Comparably sized? How close are we talking? I can easily understand a BIX being worse, but I have more difficulty with something that's 6*6.

Is it the all copper that makes the Lytron better, or are they brazed? It seems to me that the solder is the weak point in copper/brass heater cores. I see that as being the reason (seeing as aluminum solder is only [and can only be] used in aluminum cores, and that's much better thermal conductivity than lead/tin) that some radiators are better than others.

Edit: Silver brazed. That's where the money goes and that's where the performance comes from (I think)

Well if you consider that mole sticking on the outside of the computer "designed for a computer" then whatever. I would like to see that rad and a "comparably sized" heatercore one on one. And price most certainly is an issue. That thing is what? $50+??? $88 with the fancy mounting "Rad Box"..... It better be MUCH better. But better as you speak is less than a 1C no?
Wait a minute, I thought you were selling them (MCR120)? Why would you sell your competitors products then if you don't want them improved aswell? Don;t you want better products? Or did I miss understand something and the MCR120 is not HW Labs product.
As far as radiators how can performance NOT be the thing. The better it performs the quieter fan you can mount on it no? But what is the difference between a lytron and a MCR120? a C or 2?
I am waiting for the original authors input. He started this thread in a SPAM attempt and I am trying to figure why he posted such crap. If the rad can't sell by it's own then it doesn't need a bunch of spam posts and so called testing results that mean nothing. Is this rad better than any other rad out there? It is a simple question is it not? I have yet to hear an answer from anyone in this thread yet all this useless rambling continues about innovation and barb placement. Does the damn thing work or not and if so it better or worst than whats already out there?

And yes I missed Cathars rad posts I guess. Will look it up.

I really don't care. You missed the point and the context which they were stated. Any relevant info on the rads posted in the first post? Didn't think so...

Where is this post Bill? I'm curious to what he found out.

I'm a terrible person to ask
Cathar ?
Cathar has over time described his ideal rad, and his reasoning is correct
my choices are a tad different - but not published, for now

That's ok. The search function did wonders. Yes the reasoning is correct as I picked that out of the published data on your site. Not sure what my choices are, maybe It's just not practical - performance/cost, user friendly. I'm probably asking to much and there is no all in wonder. My optimum choice is most likely inline with yours, gleaming from your past post, but I got flamed many times over it. Then I'm looking at the dual 120's out there and the more I dig deaper, the more I wonder if it's all what they say it is. I may just spring for the mcr120 and be done with it.

Bill I doubt your point about copper superiority applying in a rad.
IMO, copper beat Al in air heatsink for its more conductive ability cause the fins of a heatsink is usually 3~4cm high, the heat spread on the fins of hinksink make the diff, therefore copper fins can spread heat more uniformity.
but for a rad, diff case it is. the thickness of the tube of a HC or BIX is not more than .5mm I guess. so it won't bring a distinct temp diff when moving from brass or Al to Copper. what make the heat spread along the brass tube effectively? not the material of the tube but the velocity of the flow inside the tube.
and don't forget the "huge" heat exchange area for a rad, and this make the watt per square cm quite low, which can lower the temp diff 2.
I have compared a BIX2 and Dtek procore, for my single cpu(AMDxp@2.33g/1.875V) heat load, bix2 beat procore by only 2~3c(at most), not bad but still a shame for a 2 fans holder.

eek, wrong statement
should have been "I do not believe that brass/copper rads are inherently superior to aluminum.

for the tube of a Rad, material is not the key of performence, but for the fins it is.
Like the fins in aircooling, aluminum fins of a rad never can be "longer" than copper one, check a 90's HC made in aluminum, the length of the fin between the tubes is much more shorter, u can easy tell it by comparing the numbers of the tubes in almost the same width of a copper fin HC and the aluminum fin one.

However, these fins in a HC are still shorter than 1/2" usually, further more the heat is conducted from the two sides(tubes), unlike the fins in aircooling only from one side(the base), all of these contribute to restraining the superior of copper fin 2.

IMO, the reason of brass/copper is a good combination for a rad includes:

1. brass can get along with the copper base of waterblock and other copper parts in the loop better than aluminum; if only concerning performance copper is the best, even aluminum tube easily beat the brass one, but considering the thickness of the tube, its not a big deal, brass tube is not as soft as copper one and can make the liquid snake;

2. for the junction of the fins and the tube, I am not familiar with soldering, but brass and copper should be better. copper fins can be longer, which is helpful to maximum the air flow inside the rad.

so, brass/copper is still a good choice expecially for its low cost.
Sorry for my poor english expression.

