Air is better than water

  • somtwo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    11 months ago

    Not trying to be contrarian or a smart-ass, but aren’t water cooled systems kinda just air cooled systems with the radiator moved elsewhere?

    • frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yes. The advantage is that you can make the surface area of the air cooling part much, much larger. I had a water cooled system that could do web browsing and other basic tasks with zero fan speed (though it was better to leave it on very low speed to avoid hunting behavior).

      Also, there’s some benefits to thermal mass. Short term spikes can be absorbed by the water without increasing fan speed.

      • crystal@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        11 months ago

        I had a water cooled system that could do web browsing and other basic tasks with zero fan speed

        Isn’t that the default for (air cooled) notebooks?

        • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          I once built a home theatre PC that was completely passively cooled. The case was basically the entire heat sink. It got the heat from the CPU through heatpipes. Unfortunately the shitty motherboard died due to unreleased reasons and since then I didn’t have the time or money to revive it.

          The cases aren’t even built anymore. No idea why, it was really cool.

    • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Every liquid cooling system is pretty much that. Eventually you need to give it to the outside and the outside is usually air. Heck even river cooling for Power plants ends up “air cooling” through the rivers surface.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      11 months ago

      I think that the point is to get a much bigger radiator by moving it to a less cramped location. The point is to make the process more efficient, not to change its nature.

    • the_third@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Not if you use water from the tap. A friend of mine in college did that when he had a water flatrate in his appartment. Worked pretty well.

        • the_third@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          Deutsch
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          Nah, not everywhere. Our village has no water meters because, why. Spring water from the mountains is not treated, only monitored for microorganisms and contaminants and fed into our water supply by gravity. Doesn’t really matter if it runs through a computer on its way to the sea or not.

          In places like big cities or flat plains where the water needs to be pumped and treated that’s a different thing.