3 ms·

Water cooling feels like brute force. Why not give it plenty of air, and have the apparatus underclock itself enough until it's within a designated temperature

• shabble 15y ago
  It's exactly brute force. And the why of it is simple: performance. There's an upper limit on the heat dissipation capability of a directly mounted heatsink, no matter how much air you throw at it. Water has a much greater heat capacity, and hence is better at removing heat from your {C,G}PUs. In addition, the relatively lesser amount of water needed for the same cooling capacity makes it much quieter. Many people water-cool purely to build a 'silent' PC. The next step up is thermioelectric (Peltier effect) assisted water-cooling, followed by phase-change refrigeration (same principles as household refrigerator). The upper limit is probably(?) open-loop evaporation of cryogenic liquified gases like nitrogen, but that's mostly a gimmick for overclocking contests.
  • Dylan16807 15y ago
    It's a file server and firewall, what does it need high-clocked CPUs for? Stick a big heat sink on it and you can go with no fan or a silent fan.
    • yock 15y ago
      Well, for one, dust. There's a strong case against mounting the electronics on a piece of wood and hanging it on the wall in open air, but if the builder is oddly inflexible on that point then liquid-cooling is probably the most practical way to avoid the daily-or-more-often process of removing dust and debris.
      • adrianN 15y ago
        I don't know about your place, but in a typical home dust buildup shouldn't be a problem for a long time.