Does environment heats effects Air and Liquid performance?

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Fauzi_K

Fauzi_K

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Dec 9, 2015
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Hey guys! . Help me choose between Air and Liquid cooling. What if your environment is hot like 34-36°C . in this situation which one is the provide better cooling solution?
 
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In short, yes, your environement (ambient temperature) absolutely will influence your PC's temperatures...How much it will influence it a much harder question to answer...

The cooler the ambient environment, the cooler the overall temps, vice versa.

In your situation, I would recommend a closed looped cooler in a larger case with plenty of ventilation and good airflow, with extra intake and exhaust fans if you have the money for it.

General Reference Guide to Thermal Coefficients of Various Substances....most liquids used in coolers will always have a superior cooling coefficient than air alone (analogous to why our bodies sweat your brain senses homeostatic temperature rising).

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
 
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My first advice would be the largest "liquid based" cooling solution you can physically fit into your setup for the price. Or possibly rig something up that exits the box. Non liquid cooling ("heatsink") in my experiences handle temp spikes better (sometimes much better) than liquid cooling but can fall behind sustained high device temperatures. Many things effect my previous statement both for and against, but I find that to be true in general.

With the temps you stated I would encourage a much more detailed description of the overall setup you have/intend to have.
 
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Thanks for giving me such advises 🙂 I'm not going for top tier cpu coolers, maybe I should spend like $60-80 for coolers? I've seen Corsair H55 and H60, but outperformed by Noctua NH014,15 based on reviews that I've seen.
 
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I've tested an H110i GTX - the pumps are very poor, the radiators are made of aluminum. The only way they actually perform well is if you run the fans at maximum RPM, which also means they are noisy.

Sorry, I couldn't recommend a closed loop cooler to anyone when there are so many good air coolers out there that do the same for less money.
 
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It's all a matter of perspective. Clc's tend to perform better than air coolers in warmer climates. Air cooler heatsinks just don't have close to the same surface area as a clc rad, the rad fins are much thinner, affected by airflow to a greater degree, and don't dump their exhaust back into the case to engender recirculation.

Either way, temps under @70°C are all the same in reality, doesn't matter if load is 43° or 63°.

Go with whatever fits your budget, aesthetics and case capabilities. If in doubt, go up a size.
 
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Is there an alternative location that the system can be?

The only experience I have with running a computer in an excessively hot environment would be the one in my garage. I don't particularly care for this computer but I do use it to record and store stuff I do out there (manuals, how to videos etc...). I know the thing runs way hotter then it should in summer but I don't really care since I back it up via my home network.

Can you think of any reason why you could not use say... a really long monitor cable and a wireless mouse/keyboard? Have the system in a cooler area (if possible) and just a screen and mouse/keyboard where you need to use it. Other than that I would just say to make sure you have excellent air flow into and out of the the system if in a case with an oversized cooling solution.
 
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Absolutely Yes!

Environment heat does affect any traditional cooling solution, and your environment is on the very high end of temperatures for ambient, 35c is 95f.

My concern is you are posting this question in the overclocking section and you are going to have enough system heat to deal with without overclocking!

My suggestion is to forget the extra money for any closed loop AIO CPU water cooling solution, and get yourself a high quality heat pipe air cooling solution like the Noctua NH-D14 or the NH-D15, it is a good quality cooler that will do a good enough job to keep you from overheating with a stock setup.

If you had intentions of overclocking you will not get too far with those ambient temperatures even going with a full custom water cooling solution, because the higher your ambient the higher your DeltaT, and even if you invested a huge amount of money in radiators, the return results would not be worth the monetary investment.

 
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This is absolutely spot-on. A lot of people don't realise that AIO water coolers still rely on air. The fan(s) draw air into the radiator which then cools the water inside. If your ambient temperature is high, then so is the air cooling the water.

OP, in your situation, you'd be better off extracting air from the case rather than bringing it in, and a heatsink-based cooler will help achieve that.
 
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Exactly, it's why turbocharger intercoolers for example use the let's just say 40F~90F degree air from the environment rather than the 160F~210F fluid from the engine's radiator. Thinking back to my original post, an externally located water cooling rig would prevent additional heat from the case going through it. But at those temps i'm not sure any one solution would be any better than the other for the system as a whole...

Anyone ever put a computer in a refrigerator turned up to the warmest setting? I mean if not for condensation I think it would actually work lol. (now I want to test that lol)
 
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That doesn't work because refrigerators are not designed to constantly produce cold and a running computer constantly produces heat forcing the refrigerator to run full out and killing the compressor in the process.

It is the same as trying to use your window AC unit to cool your PC, the window AC is designed to cool the footage area it is BTU designed to handle, it does that by the compressor cycling on and off so you actually have zero constant cold to depend on as the cold output changes as the pressure lowers to the compressor kick in point.

