Mineral Oil can the GPU be run without the cooler?

[pugz]

As the title states.. Anyone with mineral oil experience(as i have none) can the GPU be run submerged without the cooler? i.e. just card not even heatsink? I know as i have cars that need high powered oil pumps to allow flow of oil over the heads.. I do not know how much oil(especially if submerged) if this will sufficiently cool the GPU unless flow over it or heat sink is needed to stop it from boiling to death? Any help would be appreciated..

[Guest]

I wouldn't recommend.

[MrSuperb]

As the title states.. Anyone with mineral oil experience(as i have none) can the GPU be run submerged without the cooler? i.e. just card not even heatsink?

 

most likely not.

[foxhound590]

the heat sink is still required in a oil pc the oil replaces the air for cooling 

[Johannes_Lazor]

If you have a old computer you could use a PCI-e riser to only submerge a low grade card with the motherboard upside down on top of a container that fits the GPU,
Like a powercolor 5450 from Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131338&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID= They are Dirt cheap so there is not much to loose.

But id say No with a high grade card since the surface area would be too small to be able to dissipate all the heat.

[pugz]

Thanks heaps.. I would of thought as above not enough surface area without flow.. Appreciate the comments... 

[Cheddle]

Thanks heaps.. I would of thought as above not enough surface area without flow.. Appreciate the comments...

Yep... Oil would burn

[Najuno]

This is very easy explained.

 

Air,Water, Oil are all mediums. They have different Deltas to dissipate temperature or heat if you want. The factor oil is capable of dissipating heat is the highest off these three, but it still takes a heat sink, that the CPU or GPU is acutally able to give the heat to the medium, therefore you will need a heatsink.

 

It is the same with water cooling. You want to generate a certain flow and maintain that, if the water flows too slow it will heat up because you give to much energy to 'one spot'. But on the other hand side if it flows to fast, it won´t be able to exchange the heat from your heatsink to itself.

 

In oil submerged PCs can handle a heatsink without fan, depending on how much energy is converted to heat and depending on how big your tank and cooling solution is.

[Grrizz]

This is very easy explained.

 

Air,Water, Oil are all mediums. They have different Deltas to dissipate temperature or heat if you want. The factor oil is capable of dissipating heat is the highest off these three, but it still takes a heat sink, that the CPU or GPU is acutally able to give the heat to the medium, therefore you will need a heatsink.

 

It is the same with water cooling. You want to generate a certain flow and maintain that, if the water flows too slow it will heat up because you give to much energy to 'one spot'. But on the other hand side if it flows to fast, it won´t be able to exchange the heat from your heatsink to itself.

 

In oil submerged PCs can handle a heatsink without fan, depending on how much energy is converted to heat and depending on how big your tank and cooling solution is.

Sort of... water actually has both a higher specific heat and thermal conductivity than oil and you cant have too fast of a flow. The main reason you need the heatsink on higher wattage components is because aluminium/copper etc. have a much, much higher thermal conductivity than air, oil or water allowing them to absorb and spread the heat over a largish area effectively, at some point the surface area will be large enough that the fluids/gases thermal conductivity becomes less of a factor and the rate of flow becomes the important part for spreading/moving the heat. Air has the lowest specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity of all but has the advantage of being far easier to generate a high flow with.

The only real reasons you use oil for cooling a PC are for looks or if you wanted peace of mind instead of using water to transfer heat to a different location (e.g. moving the heat out of server rooms) but water is definitely king of performance between the three.

[Najuno]

Sort of... water actually has both a higher specific heat and thermal conductivity than oil and you cant have too fast of a flow. The main reason you need the heatsink on higher wattage components is because aluminium/copper etc. have a much, much higher thermal conductivity than air, oil or water allowing them to absorb and spread the heat over a largish area effectively, at some point the surface area will be large enough that the fluids/gases thermal conductivity becomes less of a factor and the rate of flow becomes the important part for spreading/moving the heat. Air has the lowest specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity of all but has the advantage of being far easier to generate a high flow with.

The only real reasons you use oil for cooling a PC are for looks or if you wanted peace of mind instead of using water to transfer heat to a different location (e.g. moving the heat out of server rooms) but water is definitely king of performance between the three.

Well I think most of the people don´t run oil in their closed loops TBH.

 

You are absolutely right when it comes to closed loops water is the king unless you do some sort of extreme overclocking, where you need to go below sub zero temps. Then you need things such as liquid nitrogen, but this is not usable on a daily base. I don´t know too many people refilling all the time liquid nitrogen in their coolers .

 

No but when people talk about oil cooled PCs I think it´s save to say that 99% percent of them mean a submerged PC in mineral oil, i.e. in a fish tank or now a days you can buy kits for building such a pc. Linus just recently did that in some of his videos on LTT. The thing is it looks really cool but if you have to do some maintenance ever, it will be a very messy job. I was thinking about getting an oil submerged PC for my living room just for the looks, but TBH I´d be better off with buying a new test bench and do some liquid nitrogen OCing.

