AMD Contemplates Bundled Water-Cooling for Some FX-Series Processors

[Casecutter]

The XIGMATEK AIO-S80DP is an interesting concept, but it ignores the best attribute of water cool which is to move the BTU's out of the chassis. It doesn’t provide anything over a decent cheap H-P cooler, while at 840g that's a lot of heft and complexity to hang on a mobo. Then it appears to have plenty of leak points, while not to mention the dissimilar metals and the corrosion effect. No OEM like AMD would sanction that.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Xigmatek/AIO_S80DP/1.html
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2070

 

[de.das.dude]

I really don't see why they don't do that. It's not like they cant include the information on the chip on a separate piece of paper.

why that?
if you notice, the marking now is shiny and the rest is dull.
they should just reverse it.
a little dull marking on a shiny mirror surface is nothing.


and no writing on paper wont speed up production processes where the chip is identified by computers on what is written on it

 

[de.das.dude]

How much you wanna bet me that I can fry a amd chip with water?

i wanna see you try. youre probably someone who is still stuck with AMDs old image.
free advise : grow up, the world is changing

 

[Damn_Smooth]

why that?
if you notice, the marking now is shiny and the rest is dull.
they should just reverse it.
a little dull marking on a shiny mirror surface is nothing.


and no writing on paper wont speed up production processes where the chip is identified by computers on what is written on it

That's even better, it would even save money on whatever the dull coating is to reverse it.

 

[cheesy999]

I wish that they'd just give us the option to buy processors without heatsinks.

it's a bit late for this response but, they do

 

[Steevo]

The XIGMATEK AIO-S80DP is an interesting concept, but it ignores the best attribute of water cool which is to move the BTU's out of the chassis. It doesn’t provide anything over a decent cheap H-P cooler, while at 840g that's a lot of heft and complexity to hang on a mobo. Then it appears to have plenty of leak points, while not to mention the dissimilar metals and the corrosion effect. No OEM like AMD would sanction that.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Xigmatek/AIO_S80DP/1.html
http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2070

I didn't mean it specifically, but a cooler that uses a common motor for the fan and pump (much like the motor drives my pumps impeller with magnetic lock on a ceramic bearing) there would be almost no friction and the only moving parts would be the sealed impeller and a fan that should be quiet based on the fact there is little to it other than a couple pieces of steel two bearings and a housing, and a tiny bearing housing instead of a motor means no dead spot.

So the pump impeller runs in the sink/block and has two hoses or copper tubes running into a 120mm radiator with a large fan and two rows in a single pass design. So 1/4" ID tubing would work, and a PWM driven motor would allow the board to change fan and pump RPM simultaneously for cooling on demand. A pull fan design would also help cool RAM, FETS and any bridge chips on the board. Having a cradle design for the motor and the fan suspended from the radiator and using copper tubes would mean no extra supports and any minor vibrations would be isolated.


I might have to design one myself if no one else will. There is that thermaltake guy around.......

 

[Halk]

Erm. Just a bit of help for the hard of thinking. Watercooling does nothing magical.

It does two very simple things - it moves the heat somewhere else, and also spreads it out into (roughly) 700ml of water.

That's all. Nothing magic.

The very existance of watercooling by itself does nothing magical.

I'm repeating myself but I need to in order for people to understand it.

The advantages of watercooling are....

You can have a larger surface area of hot area to cool - using a radiator. Although you can do this with metal heatsinks the advantage water has is in the next sentence...

You can move the heat from inside the case to the outside edge easily. That way you can blow have cold air from outside the case go over the radiator, or you can have the air that's warmed slightly expelled straight out of the case.

You can combine the heat from multiple components and have them run through a single radiator/fan assembly. 2 120mm fans and a 120x2 radiator for example would do enough for most people, 120x3 is good and anything higher is a bit overkill.

The heat still needs to go into the room. You add pump noise and vibration. It's HUGELY more expensive.

I've been reading forums and reviews etc for around 10 years now, and I'm continually hit by the basic ignorance of people who believe that watercooling in itself is enough to bend the laws of physics.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Does this mean they need it because they run too hot ?

 

[Steevo]

Erm. Just a bit of help for the hard of thinking. Watercooling does nothing magical.

It does two very simple things - it moves the heat somewhere else, and also spreads it out into (roughly) 700ml of water.

That's all. Nothing magic.

The very existance of watercooling by itself does nothing magical.

