What is the purpose of crazy water cooling?

[Shay47]

I am confused, what did the enthusiasts got for extreme water cooling(i.e. 4x 560mm monsta and dual loop wc)? I mean In daily usage...does it increase in performance(overclocking) better than 240mm aio or 360mm custom wc? Or just for aesthetic and curiosity?

[Blebekblebek]

If you mean youtuber, they do it because they get paid by doing it.

 

[Narnash]

3 minutes ago, Shay47 said:

I am confused, what did the enthusiasts got for extreme water cooling(i.e. 4x 560mm monsta and dual loop wc)? I mean In daily usage...does it increase in performance(overclocking) better than 240mm aio or 360mm custom wc? Or just for aesthetic and curiosity?

It boils down to looks. They would indeed get better results with only a good cooling block, decent pump and a 360 radioator + a air conditioner in the room to reduce ambient temperatures.

[rhyseyness]

More cooling=more temperature headroom=higher overclocks.

Theoretically you can get a higher stable overclock, because you can push the voltages higher, without components overheating.

A 2x120mm rad only has about half the surface area (most important aspect for cooling) of a 4x120mm.

Also it looks cool af.

[Jurrunio]

It might not be necessary, but it feels good to have it

[Narnash]

43 minutes ago, rhyseyness said:

More cooling=more temperature headroom=higher overclocks.

Theoretically you can get a higher stable overclock, because you can push the voltages higher, without components overheating.

A 2x120mm rad only has about half the surface area (most important aspect for cooling) of a 4x120mm.

Also it looks cool af.

The point is you are limied by the efficiency off water cooling on various points in the loob eventhough you have higher surface area.

 

1. the cooling block/surface of the heated CPU (or whatever) combined with the physical max. heat conductivity of the silicon-thermal conection-IHS-thermalpaste-cooling block, you are limited by these since you can't make the DIE larger you also can only use the best thermal conductants that you can use (aka soldered IHS or even no IHS, a silver cooling block due the fact that this stuff has the highest known thermal conductivity)

 

2. You are limited by the thermal delta between the CPU and ambient as long you don't use nitrogen cooling (evaporation, or the cooling due the low temperature of the cooling medium) or a fluid refrigerant (evaporation of a special cooling fluid, foced by preasure changes in the tube) like a fridge or AC. Again due physics is the cooling effectivity directly conected to the thermal delta of two materials , as higher the Tdelta the better ther possible cooling performance in Watts. A normal air/water cooling (which is in the long run also a air cooling method) can't go below ambient temperature, because if Tdelta is =0 it can't cool.

 

3. You are also limited by the cooling fluid, we want a material that has a high thermal conductivity (to heat up fast if it pass the heater block and give the heat up to the radiator as fast as possible) and a high heat remaining ability, has it would give give the heat up to the fittings the loop itself and can't get transfered over a longer distance. 

There are some better alternatives to water, liquids that have a higher conductivity and a high reamining temperatur (sry btw I don't know the correct word for that) some complex synthetic stuff that is based on Fluor for example, but that is nasty enviromental stuff or very expensive (3M has some stuff for example it only cost about 250$ a gallon =) ). The downside of those liquids sometimes is also that they act corrosive, leak through very very tiby holes since it may be thinner than water or boils pretty fast so you have to make your loop preasure resistant.

 

It boils down that the heater block can't/ the water can't reach high temperatures after it left the heater block it isn't heated up to maybe 75°C (as the CPU core for example) because the heat transfer is to bad/slow and you can't give the water more time to heat up since your CPU would overheat otherwise (it is also more efficient as bigger the Tdelta between water and heater block is). That is why we use pumps in water cooling loops to deliver as much -hopfully cooled- fresh water to the heater block so the block can be coold more efficently.

Anyhow to come back to my example ...  maybe after the water leaft the CPU cooler it has a temperature of 42°C or similar (more likely in the low 30s as most crank up thier pumps), if it now enter the radioator it can ony cool down to ambient temperature which is maybe 15-25°C so it has a Tdelta of approx. 20K no matter how big the radiator is (unless you let for example evaporate isoproannol or something at the radiator fins to cool these below ambient temperature) 

 

 

TL;DR with normal enthusiast water cooling (using water, only a copper cooling block, none insulated loop, reasonable pump and fan speed) a bigger radiator alone is pretty fast limited by other factors ... the max. efficieny is most of the time around 280 - 360 mm radiator size.

 

PS: sorry I can't check for grammar or spelling now ... this took longer than expected (and I have to work sometime at work, too  )

[OddsCrazyStuff]

Best answer for way beyond cooling needed, slower fans and the way it looks.

Most of the crazy over the top projects I have seen (and done), was so the radiators could use slower speed fans and still have way beyond the cooling needed.

Granted, you might be able to get away with less surface at the same fan speed, with little to no difference, but most of the time so do people prefer to fill up the cases they have, as it looks better that way.

[PrimeSonic]

Reasons for going overkill on the radiators

 

1) Fans can run slower/quieter while still providing good performance to even heavily overclocked components

2) It looks cool

2a) Because we can