3 ms·

I'm trying to see how the efficiency is gained and I just don't really see it. I guess you don't need to pump water for water cooling so you save the pumping e

by snarfy 8y ago

I'm trying to see how the efficiency is gained and I just don't really see it. I guess you don't need to pump water for water cooling so you save the pumping energy, or maybe lower fan speeds or something, but it really seems like it would be a minimal amount. What it does seem like is a cheap way to build a water cooling system that doesn't really need to be maintained. It seems like switching to arm would be a much bigger efficiency gain, but nobody cares because energy is cheap.

ajnin 8y ago
Usually DCs use AC for cooling, which needs electric power, which needs far away power plants and tranmisions lines. Here, you have a practically endless source of cool water that you can just pump directly.
freeone3000 8y ago
Switching to ARM might be a bigger efficiency gain, but nobody wants arm. Azure already offers ARM servers. Moreover, these aren't exclusive - one can easily sink an ARM server just as easily as you can sink an Intel one. But the efficiency gains are such: Air conditioning is actually inefficient, especially with air cooling. Water cooling is more efficient. Water cooling traditionally uses water as an exchange medium, but is eventually water-cooled-by-air anyway, just in bigger batches. Here, they can take in new cold water and throw out old hot water without actually bothering with any air exchange at all. Or at least, that's the plan. Maybe it'll work! (If "nobody cares because energy is cheap", we wouldn't have tried this in the first place.)
mmt 8y ago
> It seems like switching to arm would be a much bigger efficiency gain That's a false dichotomy. More energy-efficient CPUs don't preclude efficiencies from cooling. I suppose the case could be made that CPUs account for the vast majority of datacenter cooling needs and that ARM efficiencies would eliminate so much of that need that any efficiences in the cooling itself would not be worth anywhere near this kind of cost. I'd expect some pretty extraordinary evidence backing up that argument, since those would be pretty extraordinary claims.

by snarfy 8y ago

ajnin 8y ago

Usually DCs use AC for cooling, which needs electric power, which needs far away power plants and tranmisions lines. Here, you have a practically endless source of cool water that you can just pump directly.

freeone3000 8y ago

Switching to ARM might be a bigger efficiency gain, but nobody wants arm. Azure already offers ARM servers. Moreover, these aren't exclusive - one can easily sink an ARM server just as easily as you can sink an Intel one. But the efficiency gains are such: Air conditioning is actually inefficient, especially with air cooling. Water cooling is more efficient. Water cooling traditionally uses water as an exchange medium, but is eventually water-cooled-by-air anyway, just in bigger batches. Here, they can take in new cold water and throw out old hot water without actually bothering with any air exchange at all. Or at least, that's the plan. Maybe it'll work! (If "nobody cares because energy is cheap", we wouldn't have tried this in the first place.)

mmt 8y ago

> It seems like switching to arm would be a much bigger efficiency gain That's a false dichotomy. More energy-efficient CPUs don't preclude efficiencies from cooling. I suppose the case could be made that CPUs account for the vast majority of datacenter cooling needs and that ARM efficiencies would eliminate so much of that need that any efficiences in the cooling itself would not be worth anywhere near this kind of cost. I'd expect some pretty extraordinary evidence backing up that argument, since those would be pretty extraordinary claims.