AiO vs Custom Loop

[JaZoN_XD]

Hi, I have a general question: if you had a 2x120mm all-in-one water cooling that you bought from, say, cooler master or corsair and you also had a custom loop that also used the same sized radiator, would you get a better temp from the custom loop (or worse) and also what are other factors that play into the temps? Tubing or pump maybe?

 

Thanks

[VioDuskar]

tubeing and pumps have nothing to do with heat disipation.

how much coolent

how well your heat sink draws out heat from the component

how well your fan/rads disipate heat from their lines

those are the only thing that affect how cool you can get.

eventually you will reach the disipation maximum for your sinks or rad, if you havent then you can increase the heat capacity of your loop by adding more fliud, but the longer you leave your rig running the less it will matter.

liquids have a heat capacity based on the volume of the fluid and the specific heat of the fluid. specific heat is a coeffecient of heat capacity.

of the same volume:

water has more heat capacity than air.

minerial oil has more heat capacity than water.

mercury has a MUCH higher heat capacity than oil.

Hi,-snip-

Thanks

TL;DR, follor your thread, and fill your custom loop with mercury.

[Dzzope]

I would say tubing and pump do have an effect but only in flow rates.. 

 

As for AIO vs custom loop. It depends on the components used.. As all AIO's give different results, so will custom loops depending on the components.

 

Not done a custom loop yet.. But when I do I'm gonna go fanless and use a car rad for cooling.

[airdeano]

AIO uses an aluminum radiator not the best for heat transfer, but more for cost.

 

customs usually use a copper/brass radiator for top thermal performance. gains

of best deltas could be from 5-30° better than a 240 AIO. the design of the

cold-plate, flow rate, radiator and capacity all can better the overall thermal

performance.

[JaZoN_XD]

tubeing and pumps have nothing to do with heat disipation.

how much coolent

how well your heat sink draws out heat from the component

how well your fan/rads disipate heat from their lines

those are the only thing that affect how cool you can get.

eventually you will reach the disipation maximum for your sinks or rad, if you havent then you can increase the heat capacity of your loop by adding more fliud, but the longer you leave your rig running the less it will matter.

liquids have a heat capacity based on the volume of the fluid and the specific heat of the fluid. specific heat is a coeffecient of heat capacity.

of the same volume:

water has more heat capacity than air.

minerial oil has more heat capacity than water.

mercury has a MUCH higher heat capacity than oil.

TL;DR, follor your thread, and fill your custom loop with mercury.

 

 

I would say tubing and pump do have an effect but only in flow rates.. 

 

As for AIO vs custom loop. It depends on the components used.. As all AIO's give different results, so will custom loops depending on the components.

 

Not done a custom loop yet.. But when I do I'm gonna go fanless and use a car rad for cooling.

So basically, the liquid inside is the real game changer, but custom loops are generally more expensive for one that's similar performance to an AiO or is that completely false?

[AMD Lover]

Your probably gonna get a degree or two better if you use a high quality pump and have a reservoir as theirs a greater volume of liquid to heat and you'll be moving it faster than a AIO would. You're gonna want to stick to a standard size of tubing so tubing won't affect temps any unless you went with copper in which case you might get a bit of passive cooling if your GPU exhausted out the rear and you had good cooling.

 

Another factor to figure is you could always pick up a better quality thicker rad. than the ones on AIO's. 

[AMD Lover]

So basically, the liquid inside is the real game changer, but custom loops are generally more expensive for one that's similar performance to an AiO or is that completely false?

No liquid doesn't matter much. Your main differences are gonna be where in a custom loop you have more copper and brass which are better conductors of heat than aluminum.

[airdeano]

So basically, the liquid inside is the real game changer, but custom loops are generally more expensive for one that's similar performance to an AiO or is that completely false?

 

240 AIO range from $65USD to $160USD

customs can be had for $150 for a basic starter kit: http://www.performance-pcs.com/xspc-raystorm-extreme-universal-cpu-watercooling-kit-w-ex240-radiator-750-pump-res.html

[Dzzope]

If you want the best performance, you can build a better cooling custom loop than AIO.. if you want convenience, go AIO.

 

The liquid has an effect yes BUT if the loop cannot dissipate the heat you will just be cycling hot liquid back through and that won't cool as well as cooler liquid.

Generally bigger rad + more liquid = better cooling (as is thicker but you need decent sp fans for thick rads)

[Faceman]

How to Water Cool your CPU and GPU for Under $200 USD Guide

[Zah]

240 AIO range from $65USD to $160USD

customs can be had for $150 for a basic starter kit: http://www.performance-pcs.com/xspc-raystorm-extreme-universal-cpu-watercooling-kit-w-ex240-radiator-750-pump-res.html

Man, there's a lot options on that site.

[GhostHitWall]

uh...

Radiator space is the largest fact on how much cooling performance you would get.  Then the material/fan setup.
Pump does have correlation with performance when it comes to flowrate. But, AiO apparently have enough flowrate. 

From AIO 240mm to Custom loop 240mm will not result much of difference if the radiator and fan setup are identical.


If you are gonna cool something like quad 290x, the radiator space that a custom loop can offer is gonna out run any aio.
That's when the diminishing return of adding more radiators is relatively high.

Coolant matters a lot when you are doing sub-ambient, but this is pretty much irrelevant.

Besides, most AIOs comes with thin high fpi radiator.