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Brians256 · 07-04-2002, 01:26 AM

I would have replied more quickly, but I've been REALLY busy. Interesting topic, thanks V12! I don't really pay attention to who is in a clique (I really hate that concept, probably because I didn't make it into any of the neat cliques in my school days).

Anyway, glad to see you are experimenting with different block designs! Let me tell you what I chose to do, and then attempt to defend it in spite of what people commonly use.

I made a block which uses about 25 parallel cross-drilled channels (at about 0.097" inner diameter) across an aluminum block which is about 1" thick. The design was shamelessly stolen from a formerly active member of the water cooling community Xjinn. You can see a picture of his copper waterblock here: http://www.procooling.com/articles/a...t-team-wc3.jpg

The ideas behind this block are to create high surface area with multiple parallel channels like the heatercores use in dumping the heat to the air. Also, by making the individual channels narrow, you increase turbulence so that the boundary layer is very thin. The boundary layer is the layer of non-moving water that insulates the metal from the cooling water flow. By adding a large number of the parallel channels, you reduce the restriction on water flow which can kill overall system performance.

Now, why would this be better than using fins? Basically, I believe that it is better because the tall fins or pins cannot effectively transmit heat away from the waterblock base. Also, you get dead spots where water doesn't move if you use pins.

The reason I used aluminum? Basically because I got the raw material for free, and because aluminum is much easier to machine than copper.

The temps I get are around 48C at full load and 34C at idle. Ambient temps are about 27C, and I'm using a std heatercore with 2 120mm fans running fairly slowly, 3/8" tubing, and an Eheim 1250 pump. Interestingly, I get about 40C for normal apps using 100% of the cpu for hours. I can only get up to 46C to 48C if I use K7Burn for over 30min, which means that I could probably bring that down if I wanted to run my fans at full speed. Temperatures taken with the XP internal diode on a XP2100 running 13x133 (I haven't unlocked it yet).

07-04-2002, 01:26 AM	#12
Brians256 Pro/Staff Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Klamath Falls, OR Posts: 1,439	I would have replied more quickly, but I've been REALLY busy. Interesting topic, thanks V12! I don't really pay attention to who is in a clique (I really hate that concept, probably because I didn't make it into any of the neat cliques in my school days). Anyway, glad to see you are experimenting with different block designs! Let me tell you what I chose to do, and then attempt to defend it in spite of what people commonly use. I made a block which uses about 25 parallel cross-drilled channels (at about 0.097" inner diameter) across an aluminum block which is about 1" thick. The design was shamelessly stolen from a formerly active member of the water cooling community Xjinn. You can see a picture of his copper waterblock here: http://www.procooling.com/articles/a...t-team-wc3.jpg The ideas behind this block are to create high surface area with multiple parallel channels like the heatercores use in dumping the heat to the air. Also, by making the individual channels narrow, you increase turbulence so that the boundary layer is very thin. The boundary layer is the layer of non-moving water that insulates the metal from the cooling water flow. By adding a large number of the parallel channels, you reduce the restriction on water flow which can kill overall system performance. Now, why would this be better than using fins? Basically, I believe that it is better because the tall fins or pins cannot effectively transmit heat away from the waterblock base. Also, you get dead spots where water doesn't move if you use pins. The reason I used aluminum? Basically because I got the raw material for free, and because aluminum is much easier to machine than copper. The temps I get are around 48C at full load and 34C at idle. Ambient temps are about 27C, and I'm using a std heatercore with 2 120mm fans running fairly slowly, 3/8" tubing, and an Eheim 1250 pump. Interestingly, I get about 40C for normal apps using 100% of the cpu for hours. I can only get up to 46C to 48C if I use K7Burn for over 30min, which means that I could probably bring that down if I wanted to run my fans at full speed. Temperatures taken with the XP internal diode on a XP2100 running 13x133 (I haven't unlocked it yet).