[totjup5]

You may be able to run the card passively, but without a cooler at all? I highly doubt it. Oil still doesn't absorb heat as fast as metal, so it most likely wouldn't be able to cool the card down only working with the surface area of the chip.

[Grrizz]

Well I think most of the people don´t run oil in their closed loops TBH.

 

You are absolutely right when it comes to closed loops water is the king unless you do some sort of extreme overclocking, where you need to go below sub zero temps. Then you need things such as liquid nitrogen, but this is not usable on a daily base. I don´t know too many people refilling all the time liquid nitrogen in their coolers .

 

No but when people talk about oil cooled PCs I think it´s save to say that 99% percent of them mean a submerged PC in mineral oil, i.e. in a fish tank or now a days you can buy kits for building such a pc. Linus just recently did that in some of his videos on LTT. The thing is it looks really cool but if you have to do some maintenance ever, it will be a very messy job. I was thinking about getting an oil submerged PC for my living room just for the looks, but TBH I´d be better off with buying a new test bench and do some liquid nitrogen OCing.

I didn't mean to imply closed loop but for servers etc. they sometimes have vats with the processors in that they then pump the oil to radiators outside.

I've been keen to do an oil build for years now and finally started one a little while ago (build log in sig) however its definitely not the cheapest option for performance there are much better ways of spending your money but as far as looks go it can be beautiful (or ghetto if you want ).

If you are looking into extreme cooling I would suggest looking into phase change cooling, you can go sub-zero and actually use it on a daily basis, IMO NO2 cooling is a bit of a waste unless you really want the highest overclock for a couple of hours but that's just me, I know some people are really into it. I was going to do a chilled liquid setup (phase change -> fluid) because you can go sub-zero with regular use and its easier cool multiple components and upgrade in the future than straight phase change however after I started getting some parts together got caught up in other projects and never got back to it, its still something I'd like to do in the future.

[Najuno]

I didn't mean to imply closed loop but for servers etc. they sometimes have vats with the processors in that they then pump the oil to radiators outside.

I've been keen to do an oil build for years now and finally started one a little while ago (build log in sig) however its definitely not the cheapest option for performance there are much better ways of spending your money but as far as looks go it can be beautiful (or ghetto if you want ).

If you are looking into extreme cooling I would suggest looking into phase change cooling, you can go sub-zero and actually use it on a daily basis, IMO NO2 cooling is a bit of a waste unless you really want the highest overclock for a couple of hours but that's just me, I know some people are really into it. I was going to do a chilled liquid setup (phase change -> fluid) because you can go sub-zero with regular use and its easier cool multiple components and upgrade in the future than straight phase change however after I started getting some parts together got caught up in other projects and never got back to it, its still something I'd like to do in the future.

 

Cool, thumbs up for that! I have been thinking about that project and the money that you literally sink into the oil (though gallons of mineral oil aren´t cheap) isn´t the problem for me. It´s more the sheer interest in get that project done and see it working. But in terms of performance I will stay for a daily use with my custom water cooling loops. I use all the quick connectors and fast draining so changing out parts on my highend PC isn´t a problem at all. And I get very stable OCing for a daily usage and even for benchmarking.

 

But if you go with a compressor cooling that means the effort will stay the same as if you´d go for liquid nitrogen, you need to rubber lay the motherboard and components and so on. But for me I´d just like to OC way much harder for benchmarking, so the NO2 is a very good way to achieve god results given of course that the chip you use is a good one.

 

I think this will be my next big project, to get a new testbench ready and OC GPUs with NO2 .

[Johannes_Lazor]

Yep... Oil would burn

Not without oxygen,

And it will also need to be at the auto-ignition temperature(probably about 350°C(about 700°F) for mineral oil

And on top of that, it has to have a high enough surface area in relation to the volume 

for it to dissipate at a high enough rate to get a sufficient amount of oxygen to keep burning.

Id say the risk of it igniting is close to zero,

Both becouse of the properties of mineral oil and the thermal throttling of the GPU.

Im just a run of the mill pyromaniac and Hardware madman..

[pugz]

Not without oxygen,

And it will also need to be at the auto-ignition temperature(probably about 350°C(about 700°F) for mineral oil

And on top of that, it has to have a high enough surface area in relation to the volume 

for it to dissipate at a high enough rate to get a sufficient amount of oxygen to keep burning.

Id say the risk of it igniting is close to zero,

Both becouse of the properties of mineral oil and the thermal throttling of the GPU.

Im just a run of the mill pyromaniac and Hardware madman..

 

Absolutely i agree ignition is not an issue.. I just valve bounced my V8 for 10 minutes straight ripping up the rears today pushing oil over highly heated components... The neighbours loved it NOT.. Lucky they live kilometres away haha.. But i'm thinking cut down heat sink with flow through pipes might do it, it just will require a pump for flow maybe? Anyone here tried that? I also mate grew up blowing things to pieces.. Copper bombs(well all the kids did it) were my speciality... And NO NSA i have no intention of blowing anything up in the future except for my motor and a motherload of tyres at the summernats this year of course...