The difference with the refrigerator it it is designed for cooling an insulated smaller area by dropping those temperatures inside the refrigerator but it cannot handle a heat producing element in side the insulated box, the idea however is not uncommon as many have experimented with it.

Now it is possible to produce below ambient coolant temperatures but it is not a cheap cooling solution.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282844-29-peltier-water-cooling

 
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You'd be surprised - that question has been asked literally hundreds of times on this forum alone. The 'put my computer in a refrigerator or freezer to keep it cold' theory isn't one that is beneficial or practical. It has been attempted by many and all failed. For that to even remotely work, you'd need a very large walk-in cooler or freezer like you'd see at a grocery store where the compressor is designed to remove a large amount of thermal mass from people opening doors or walking in/out. Even then, you're talking about a PC potentially generating several hundreds of watts of thermal energy on a continuous basis (under load) whereas opening/closing of doors still allows thermal mass in, but it isn't a constant load of several hundred watts over several hours.

As 4ryan6 mentioned, using a compressor from an A/C or refrigeration unit can be done, but requires a lot of customization and specialty work in order to make it operational. Even then, there is a risk for electrocution or at very least, compressor failure if the coolant loop is compromised.
 
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I'd imagine so, you would have to localize all of the low pressure side to something the size of a saltine cracker for it to be viable. Then you still got to worry about the high pressure side and how to not have something the size of a snowmobile radiator hanging around... I've actually done something similar to this (well not really) with a saltwater fish tank a friend was setting up. I ran some food safe catalyzed lacquer though a little segregated heat exchanger and baked it to cure. A-side was hooked up to the output of a protein skimmer and the B-side was hooked to a small water chiller I found on ebay. It was one of those deals where they had several hundred watts of metal halide to keep the coral happy. And the water temps needed to stay below 80F

 
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rubix_1011 has made his distaste for closed loop coolers abundently clear.

Moving on, closed loop coolers are certainly a great cooling option. I've used them in all of my client's gaming builds and haven't had an issue or complaint yet.

They are affordable, effective, extremely easy to install.

Everyone has their specific preference, but I'd certainly try one out...and no, you do not need to get an H110i to get good results. For the love of god, I've gotten phenominal results with an H60i.

I'd certainly try to opt for the more expensive models, but if cost is an issue, you'll want to stick to the H75i-H80i.

Personally, not a fan of air-coolers, as I haven't seen great performance out of them in the builds that clients requested them in. Every one of them eventually returned the air cooler and opted for liquid cooling.

Custom water is nice, but can be expensive, time consuming, difficult to set up properly and leave the potential for biofilm growth within your tubing if you aren't careful, which depending on what's growing, may never go away and you'll need to completely replace the tubing. Coagulase negative Staphylocci (especially Staph epidermidis, which your body is normally covered in) absolutely will not go away.

I used to work as an analytial chemist as well as a microbiologist, and once tubing gets innoculated with a few CFUs of Staph Epi, the tubing is toast if those bugs stay alive and form a biofilm. I am now medical school, and I cannot tell you how many prosthetic devices (especially ortho knees and hips) have to be completely replaced (metal or plastic components) just because of Staph Epi. It's not a pathogenic bacteria, but it's a real pain in the ass. It's all over you, and will always be all over yo, which means its probably going to get in your tubing. I don't know of any chemicals other than 10% bleach for 15 minutes (which I DO NOT recommend, as bleach oxidizes the hell out of plastics and will weaken them. Trust me, I've watched ortho and infectious disease attendings at my hospital scratch their heads when trying to treat an extremely resistant Coag Neg Staph infection of a prosthesis. I've watched big gun antibiotics, stuff that makes looks like vancomycin (pretty potent stuff) look like childs play. The power and efficacy of their biofilm production is definitely something you dont want to underestimate. You just dont want to be replacing entire units all the time...not likely, but definitely possible.

Unless you have a real nice budget and afford the custom loop, I'd say go with the best Corsair closed loop that'll fit your case. (I'm obviously not a paid sponsor by Corsair, I've just been really impressed with their performance in every build I do for myself, my wife or my clientele.)
 
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Just an FYI for the turbo intercooler comment, most of the better it's don't use air cooling, they use a closed loop cooler and radiator setup that's mounted in front of the vehicles radiator to take advantage of any intake air and fan draw. The reasoning behind this, and it applies to cpus and aios as well, is that metal heats very quickly and air has a close relationship with temperatures and energy transference. The warmer the air, the less effective it becomes at heat transfer. Air coolers dump their exhaust back into the case. Without good airflow, the cpu exhaust air is circulated back into the cpu fan, so consistently warmer air is reused up to the point of saturation (TDP) at which point the cooling becomes ineffective. Aios don't rely on case air temperature as much since exhaust is external. In cases with limited airflow options like mini-itx, Aios show much better cooling results over similar air coolers for this reason. Same as a turbo under the hood of a car, limited airflow in a warm environment.