I'm repeating myself but I need to in order for people to understand it.

The advantages of watercooling are....

You can have a larger surface area of hot area to cool - using a radiator. Although you can do this with metal heatsinks the advantage water has is in the next sentence...

You can move the heat from inside the case to the outside edge easily. That way you can blow have cold air from outside the case go over the radiator, or you can have the air that's warmed slightly expelled straight out of the case.

You can combine the heat from multiple components and have them run through a single radiator/fan assembly. 2 120mm fans and a 120x2 radiator for example would do enough for most people, 120x3 is good and anything higher is a bit overkill.

The heat still needs to go into the room. You add pump noise and vibration. It's HUGELY more expensive.

I've been reading forums and reviews etc for around 10 years now, and I'm continually hit by the basic ignorance of people who believe that watercooling in itself is enough to bend the laws of physics.

I have 360mm radiator, I run my quad and 5870 at full all the time folding at home, and it is in fact the thermal limit of my system. A larger radiator will allow for slower fan speed with the same cooling efficiency, so magical? Nope, but quiet with a shitload of TDP dissipation and low temps? Hells yeah. 150+ watts out of my quad and 250+ out of my 5870 and they stay cool.

I appreciate your condescending post though. Thanks.

 

[Halk]

I have 360mm radiator, I run my quad and 5870 at full all the time folding at home, and it is in fact the thermal limit of my system. A larger radiator will allow for slower fan speed with the same cooling efficiency, so magical? Nope, but quiet with a shitload of TDP dissipation and low temps? Hells yeah. 150+ watts out of my quad and 250+ out of my 5870 and they stay cool.

I appreciate your condescending post though. Thanks.

As should have been apparent, I was talking to people who didn't understand the concept.

Edit : Aha! My post followed yours. Sorry if it appeared I was replying to you, I was talking to the thread in general.

 

[Casecutter]

(much like the motor drives my pumps impeller with magnetic lock on a ceramic bearing)

You must mean a Laing “Danger Den pumps”… Got two different Laings’ doing work at the house right now, one for the hot water loop the other on an above ground pool very nice centrifugal pumps.

Thought the pump in that Xigmatek is what essentially and Eheim fish tank pump that’s design isn’t as robust for +60°C. You might have something in that the pump is in the radiator/fan module while just a water block on the CPU. Then the combined magnetic drive for a pump and fan has merit. Though the downside is the rpm of pump and fan are the same, so some big trade off of pump speed, size, dBa verse what the fan does relative to that same speed. Get what I’m saying… I would considery having both independent control of the pump and fan provides the best means of controling of water flow and air flow, as sometimes one over the other or both can provide optimum heat transfer, while not amplify the sound profile.

 

[Steevo]

You must mean a Laing “Danger Den pumps”… Got two different Laings’ doing work at the house right now, one for the hot water loop the other on an above ground pool very nice centrifugal pumps.

Thought the pump in that Xigmatek is what essentially and Eheim fish tank pump that’s design isn’t as robust for +60°C. You might have something in that the pump is in the radiator/fan module while just a water block on the CPU. Then the combined magnetic drive for a pump and fan has merit. Though the downside is the rpm of pump and fan are the same, so some big trade off of pump speed, size, dBa verse what the fan does relative to that same speed. Get what I’m saying… I would considery having both independent control of the pump and fan provides the best means of controling of water flow and air flow, as sometimes one over the other or both can provide optimum heat transfer, while not amplify the sound profile.

Swiftech MCP655 12 VDC Pump Liquid Cooling System


That is what I'm running, one ceramic bearing lubricated by the coolant and magnetically driven by the motor, so one o-ring on the impeller case.


They could design a impeller and housing to meet the coolant flow needs for whatever RPM the fan is designed for also, so one motor is a simpler solution, magnetic drive simplifies the sealing of the system, but it does pose the problem of if a impeller gets hung up how do you know its turning? But with water the thermal mass you have to heat and the lower shutoff threshold you could implement would mean that you could run it without any coolant flow.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

I would be okay with paying a 40-50 dollar premium on a chip for it to come with an H80 style cooling system.

 

[twicksisted]

So basically what they saying is that theres no way a retail cooler will cool one of their top end CPU's and they need water to do it?

 

[TheLaughingMan]

So basically what they saying is that theres no way a retail cooler will cool one of their top end CPU's and they need water to do it?

no

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

no

Are you sure?

