Water Cooling Questions

[HotFoot]

I wanted to post this question on the Sticky "Introduction to Watercooling", but as it's locked I'll ask it here.

The diagrams I've seen for routing the water tubes through the system always start with the CPU, for example from Zalman:

The total amount of heat removed from the computer would be greatest if the water was pumped to the components in order of coolest to hottest, as is done for heat exchangers. So, for instance, I'd think that pumping from northbridge -> memory -> graphics -> CPU would maximise the total heat transfer. I may have some components backwards, but certainly the CPU is hotter than the northbridge and memory. If I need to clarify why this would maximise the heat transfer, I will, but I'm leaving that out for now to try to be a little more brief than my previous posts.

I also thought about wanting to keep certain parts cooler than others, but in my experience the ram and northbridge are happier cooler than the CPU, so it again makes just as much sense to have these sooner rather than later on the loop. In short, what is the reason behind the recommended loop order?

 

[bigsby]

I personally would just have it go CPU and then VGA and then your pump/res/heatsink (not in that order), as your ram and Northbridge very much do not need the high cooling that watercooling gives, I personally think it's a bit rediculous, but that's just me. Also, running it through your ram and NB drops the flow considerably, resulting in less cooling for the other components.

If you were going to do it though. I'd probably do CPU, then VGA, NB then RAM, as the RAM needs the least cooling out of all of them, and the CPU needs the most. The CPU always needs the most cooling (I don't understand why you would say that the ram and northbridge would need more cooling than the cpu, when my processor has a 500 gram heatsink on it and my ram has a little heatspreader on it).

The reason why you'd do it the way it says as opposed to backwards, is that the water that's coming from the pump is considerably cooler, and thus it can take more heat away from the critical components, and as it goes along, the things that don't require such drastic cooling don't get it, but if you had it the other way, then the processor would receive the least amount of cooling, and therefor be the warmest, which is not very desirable, though with ram giving off around 7Watts each stick as opposed to 100+ watts for the CPU, you'd think that putting RAM first would not affect things very much, but it's all about putting the most out of every component.

 

[waylander]

If total heat transfer is what you are looking for then you would be correct. On the other hand, the reason most people water cool is to OC their cpus. Memory and chipset don't really need cooling but if you were to cool them it would be better to do it on a separate loop to reduce restrictions in the main line.

Keep in mind that the people who water cool aren't looking for the most "efficient" design, they are looking for the maximum benefit to cooling the most critical parts, the cpu and gpu.

 

[HotFoot]

Thanks for the pointers. I don't water cool currently, but the more I read about it, the more I think I'd like to try it out. For practicality, I see the point of not bothering with WC on the RAM/northbridge. For now, these are passively cooled for me, and I can get a good overclock on everything except the RAM - el-cheapo stuff.

If I were to go with water cooling for the entire system, I think the appeal of WC the RAM and northbridge would be for the cool factor. Is there WC tubing with built-in lighting? If you're going to leave functionality behind, you might as well go all-out.

Cheers

 

[waylander]

There is no tubing that I know if with built in lighting but two ways to go about it are:

1. Buy some of the EL wire and attach it to the tubing.
2. Put some UV reactive coolant in your water and a UV light source in the case.

 

[RyanMicah]

I think it should be mentioned here that some NB's put out quite a bit of heat, quite possibly more than your memory will. In particular, GPU/NB combo chips, especially when placed very near the CPU will still run at high temps. Shutting off the GPU functionality in bios may have additional temp drops, but regardless of water cooling, you'll want at least one large fan to cool your case with even a complete water cooling solution as some heat will still escape the water cooling system into the case. Other parts of your motherboard can add trace heat, like your south bridge. And don't forget to water-cool your hard drives if you're looking for a COMPLETE water cooled system. Otherwise you will for sure need air cooling as well, particularly if you plan on using raptor drives. The only way to cut down on fans completely is to get a good case that has top ventilation and is made of a aluminum. Then perhaps a fanless HDD cooler may be sufficient with just a single 120mm fan (unless it's a Raptor).