included in the entry and you can see the clockspeeds, timings ran and so on.
 
I didn't know that EKWB had a shipping service to the past :ohwell:


Screenshot - 23_09_2021 , 14_25_37.jpg
 
Back
Top