Mineral oil PC?

[TheSven]

Hi. I've seen Luke do his mineral oil PC and I was wondering if I could do the same thing with an ITX motherboard. What I want to know is: do I need an external radiator

and what kind of a graphics card can I put in it? Is an R9 290 too hot? Should I go with Maxwell (it's cooler right?) instead? Also, would I be able to build it in an ammo box (measuring 14x26x44 cm) or would that not work because the whole thing is metal?

[DeViLzzz]

R9 290 Deep Fryer by AMD lol

 

(Don't try this as really you shouldn't be eating food cooked in mineral oil.)

[Freaky_spider]

if you have to ask if you can build this in a metal box, you shouldnt be doing this

 

also, look at mineral oil prices, im pretty sure you wont be trying to do this

[Fulgrim]

I've read up about this in the past, you need a reasonably sized "tank" or container to use, and an external radiator to dissipate the built up heat. It's expensive to set up, but it's great for cooling. 

 

You can use any graphics card you want in it, and fyi the fans on your cpu/gpu cooler will still spin, but at a lower rpm. Since mineral oil isn't that thick, it still flows.

 

Read up here to learn a bit about mineral oil cooling.

[Sauron]

The whole point of a mineral oil pc is showing off, and you can't do that in an opaque box. There are literally no other good things about it that don't involve it looking cool. Nohing is too hot, you just need more radiators if the temperatures go too high (and for a 290 you should probably get at least a 360mm radiator or multiple 240mm ones, mineral oil doesn't cool as well as water). By the way, YES, you need an external radiator, and a big one with a powerful pump.

[skullbringer]

Dont do it.

[steffen_anywhere]

@TheSven If I can give you a good suggestion here:

 

Only do this if you're going to enjoy solving the long list of problems that comes with a system like that. Generally, air cooled is the easiest. Then, custom loop, which does take some effort to set up, but will the run pretty much without service. The oil, however, is a pain in the ass to set up, does not have a very high heat capacity, which means to cool an R9 290 will take a huge tank, and if you need to upgrade/switch components, they are going to be all oiled up and will loose warranty.

[TheSven]

LOL, OK I'll just do water cooling.

[TheSven]

The whole point of a mineral oil pc is showing off, and you can't do that in an opaque box. There are literally no other good things about it that don't involve it looking cool. Nohing is too hot, you just need more radiators if the temperatures go too high (and for a 290 you should probably get at least a 360mm radiator or multiple 240mm ones, mineral oil doesn't cool as well as water). By the way, YES, you need an external radiator, and a big one with a powerful pump.

I was going to put a window in the top of it and the rad I was going to go for was a Phobya 200MM but maybe a 480 would be better. Also, if I'm not doing an ammo box I found a 20 litre fish tank, measuring 37x25x34. Second edit: In the ammo box I was going to attach a plastic motherboard tray I found on eBay so the mobo wouldn't actually be touching the metal. Edited September 20, 2014 by TheSven