[jrockway]

Air cooling is wonderful. I didn't watch this video but I use a giant Noctua heatsink on my system (Intel 6950X, not quite as demanding as Threadripper but hardly a cold-running CPU) and I have zero regrets. I have used all-in-one watercoolers, and ... they just die after a few years. I have owned three and all three of them died in less than 2 years each. Each time, I very sadly woke up in the morning with the realization that I'm not going to be using my computer today. AIOs have not, in my experience, been quieter or yielded better temps than air cooling. So I am not sure it's worth it.

Obviously a homebuilt watercooling rig is going to be way better than AIOs, but it requires extensive maintenance. It's water. Stuff will grow in there. It evaporates. Joints loosen over time and could end up shooting water all over your $6000 workstation.

To me, it's not worth it. Threadripper requires a big heatsink. So be it.

[smabie]

Linus Tech Tips did a video in which they were unable to beat a high-end air cooled nuctua set-up with any sort of water cooling solution. And by unable to beat, I mean both temp-wise and sound-wise. Maybe, just maybe, you might be able to beat air cooling on one dimension with a very expensive custom loop, but it's totally not worth it.

Water cooled PCs do pretty look cool though.

[mywittyname]

Those air cooled units with the heat pipes are effectively heat pumps, and heat pumps are crazy efficient at cooling. They rely on evaporative cooling, which soaks up substantially more energy, so much so that it's possible to to get temperatures noticeably below ambient using the method.

Converting water to steam takes about (from the top of my head) 5x more energy than it takes to increase it by one degree. I imagine the coolant used in these heat sinks is at least this efficient, if not more, and is something that evaporates well below 100°C.

If heat sinks were like using cars and roads to transport people. A water cooled setup would be like expanding the size of the roads to increase the number of cars that can transport people. While those heat pipe coolers are like replacing cars with trains, so you can do a lot more the same amount of space.

[nkurz]

> Converting water to steam takes about (from the top of my head) 5x more energy than it takes to increase it by one degree.

I think this greatly underestimates the potential of evaporative cooling. The "specific heat of water" is 1 calorie/gram °C --- that is, one calorie can heat one gram of water by one degree Celsius if no phase change is involved. The "heat of vaporization of water" is more than 500 calorie/gram at 100°C. That is, the energy necessary to convert a given quantity of liquid water from just below boiling to steam is not 5x the energy necessary to raise that amount of water 1°C, but 500x! You are probably remembering that this is 5x the energy necessary to take liquid water all the way from 0°C (almost frozen) to 100°C (almost boiling).

[CyberDildonics]

My experience is the opposite. I'm sure all in one water cooling varies, but water cooling can be done mostly with cheap parts from a hardware store. The most exotic part is the water block, followed by the pump. Radiators can be used, but a lot of computers can probably cooled by using soft copper spools and a 200mm fan.

The pump does not need to have air flow to do its job and airflow is what carries noise. The water just has to be able to flow through the loop, pretty much any rate of flow will be pushing enough water to move heat away. If you hold your hand to a water block with the pump turned off, let it warm up and turn it on, it feels like the water is going over your hand. The temperature change is immediate. If you turn off the pump while the CPU is running, the temperature will rise a few degrees each second. Once the pump goes on the temperature drops down immediately.

There is no reason that the liquid should evaporate unless there are leaks and joints don't necessarily loosen over time. Also leaks are unlikely to manifest in something bursting and water spraying, even if you had enough pressure from your pump, which you don't (a pump can probably only pump water four or five feet higher than the pump itself, even if it is more powerful than the loop needs).

I have never had to maintain or fix something after it is together. Use vinyl tubing from the hardware store over the barbs and use small pipe clamps on top of them.

[CarbyAu]

I am a fan of water cooling too. Built gaming rig for my brother. He had an issue and posted it over 3000km (2000 miles) while full of water.

Was fine. I fixed it, refilled it and posted it back! Still running 5 years later.

But I do go a little more paranoid and insist on more expensive silicone tubing(some $$$). Fits nicer, feels nicer, less concern over perishing.