That's not to say Aios are better than air coolers, each has its strong points and weaknesses. A heatsink lasts forever, an aio pump has a limited lifespan. Heatsinks generally will never leak, an aio can. If you want more than 4 ram slots, air is out of the equation. An aio won't break a mobo during movement. Air costs less (mostly) and this is the primary reason for argument in favor of air. Justification of cost over a clc that costs 2x the price of a similar aircooler isn't exactly easy.

Everybody, for their own reasons, has their own preferences, and thats ok, since all coolers do exactly the same job anyways, cool the cpu. It's just a preference in how, and how much.
 
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I would start off with an H75i if you can spare the few extra dollars and see where that gets you. They've come a long way with improvements, and I keep seeing consistently great performance with them.

Here's a helpful article that summarizes the concept of what the Corsair H series coolers have to offer and they use 50/50 mix of propylene glycol and water in the Corsair H series units...its posted below if you're interested.

A 50/50 mixture of propylene/glycol and H2O has roughly a cooling coefficient 14x greater than that of air alone. More fans will certainly wont hurt. According to this link by Dr. Satish Mohapatra, PhD, a well published researcher with an extensive background in mechanical engineering as well as a doctorate in chemical engineering, he seems to favor liquid based cooling systems for electronics than air/heatsink based units. Everyone has different experiences, but given that your ambient environment is hot, you should highly consider liquid cooling.

Everyone has their personal favorites/opinions/theories, but I've had great experiences with the Corsair H series and they have a great 5 year warranty policy (long enough to likely to outlast your PC).

http://www.electronics-cooling.com/2006/05/an-overview-of-liquid-coolants-for-electronics-cooling/
 
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Yup, exactly. Thermal coefficients of the aio liquid is also tremendously higher than just ambient air alone.
Either way, people can do whatever they want, but I'll stick to what has worked extremely well for my personal PCs as well as my custom industrial or scientific PC builds that require operation in very high ambient temps for my PC building business.Haven't had a single issue to date with any of the closed loops I've installed for my clients that required cooling loops for their operation.
 
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When I built this current pc, I ran into an issue I'd never heard of before, never seen, and wasn't even a consideration at the time. I have a MSI mpower z77 Big Bang motherboard, and the socket heatsinks are huge, heatpipes linked affairs. I ordered the Raijintek Nemesis, NCIX had it on sale for $40, couldn't resist that price. At install, the left hand side heatpipes actually came into contact with the motherboard heatsinks. So, turned the cooler 90° for vertical exhaust, no biggie. Now that cooler is massive, so the primary intake was 1/4" from the gpu and the rubber fan mount gimmicks were between the ram sticks. Not a viable solution. NCIX was good about the RMA, but honestly, that's a design flaw in that cooler. It's one of the largest air coolers, in the top 3 for size, so you'd think it was designed for a top line, huge heatsink, OC motherboard, not an average cheaper design.

So now I have an nzxt Kraken X61, which looks great, performs flawlessly, quiet as a church mouse, and keeps my 4.6GHz 3770k at @32°C idle, 56°C p95 26.6 small fft load, ambient 24°C (fractal design define r5 case, pc sits inside the desk cubby, so can amplify fan echo and heat containment).

Wife's 3570k runs so quiet on a h55 @4.3GHz that I actually have to look for the power/hdd light to tell if the pc is on or not, but it is running with a Noctua nf-f12 fan (the stock h55 fan is a disaster, 3pin constant noise maker), Seasonic M12-II 520w psu, Asus 660ti, so it's built for quiet operation.

Many complain about clc noise. This is a misnomer. Clc's don't make noise. A bad pump can make an audible click, that's all in pump design (9/10 it's a CoolIT design), but the majority if the time it's nothing more than fan noise. This'll happen with any crappy design fan, be it on an air or closed loop cooler. Corsair isn't known for good, quiet fans, so this is a major bone of contention after spending @ $100 for a cooler, only to turn around and spend another $40 for some good fans when $60 would get you a Noctua D14 with great fans to start with. From a budget perspective, you'd have to be an idiot to spend $140 for the same performance as a $60 air cooler with the same fans. In this especially, I've found that nzxt really stepped up their game, the D14 has a hard time at high OC keeping up with the x41, never mind the larger x61. The only other clc I'd consider would be the swiftechs, but US pricing is absurd.

When/if my wife's h55 goes bunk, even with my preference for clc's, its getting a Cryorig H7 (wasn't available at the time). For the price and performance, its simply untouchable.
 
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