[Liquid Cooling] Exactly What is it?

[linolium]

I have not bought a new pc in like 7 years....I understand Basic principle's such as Processor's, Graphics cards, ram/memory, and mother boards, However Liquid cooling is something I cannot seem to grasp. When I think of liquid cooling I think of a system similiar to an ice maker in a refrigerator or a Liquid Nitrogen pipeline in a Nuclear powerplants core. I have searched online and have gotten no real explanation, like how can it liquid cool your computer without an attached liquid source does it have one, do i know what im talking about probably not thats why im asking? Also what is its life time liquid coolers on other machinery dont normally come with a life time? and other nonsence. I realise liquid cooling is better for more high end machines that produce more heat and have more need of higher power supply, I've learned this through research, But I still dont understand exactly what a Liquid cooling is, Can some one help?

 

[benikens]

Well the gist is self explanatory, using liquid to cool your system. Where you would normally have say a heatsink sitting on your cpu and a fan that blows/sucks heat out of it instead you have a waterblock, which is a flat piece of heat conductive material usually like copper same as a heatsink and it has channels on the inside of it where water can flow through and remove heat. This water comes from the loop which is usually made up of a radiator like in a car, a pump that pumps the water around the loop, a reservoir that holds extra water and a bunch of tubing that connects it all. Water is pumped through the waterblock to remove the heat from your cpu then makes its way to a radiator where the heat is removed from the water. People also sometimes do this to their graphics cards aswell. Watercooling can be a lot better performance wise then air cooling, however it's much riskier what with the potential to spill water on expensive computer parts.

 

[linolium]

So tell me if it's similiar to a car's radiator does that mean, I will have to add more water or when the water eventually evaporates over time that is when you replace your cooling system?

 

[benikens]

Yeah overtime the water would require topping up. It also needs to be monitored for gunk building up in the system. It should have something like a killcoil in there to keep out nastys on most people recommend running only pure distilled water.

 

[beenthere]

Corsair sells closed H2O CPU cooling systems but they are not very efficient and they are not competitively priced to quality air-cooled HSFs. You can't get decent water cooling unless you spend hundreds of dollars and for 99% of PC users H2O cooling is impractical and a high risk when it leaks - which usually happens sooner or later. H2O cooling is more of a gimmick for those looking for OC'ing bragging rights, but then liquid nitrogen is far better and more dangerous.

You can see how some H2O systems compare to good air-cooled HSFs at the link below.

http://www.frostytech.com/