would adding alcohol in water loop help performance ?

[samer.forums]

Hello,

would adding alcohol in water loop help the cooling performance ?

and if yes , what percentage ? 40% ? 20%?

 

[13thmonkey]

the radiator is so remote from from the CPU block that it doesn't matter, all it controls it whether you can get the temp of the fluid entering the block back down to a useful temp, and lets say that you can. Lets go into the calcs in more detail at the block:

The block might hold 2ml of liquid, so that's 2g of water, and about 1.6g of alcohol. And for now assume a flow rate of 2ml/s

On a 65W processor in 1 second that would heat up the water by 65/4.2/2 = 7C, for the Alcohol the rise is 65/2.4/1.6 = 17C, so assuming an ambient of 30C for the liquid (close to case temp) you'll have water leaving the block at 37, and alcohol leaving at 47C. The Water entering the rad is at 37, and the alcohol is 47.

Both will lose some heat in the rad, but the alcohol in the block has much less thermal headroom before it boils, so if the rads don't get the alcohol down to 30 again, then you'll start to get the exit temps from the block climbing much quicker than for the water, and if it hits 78C, it will boil.

You have the additional problem that locally in hotspots in the block with a die temp of 70+C it will get very close to 78C, and it will boil. With water this can only happen if the CPU has hit it's throttle temp.

wrong , Alcohol will lose heat faster in the radiator than water , you need to calculate that right them we can agree or not.

I am not saying you are wrong by the way , I am just saying you are not calculating it right. also , in Alcohol the length of loop is a huge factor in cooling unlike water , because it cools down faster ...

one more thing to add , The alcohol loop should be vertical and not horizontal , so in case there is a Vapor between the CPU and RAD , it will move up ...

anyways I am thinking more about Ammonia now , I will see what I can find online.

Love the argument that i am 'wrong' with no evidence, do the calcs then, they can be treated as two separate elements especially if there is a risk that the coolant will locally vaporise, don't forget to account for local hotspots in the block. I await your detailed response.

The nice thing about ammonia is that when it leaks and it is warm, it's an irritant, toxic, and it's corrosive, great choice. On that subject, given your statement that the heating rates and cooling rates mean that alcohol will work the same as water, then so would ammonia work the same as water.

 

[USAFRet]

no one knows it all , and no one tested it all . actually it took us 70 years to move water cooling from cars to PCs .. you assume that the PC world is NASA LABS and that important.

No, it only took a couple of years in the computer world to start using liquid for cooling.
Cray 2, 1985 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2

 

[samer.forums]

no one knows it all , and no one tested it all . actually it took us 70 years to move water cooling from cars to PCs .. you assume that the PC world is NASA LABS and that important.

No, it only took a couple of years in the computer world to start using liquid for cooling.
Cray 2, 1985 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2

Cray is not a PC . PC = Personal Computer.

Also Cray cooling was not water cooling , it used pressurized liquid and was different from our water cooling and radiators.

 

[Kasper Jorgensen]

@Samer.forums

Why is it that in every thread you are in, you always have your own ideas and never believe what other people say. 13thmonkey even posted how to do the calculations and you don't even believe that.
Why even create this topic when you wont believe what anyone has to say anyway?

Cray is a supercomputer, for dummies it means it's the name they have given that specific supercomputer.

 

[USAFRet]

no one knows it all , and no one tested it all . actually it took us 70 years to move water cooling from cars to PCs .. you assume that the PC world is NASA LABS and that important.

No, it only took a couple of years in the computer world to start using liquid for cooling.
Cray 2, 1985 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cray-2

Cray is not a PC . PC = Personal Computer.

Also Cray cooling was not water cooling , it used pressurized liquid and was different from our water cooling and radiators.

OK, whatever.
And for that "70 years", PC's did not exist for 95% of that time. So that does not count.

You've been shown the many con's to this concept.
Build this.
Test it.
Show us the benefits and drawbacks.
If there is a demonstrated short and long term benefit, you may just revolutionize the liquid cooling PC world.

