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Phase Change Cooling

Post Date: 2010-07-29
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Rivenloch View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Rivenloch Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Phase Change Cooling
    Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 5:25am
Hi all,

<TL;DR>

I'm planning to buy an ultra high end computer when I have more time to game (currently working 70 hour weeks for my business - which is later going to pay off when I can turn it over for a nice profit, and give me the money I need to buy such a computer).

At the point I'll have enough time to start gaming again, money shouldn't be much of an issue, so I basically want to get the best system money can buy.

Based on the research I did awhile back, Digital Storm had the best rep for that, so I've decided to just stick with that, and browsing this site/forums has only strengthened that confidence.

</TL;DR>

But I have a few questions, namely the one in the title: phase change cooling.

About a year ago I read something on heat pipes and phase change cooling being the highest performance cooling both to facilitate baseline component performance, and to overclock them. Looking through the customization options, I did not see an option for phase change cooling.

Is there a reason for this? Does Digital Storm do phase change cooling / heat pipes? Is it impractical for regular use? Can it be integrated with liquid cooling? Can I have such a system installed aftermarket without violating warranty if DS does not? Is there a good reason *not* to do phase change cooling?

Would greatly appreciated answers to these questions, as well as more exact information on phase chase cooling & heat pipes.

Thank you very much :D
Drooling
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justin.kerr View Drop Down
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Posts: 5084 		  Quote justin.kerr Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 9:27am
Phase makes no sense for daily setup.. about $1,500 for a decent Phase change unit for the CPU, and $2500 for the GPU's  so $4000 for cooling that will eat a ton of Electricity, and be loud as hell, and create a mass amount of heat in a room. Think of having 2, 5 horse power air compressors running in your office.
Now this is for a real phase change setup, that will keep your components under load about -100C.
Water cooling, costs very little to maintain, an 18 watt pump, and maybe a few watts for extra radiator fans.
look at my main gaming rig.. 4.5Ghz HT on, 24/7 setup, max load temps in the 60C's, 3 highly overclocked graphics cards, under max load stay in the 30C's.. and it is silent.
Now there is cheap Phase change, won't last, still loud, and won't get you any better temps than good water, there is chilled water cooling, but then you still have to worry about condensation, because the water will be under ambient temps enough to hit the dewpoint at times, so more issues..
 
If you had Digital Storm build you a PC like mine, except change out the 3 5870's for 3 GTX 480's, you would have a very powerful, cool, quiet PC. There is a few other minor changes I would do, to make it a bit better, but that is just in the details, and can be changed  easily and won't effect the price.
 
 
now some stuff, and some of this. now !ender should be happy with my post to. LOL
 


Edited by justin.kerr - 01 Aug 2010 at 8:34pm
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Rivenloch View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Rivenloch Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 10:03am
Thanks for the knowledgeable reply.:) Could you combine chilled water with dehumidification? (Say I had a small mini-closet built to keep the computer itself in, with cables running out to a desk, and had a dehumidifier in there with it?)

Are there phase change systems that are reliable, quality, but not focused on getting down to really, really low temperatures?
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teaiewold View Drop Down
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Posts: 216 		  Quote teaiewold Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 10:17am
dude you could get a badass gaming computer and not need to do all that. you do know that right?
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Rivenloch View Drop Down
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Posts: 26 		  Quote Rivenloch Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 10:36am
Yeah, but when I have the funds to go for this one, I pretty much want the best money can buy. Superfluous? Very possibly. I'm unrepentant. :D
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justin.kerr View Drop Down
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Posts: 5084 		  Quote justin.kerr Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 10:45am
when the water  passing through the tubes has a temp bellow ambient enough the hit the dew point, it will condensate, humidity does factor in to reach the dew point, but even so, you will still have condensation.
I looked at many different cooling options, and high end water will get you good temps, silence, and reliability.
The newest trend for high end water is one large loop, with two quiet pumps,  for redundancy, and increased head pressure. this is what I am going to do on Drunken Monkey number 6. 2 triple radiators, and 3 quad radiators, cooling CPU, chipset, GPU's.
I would go water for sure, TEC cooling combined with water, can work, but is very complicated, and hard to dial in.
 
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Alex View Drop Down
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 3:47pm
Phase cooling is great, but, we haven't been able to make something that is reliable that we would feel comfortable offering our customers.
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ablahblah View Drop Down
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Posts: 2312 		  Quote ablahblah Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 29 Jul 2010 at 5:52pm
There comes a time when you hit so much overclocking that the performance per ghz increase ratio starts to suffer. That amount of overclocking is achieved by using Phase Change or N2 setups, and is usually only helpful when you're trying to break world records. From an everyday standpoint, you really won't see any noticeable performance increase. Liquid Cooling is more fit for daily high-end use, it's less costly, and it allows you to reach just high enough of an overclock so that you really get some sort of performance value for the cost of the liquid cooling loop. All in all though, Air Cooling has had the most performance : cost value, since according to some sources, 3.6Ghz is around the limiting speed where you start to stop seeing some big speed increases.

also, phase change is annoying because of the reason that it keeps things sub-zero. like justin said, eventually, the surrounding moisture in the air has the ability to condense. if components aren't properly insulated, then water would condense on them, and possibly lead to a nasty short circuit Big%20Smile


Edited by ablahblah - 29 Jul 2010 at 5:53pm
R4D4RPR00F
Core i7 920 @ 3.9Ghz
Asus Sabertooth X58
EVGA GTX 570
Mushkin 6GB 1414Mhz
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!ender_ View Drop Down
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 01 Aug 2010 at 7:57pm
Originally posted by justin.kerr

now some stuff, and some of this. now !ender should be happy with my pot to. LOL
 
lol Hahaha
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