What is liquid cooling?

[Darhagonable]

what is it? first I thought that it replaces all the fans in the computer but now i notices that it maby is just an CPU cooler and not a full pc cooler.

can someone explain this for me? 

[vanished]

It is effectively the same as air cooling except that instead of heat pipes and direct metal-on-metal contact moving heat from the CPU to the rad, you use water.  This allows the rad to be mounted somewhere else, and in doing so, allows it to be much larger.  This is how liquid cooling can be more effective than air coolers.

[givingtnt]

its a system that transfers heat to water, so that the heat is removed from the pc parts asap

then, it uses a radiator (to maximise the surface that can be cooled) to dissipate the heat like normal in the air, using fans


its like air cooling, but it takes one extra step to get the heat away from the components faster

[Enderman]

 

[Darhagonable]

tho how do you install it? it is more obvius to install some fans so how do it with liquid cooling

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

tho how do you install it? it is more obvius to install some fans so how do it with liquid cooling

I would recommend an AIO cooler like an H100 or something similar to start off with.  Doing a full custom loop is a rather involved process that requires certain skills, but installing an AIO is not really any harder than installing a 212 EVO.  If you've done that before you should be fine.

[givingtnt]

1 minute ago, Darhagonable said:

tho how do you install it? it is more obvius to install some fans so how do it with liquid cooling

you need a loop, the minimum for it is : 

a pump,
a water block to cool whatever the component is
a radiator with fans

and tubing to connect it all in a loop

the block goes on the cpu / whatever

then, you go : rad/reservoir > pump > cooling block > rad/reservoir

the radiator is mounted with a fan on it at the same location where the fan would be on the case.

[manikyath]

basicly, watercooling is a more efficient means of transporting the heat from the hot components (cpu, gpu, whatever you're cooling) to the means of dissipation (in most cases a radiator)

 

imagine if you will that you have a big clunky tower cooler, but instead of relying on copper to get the heat up to the fins, there's a liquid flowing around to carry the heat more effectively.

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

tho how do you install it? it is more obvius to install some fans so how do it with liquid cooling

For the CPU block itself it's just like any other cooler.

For the GPU blocks you remove the existing air coolers and then install them on the card directly.

For everything else you measure out the tubing, install the fittings on the blocks, apply the tubing to the fittings and clamps.

The radiator has fans installed on one or both sides and installed to the case wherever the fans normally would go.

The pump and res can be placed mostly wherever you like.

From there you being to fill up the res with coolant until it's full, checking for leaks along the way. After that's done you can run a 24 hour leak test by unplugging everything and hooking the pump directly to the power supply and using a small cable to jump the power supply.

[mikat]

If you want to learn about these things, i highly recommend watching some of techquickie's videos

for your question:

 

[Glenwing]

26 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

what is it? first I thought that it replaces all the fans in the computer but now i notices that it maby is just an CPU cooler and not a full pc cooler.

can someone explain this for me? 

With standard heatsinks directly attached to the motherboard, there are limitations to how big the heatsink can be due to the other components getting in the way. Liquid cooling just moves the heatsink to a more convenient location where you can have as much heatsink as you like, renames it to a "radiator", and uses some kind of liquid coolant to transport the heat between the CPU and the heatsinks since they are no longer directly attached. The liquid doesn't actually do the cooling, it's just transporting the heat to the now off-site heatsinks. Other than that extra step, it works exactly the same way as air cooling.

 

You can string together multiple components so the liquid takes heat from all of them at the same time, or you can decide to use liquid cooling only for selected components like the CPU, and continue using standard directly-attached heatsinks for the graphics cards.

[DevilishBooster]

If you want to learn about watercooling I highly suggest that you watch JayzTwoCents' videos. He is much much much more experienced with watercooling than the LTT crew, and he has a lot of awesome videos on it. Start with this one and then watch more of his to learn more.

 

[DevilishBooster]

Here is a more recent video that will also help you.

 

[Darhagonable]

I'm still confused... will a watercooler replace the fans in the chassi? I just want my computer to be very quiet and not have the sound of a bunch of fans. I am okey with the small quiet fans in the GPU.

so I only want to replace the cpu fan and all the chassi fans with watercooling to keep my computer quiet.

[xgn]

35 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

I'm still confused... will a watercooler replace the fans in the chassi? I just want my computer to be very quiet and not have the sound of a bunch of fans. I am okey with the small quiet fans in the GPU.

so I only want to replace the cpu fan and all the chassi fans with watercooling to keep my computer quiet.

Technically yes. You will mount the radiator where you have fans if there is room for it.

[Darhagonable]

but the watercooling system use fans or am I just stupid?

[xgn]

50 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

but the watercooling system use fans or am I just stupid?

It has fans yea. +95% builds use fans but its not really needed. But recommanded. What you need is a pump, radiator, reservoir, blocks and tubes and you're good to go!

If you get problems just read the manual. You also want fans with a decent static pressure. Also a way to controll the speed of fans to keep noise levels down.

[Darhagonable]

I thoght the point of watercooling was that is was more quiet.

 

so I don't need fans with the watercooling?

[xgn]

8 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

I thoght the point of watercooling was that is was more quiet.

 

so I don't need fans with the watercooling?

It can be loud as a jet engine or it can be quite. If you do it right you will get good both noise levels and performance. Yes you do need fans. 

Else you will need huge radiators like the one in the picture.

[Darhagonable]

then what is the point of having watercooling instead of just regular fans?

[vanished]

9 minutes ago, Darhagonable said:

then what is the point of having watercooling instead of just regular fans?

The radiators can be much larger, and so you can have more fans running slower to blow air over the larger surface area.  Basically it can be more effective (cooler) and/or quieter than normal air cooling