Anything else is just random discussion.

 

[samer.forums]

@Samer.forums

Why is it that in every thread you are in, you always have your own ideas and never believe what other people say. 13thmonkey even posted how to do the calculations and you don't even believe that.
Why even create this topic when you wont believe what anyone has to say anyway?

Cray is a supercomputer, for dummies it means it's the name they have given that specific supercomputer.

This is off topic and personal judgement. please stay on topic. and avoid personalizing.

I will not waste my time answering personal Judgments .

 

[Rogue Leader]

@Samer.forums

Why is it that in every thread you are in, you always have your own ideas and never believe what other people say. 13thmonkey even posted how to do the calculations and you don't even believe that.
Why even create this topic when you wont believe what anyone has to say anyway?

Cray is a supercomputer, for dummies it means it's the name they have given that specific supercomputer.

This is off topic and personal judgement. please stay on topic. and avoid personalizing.

I will not waste my time answering personal Judgments .

I would say a lot of us agree with what he is saying.

Personal attacks are not allowed here. But what he is saying has merit. You have been creating topics like this with various schemes. Posters come in and give you proven information about why its a bad idea and will not work. You completely ignore what they are saying and give every reason why your conjecture must be correct.

This is not a personal attack, its a clear observation on the posts created here, its a consistent pattern. If you don't like your ideas to be criticized I suggest you post them elsewhere.

 

[samer.forums]

I did not say it is a personal Attack. I said it is Personal Judgement. and if you look at post #5 , I said Okay ! I did not hate criticism at all. and I dont have any patterns as you said. later other people came in and started talking about it and I was asking them for complete calculations not part calculations. thats all.

anyways ,

best solution chosen , thank you very much :

The Original Ralph

you helped me the most.

 

[13thmonkey]

I asked you to complete them, have you?

 

[Tesselator]

so basically , I will need metal tubing and a special pump. This is going to be very expensive to test.

I was thinking to put the pump After the Radiator , this way No Alcohol Vapor will pass through the PUMP.

but anyways this is way beyond my budget , just for testing.

You can use alcohol in a CPU or GPU cooling solution - no problem! But you would NOT want to use rigging made for water. You would want a system more like is used in your refrigerator or windowsill air-conditioner. These are pressurized phase-change systems that use expansion and compression and they can reach sub-zero temperatures! They are awesome for cooling CPUs & GPUs but it's not the same KIND of system as a typical water loop.

Here's a video showing this basic KIND of system but using Freon I think instead of alcohol. But alcohol could be used in a similar system but might not achieve sub-zero temperatures consistently - which might actually be better - watch the video to see why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d0B0Dli-1g

You could also design a compressorless (no compressor) loop using an evaporation plate at the CPU/GPU by just exchanging the heat through fins and this is basically how some air-coolers work with evaporation chambers "vapor-chambers" and/or heat-pipes. Here's another Linus video explaining that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4POFT3Ctek

 

[Tesselator]

Here's another video showing that alcohol is probably the wrong direction to move in a convection style cooling loop. In this video the host demonstrates a typical convection loop comparison with water and the liquid metal gallium. No spoilers tho, you'll have to watch the video to see which one wins out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqvBLBlzeNQ

As far as the costs involved in designing and building your own alcohol or Freon phase-change cooler I guess it would less than a few hundred bucks with the most expensive part likely being the tracking down and purchasing of some used gas welding equipment. Most of the rest is just dumpster-diving for the parts and materials. Here's a video of a guy who did just that. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKG4F8ANu4

Have fun, that's the important bit! I wish I could tell you that I've tried any of these things... my personal solution to system cooling is just to forgo any kind of case (I hate PC cases!!!) 😀 .

This was my last build:
http://tesselator.gpmod.com/Images/_Equipment_n_Tutorials/_Caseless_PC_Build/

 

[Rogue Leader]

This poster is no longer on the forum. No reason to continue this thread.