why is water cooling better if...

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

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Solid things, especially metals, conduct heat better than liquids?

If I replaced my h100i's tubes with solid heat pipes but kept the large rad /heat sink and fans do you think it would provide better cooling? (This assumes the transfer of heat from the cpu to the radiator is the weakest link in the h100i I have no idea if it is...)
 
Heat conducts better through metal than water, however if you then move the water by pumping it through tubes it's not conducting it away its physically moving the heat away. This is more effective than conduction.
 
almoststew1990 said:
Solid things, especially metals, conduct heat better than liquids?

If I replaced my h100i's tubes with solid heat pipes but kept the large rad /heat sink and fans do you think it would provide better cooling? (This assumes the transfer of heat from the cpu to the radiator is the weakest link in the h100i I have no idea if it is...)
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You could also replace your central heating pipes with solid pipes and see how well they transfer heat around your house too ;)
 
Solid heat pipes? As in a solid bar of metal, or an actual heat pipe?

Because heat pipes aren't solid. They're tubes that contain a liquid that absorbs the heat, evaporates and moves as a gas down the tube away from the heat source where the heat is dispersed by a fin array or radiator. In essence it's doing the same thing as watercooling.

You can't strap a block of metal to a CPU and expect it to drain the heat away - unless you have some superconductive material (and do your calculations very precisely), the CPU will heat up faster than the metal block could suck it up.
 
Minstadave said:
Heat conducts better through metal than water, however if you then move the water by pumping it through tubes it's not conducting it away its physically moving the heat away. This is more effective than conduction.
Click to expand...

True, but only if the circulation pump, tubing size and radiator cooler have higher cooling ability than the metal / heat pipe cooler has .. which is true of custom loop cooling.

Generally speaking, CLCs do not have better cooling ability than air coolers and are also much louder, cost more, are not as dependable, etc. .. although there are a couple on an even keel now .. H220x .
 
The thing to remember with watercooling, is that it still ultimately is cooled by the air. The difference is that, the water essentially becomes your heatsink. With a 1L loop, that is a massive heatsink, tied with large radiators, you can see why they are so good at what they do.
 
doyll said:
True, but only if the circulation pump, tubing size and radiator cooler have higher cooling ability than the metal / heat pipe cooler has .. which is true of custom loop cooling.

Generally speaking, CLCs do not have better cooling ability than air coolers and are also much louder, cost more, are not as dependable, etc. .. although there are a couple on an even keel now .. H220x .
Click to expand...

None of which was his question.
 
to the OP, well of course if you used metal hoses from the pump to the rad, some extra heat sink effect would happen from the pipes.

however the rad and it's fans are the real heat loss in the system.
why do you ask? is your h100i not cooling your system enough? got one installed on my old rig and it seems like an amazing cooler keeping temps below 65*c @ 4.8ghz
 
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