 

[erocker]

Are you sure?

Reading the article, they talk about both AMD and Intel (SB E series) both using them. Not because they need them, but more for the enthusiast market that uses these type of CPU's.

 

[Hotobu]

I still say that Intel and AMD need to strongly consider just selling processors. A good portion of folks wont be happy no matter what they pack in. Even if it were $10 off I'm sure there'd be hordes of people who'd be thrilled just to save a bit since they're going to throw their own solution on anyway. There's also the shipping side. For every processor + heatsink they could probably fit in 4 stand alone processors.

 

[n-ster]

I still say that Intel and AMD need to strongly consider just selling processors. A good portion of folks wont be happy no matter what they pack in. Even if it were $10 off I'm sure there'd be hordes of people who'd be thrilled just to save a bit since they're going to throw their own solution on anyway. There's also the shipping side. For every processor + heatsink they could probably fit in 4 stand alone processors.

OEM chips o.o They exists already

 

[Strider]

I see so many assumptions saying "it must run hot". Assumption, as just about everyone should know, is the mother of all screw-ups.

If you are going to be one of those people buying the flagship eight-core FX series processors, you're probably not going to leave it at stock. You're likely a gamer or other enthusiast who will be looking to push the processor beyond it's stock speeds.

You're going to overclock, and thus you're going to replace the stock cooler anyway. No true enthusiast of any caliber uses stock cooling on an overclock.

To me, it simply looks to me like AMD is targeting what will probably be their largest customer base when these eight-core beasts hit the market. Customers who will be tossing the stock cooler anyway in favor of either a high-end air cooler, or liquid cooling such as they are talking about here.

Though high-end air coolers perform just as well as these stand-alone self contained liquid CPU cooling kits, they are also much larger. So to me, it makes sense to include them with the flagship processors in a kit. PIB I think they are calling it, Processor In a Box.

So chances are, there will be more than one version available. The PIB that will include whatever self-contained liquid cooling they decide to go with, and another that will contain a standard air-cooler for those people who will run at stock, or enthusiasts who already have aftermarket cooling they intend to use.

I for one do not need an included liquid cooler. The Thermaltake Frio I am running on my 1090T at 4.2GHz is more than enough to keep a Bulldozer FX cool based on the fact that this cooler, and many others like it, perform just as well as the self contained liquid coolers, such as the H60.

 

[Hotobu]

OEM chips o.o They exists already

I know. I bought one for my first build, but I could not find an OEM SB chip for my current one.

 

[twilyth]

Though high-end air coolers perform just as well as these stand-alone self contained liquid CPU cooling kits, they are also much larger. So to me, it makes sense to include them with the flagship processors in a kit. PIB I think they are calling it, Processor In a Box.

Not everybody who wants to overclock necessarily wants to go balls-to-the-wall on their overclock. When you consider that low-end solutions like the Hydro series does at least as well as high-end air, it makes sense for AMD and Intel to think about putting out a chip with a wc option.

After all, as was noted earlier, haven't they been providing better and better stock air coolers? Why do you think they've done this? For yuks? Probably not.

There's also the fact that really pushing an oc requires a great deal of trial and error and therefore patience. Skill is also part of the equation, but if you're trying to overclock a brand new chip, even skill isn't the primary ingredient. That means that most people are going for the sweet spot - where you get a 15-30% oc without investing a few days in reboots. But it also means that you don't need a 3 rad loop or TEC chillers.

 

[DualAmdMP]

I wish that they'd just give us the option to buy processors without heatsinks.

Or better yet, with out IHS

 

[twicksisted]

If you are going to be one of those people buying the flagship eight-core FX series processors, you're probably not going to leave it at stock. You're likely a gamer or other enthusiast who will be looking to push the processor beyond it's stock speeds.

You're going to overclock, and thus you're going to replace the stock cooler anyway. No true enthusiast of any caliber uses stock cooling on an overclock.

i disagree... people who buy the fastest processor are usually people who dont overclock but want the highest speed... if you overclock you can buy a slower chip for less and get faster speeds

 

[CDdude55]

i disagree... people who buy the fastest processor are usually people who dont overclock but want the highest speed... if you overclock you can buy a slower chip for less and get faster speeds

Enthusiasts who can afford the best generally do buy the best and overclock.

Rarely do you have an average gamer or non enthusiasts drop thousands or hundreds of dollars for a CPU or GPU and won't overclock.