Project Gallium (Liquid Metal Cooled PC)

[ElementalComputers]

 

Project Gallium

Hi I am the photographer and now i guess the pr guy too of a very small modding team named elemental computers. Another member of the team you guys might know is @Maybach123 he is pretty active on this forum. Anyways this is our first public build log and since this is our first we wanted to do something that we have not seen anyone else do before. We are going to be cooling a pc with liquid metal in a full custom loop. Even though this is our first build log it is still a company pet project and may take a while as we are working with somewhat restricted funds right now. None of the parts a set in stone we will most likely be changing them but once we have this system up and running we plan to see how long a gallium cooled pc will last and if it is a feasible long term solution.

 

Parts as of right now.

CPU:              AMD FX 8320

Motherboard: Asus m5A78L-M

RAM:             Corsair vengeance 8 to 16gb whatever we have lying around

Storage:         Samsung 850 120gb SSD

GPU:              Nvidia 970

Case:             Parvum M1.0

PSU:              Evga SuperNOVA GS 550w

Water Cooling Parts

Ek Supremacy evo plexi

Ek 970 plexi

electromagnetic pump (magnetohydrodynamic pump)

 

Will Update the rest of the parts later

Thanks for checking this build log out

[pagani123]

Oh and a special thanks to @W-L and @LED_Guy they have helped solve some of the issues with this so far

[dragoon20005]

i not sure that mobo will hold up with the FX8320

 

that mobo is not build to support 8 core power draw

 

otherwise will be a super system to watch out for

[ElementalComputers]

Just now, dragoon20005 said:

i not sure that mobo will hold up with the FX8320

 

that mobo is not build to support 8 core power draw

 

otherwise will be a super system to watch out for

alright I will revise this

thanks

[Hackentosher]

Wow, that is certainly different. I'm assuming you want to use gallium to cool the PC? Doesn't gallium melt in the high 20 to low 30C range? If so, how will you overcome the metal solidifying in the reservoir, pump, and all corners of the loop when the system has been powered off for a while?

[dragoon20005]

2 minutes ago, ElementalComputers said:

alright I will revise this

thanks

if you want a decent mobo

 

look at the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P

 

it has a 8+2 power phases for the FX8xxx

[ElementalComputers]

2 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

Wow, that is certainly different. I'm assuming you want to use gallium to cool the PC? Doesn't gallium melt in the high 20 to low 30C range? If so, how will you overcome the metal solidifying in the reservoir, pump, and all corners of the loop when the system has been powered off for a while?

we will be using a mixture of gallium indium and tin its liquid at room temperature

[Hackentosher]

Just now, ElementalComputers said:

we will be using a mixture of gallium indium and tin its liquid at room temperature

This is going to be epic.

[Guest]

This is crazy.. 

[AlexAlcala]

holy shit i wanna see this!

[ozziestig]

[BanishedSovereign]

16 hours ago, ElementalComputers said:

we will be using a mixture of gallium indium and tin its liquid at room temperature

I'm wondering what pump will you use? Also, will you add some sort of corrosion inhibitor to the coolant?

[Ryoutarou97]

Well, damn. Like, DAMN! I sort of slept through chem so will that work in waterblocks? Corrosion? I'm assuming it's pretty viscous so it will flow easily because you wouldn't want to use to many pumps. How does it do with thermals? Water is nice because it has such a high specific heat capacity, how does this stuff do? Also, cool a freaking extreme edition i7 on that thing!

[terrytek]

damn. i'm following this. i'm impressed @Maybach123 you guys are gonna set this bar really high. but why didn't you go the intel route, just curious?

[Droidbot]

please don't make the text black, I am a dark theme user and I can't read it w/o highlighting

[vanished]

I have to see how this turns out.  Following

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Droidbot said:

please don't make the text black, I am a dark theme user and I can't read it w/o highlighting

you need glasses I can read it fine

 

Perhaps this would be worth complaining about though 

[Stefan1024]

Very interesting. But isn't the gallium and indium super expensive?

[AlexAlcala]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

you need glasses I can read it fine

 

Perhaps this would be worth complaining about though 

yep, fk purple

[Droidbot]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

you need glasses I can read it fine

 

Perhaps this would be worth complaining about though 

hah, I have them. I'm on my phone however, so maybe it's that.

[vanished]

Just now, Droidbot said:

hah, I have them. I'm on my phone however, so maybe it's that.

could be... maybe the gamma is off or something... or it's just enough to push it over the edge since it would be smaller already

[Ryoutarou97]

Just now, Stefan1024 said:

Very interesting. But isn't the gallium and indium super expensive?

Why do you think it's an FX chip? 

[vanished]

15 minutes ago, Ryoutarou97 said:

 Water is nice because it has such a high specific heat capacity, how does this stuff do? Also, cool a freaking extreme edition i7 on that thing!

Very good point.  Water has a heat capacity of 4.18 J/g.K, meaning it will actually gain very little temperature when soaking up a lot of heat energy.  Most metals - all of the three mentioned included - have a much higher molar mass, and a much lower molar specific heat capacity resulting in values well under 1 J/g.K, meaning their temperature will change by a much larger amount when gaining or losing the same amount of heat energy.

[Ryoutarou97]

10 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Very good point.  Water has a heat capacity of 4.18 J/g.K, meaning it will actually gain very little temperature when soaking up a lot of heat energy.  Most metals - all of the three mentioned included - have a much higher molar mass, and a much lower molar specific heat capacity resulting in values well under 1 J/g.K, meaning their temperature will change by a much larger amount when gaining or losing the same amount of heat energy.

That was what I saw as the main problem too.  If it heats up quickly, wouldn't it become less efficient at the next waterblock (but more efficient at the rad?) because the difference in temperature is lower/greater than what it is trying to absorb. Actually, if there was a rad between each component, couldn't this work pretty well?

[AlienALX]

10 hours ago, ElementalComputers said:

alright I will revise this

thanks

The only MATX board currently that will support the FX 8320 without throttling at stock is the GA-78LMT-USB3  by Gigabyte. Sorry about the huge text there I just copied it from their site. It you go here -

 

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4305#ov

 

You will note to the left of the CPU socket there is a heatsink. This cools the VRMs but note, there are only 4 phases on this board so whilst overclocking is possible with it you will need to use super low voltages. As soon as you use too much voltage the board will throttle to stop the VRMs cooking themselves.

 

As such I would strongly recommend also changing the CPU with a 8320E model as it requires less voltage per clock than the standard 8320.