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Tweety · 03-27-2003, 09:22 AM

I'm back again...

I had a little thinking session yesterday at work...(I had nothing more interesting to do...)

The Pro's of this block:
The small size
Universally usable, it will fit ANY motherboard, without exceptions
Easy to make, low cost, little material/special tools

The Con's of this block:
The block not touching the pads make me nervous...
Laminar flow(fixed with grooves)
The fact that I didn't come up with the idea...

And yes... I didn't add lack of suface area to the above list... why?
I don't think it lacks any surface area, again why?
Well... Greystar used a method wich is to me, more accurate then any thermometer, he said that the block felt cool when he touched it...
With such a small block, the chance of the topside being cool if the block didn't actually do the job it should is slim to none, the job here being to transfer the heat away from the cpu fast/faster than enough to keep the temps down. If the setup has been running a while (20-30 minutes) to get the temps up to normal running conditions, the temps are stable and the block still feels cool, then I don't think a thicker base plate will affect the performance very much...
The only thing it will do is add more metall to be heated, it won't add to cooling performance...

Laminar flow on the other hand can and probably is a factor holding back performance... easily combatted with grooves or any other measure to add a small amount of turbulence...

As for your idea to make the channel wider Graystar...
Well it migth add to performance, IF the with of the channel is the bottleneck, since I don't have the exact figures I can't tell...
The channel migth actually have the same amount of flow rigth now as the inlets, or smaller/larger... the ideal here would be to have the same flow in both the in/outlets and the channel... If the inlets have a lower flowrate than the channel, making the channel wider, and increasing the flow you will only add to the laminar flow, and make the water "stagnate" in the block heating up...

Laminar flow means that the water closest to a flat suface slows down, heats up and this creates a "tunnel" in the middle of the waterflow with cooler water escaping the block faster, leaving the hot water behind as an insulator... just to explain the word...

Now... I'm gonna give a suggestion going against one of my previous arguments...

How about making the bottom plate squared? big enough to rest on the pads, but keep the other parts of the block the same... It will add metall to be heated, but the question is how much will this reduce performance? Is it worth it in terms of security?

BTW the clip, is it a universal heatsink clip? It looks like one in the pics but I'm not sure? Did you have to modify it? bending it to reduce/add pressure?

03-27-2003, 09:22 AM	#53
Tweety Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sweden Posts: 11	I'm back again... I had a little thinking session yesterday at work...(I had nothing more interesting to do...) The Pro's of this block: The small size Universally usable, it will fit ANY motherboard, without exceptions Easy to make, low cost, little material/special tools The Con's of this block: The block not touching the pads make me nervous... Laminar flow(fixed with grooves) The fact that I didn't come up with the idea... And yes... I didn't add lack of suface area to the above list... why? I don't think it lacks any surface area, again why? Well... Greystar used a method wich is to me, more accurate then any thermometer, he said that the block felt cool when he touched it... With such a small block, the chance of the topside being cool if the block didn't actually do the job it should is slim to none, the job here being to transfer the heat away from the cpu fast/faster than enough to keep the temps down. If the setup has been running a while (20-30 minutes) to get the temps up to normal running conditions, the temps are stable and the block still feels cool, then I don't think a thicker base plate will affect the performance very much... The only thing it will do is add more metall to be heated, it won't add to cooling performance... Laminar flow on the other hand can and probably is a factor holding back performance... easily combatted with grooves or any other measure to add a small amount of turbulence... As for your idea to make the channel wider Graystar... Well it migth add to performance, IF the with of the channel is the bottleneck, since I don't have the exact figures I can't tell... The channel migth actually have the same amount of flow rigth now as the inlets, or smaller/larger... the ideal here would be to have the same flow in both the in/outlets and the channel... If the inlets have a lower flowrate than the channel, making the channel wider, and increasing the flow you will only add to the laminar flow, and make the water "stagnate" in the block heating up... Laminar flow means that the water closest to a flat suface slows down, heats up and this creates a "tunnel" in the middle of the waterflow with cooler water escaping the block faster, leaving the hot water behind as an insulator... just to explain the word... Now... I'm gonna give a suggestion going against one of my previous arguments... How about making the bottom plate squared? big enough to rest on the pads, but keep the other parts of the block the same... It will add metall to be heated, but the question is how much will this reduce performance? Is it worth it in terms of security? BTW the clip, is it a universal heatsink clip? It looks like one in the pics but I'm not sure? Did you have to modify it? bending it to reduce/add pressure?