Ummm, I would think the tube material is very important. If it cannot transfer heat well then it isn't going to move the heat to the fins well either making the fins useless even if they were silver. By your logic we could use plastic for the tubes and copper for the fins with no loss in performance compared to a copper tubed rad. :shrug:

On the subject of material let's look at this page http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dm.../materials.htm and tell me which has better thermal properties of the materials used in HC's?

From my interpretation it is
1) Copper
2) Aluminum
3) Brass

Yes.
In my various plays with design .,using Al fins would, to get the same Finning Efficiency, reduce the spacing between flat water tubes to ~75% of that for Cu fins.

unfortunately copper and aluminum don't bond easily (that I'm aware of)
brass tubes are for strength, the modern aluminum tubes have internal dividers or dimples increasing both the surface area and/or turbulence
and aluminum is cheaper

always compromises

Aluminum is cheaper but is it cheaper to manufacture a all AL heater core? AL seems harder to bond (even AL to AL) than copper to copper or brass to copper. Wonder how they bond the fins to the tubes in all AL heater cores. Interesting about the dimples and dividers.

I find it funny that people will pay out the nose for 1C (at most) cooler temperatures and will argue about the superiority of such matrerials to the point at which they are splitting hairs. Obviously the auto manufacturers have chosen a proven and reliable design in their heatercores (as in not using plastic tubes and copper fins). They must have done research in this area at some time. And it really doesnt matter that much that the tubes are brass: they have a rediculous amount of surface area and are quite thin. If you look at the half tube on the edge of any heatercore, that is the thickness of the walls of the tube. Nearly any material will be able to conduct well with that thickness. Plus, there is a zig zag flow pattern in nearly all heatercores which (I think) is supposed to create turbulence (and possibly rigidity?). This feature is not found on any computer specific radiator (BIX or those aluminum ones) that I have seen.

I do find it difficult to bleed my heatercore unless the barbs are completely flush with the tank on the inside. If the barbs protrude too far inside the tank, the radiator seems to accumulate air in there, which is occasionally sucked in and I get a little bubble noise in the pump.

Until there is proof that one design is better than another, believe nothing.

Well if it wasn't for this nothing would ever get better. If we held the mentality that gaining 1C isn't worth it then we would all still be using Maze 1's. 1C at a time, it all adds up down the road.

I realize this, but ther isnt much we can improve in radiator design at the moment. Besides the average user cannot build a radiator and a radiator can always be adapted for brute force cooling. I guarentee I can design a plastic tubed radiator with plastic fins that can beat a heatercore, it would just take up a lot more room and have a lot more air going through it.

Also, there is a distinct difference between coming up with a brand new design for something and just changing around the materials a little bit. Using better materals to improve performance imposes a natural limit to what can be achieved from a certain design. It is changing the design that produces better results.

An all silver maze 1 would be stomped on by a cascade, even if the cascade had an aluminum base.

I dont see anyone creating a new style radiator. When someone does, that is when it is time to split hairs.

does not need to be "a new style", better is sufficient for me

aluminum is furnace brazed, very economical - and capital intensive

kn
LOTS of data, only my old articles in the public domain

Pair these:
and bear in mind that aluminum, being a stronger metal, can be thinner than copper. So there's more to it than just comparing thermal conductivity pound-for-pound. We build ship hulls out of heavy steel, not wood. Just looking up the densities of those materials wouldn't explain why.

We resist aluminum partly because of that raw appeal copper has, on the chart, but mainly because of it's incompatibility with existing copper components. Copper is the qwerty keyboard of water cooling.

Let's all stick with qwerty.

Brass is generally used in heatercores for the tubes. If you look at the half tube on the edge of every heatercore, it is easy to see that the thickness is less than .5mm. If I had some dial calipers I would measure the thickness. The shape of the tubes also seems to give them more strength than straight tubes, plus they are made of brass which is stronger than aluminum.

Brass is also not prone to galvanic corrosion when combined with copper plus it is simple to solder to copper, so it is easy to see why it is used in radiators.

the Copper Research Inst has developed 'hard' copper tubes that are thinner and stronger than brass a number of years ago
- no economic incentive I'd guess

Not every heater core has half tubes on the side. Also the one heater core I have with half tubes is well over .5mm. More like 1 to 1.5mm. But that's just the cores I have. Many different designs.

So we'll always have the copper-zinc team vs. aluminum.

hmm, maybe it is just my cheap one?

Here are some pics of the cores and an oil cooler I got laying around. Sorry for the blurry pics. My Digital Cam seems to be screwed up or something.

#1
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core1.jpg
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core1b.jpg

#2
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core2.jpg
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core2b.jpg

#3
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core3.jpg

#4
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core4.jpg
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/core4b.jpg

#5
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/oilcooler.jpg
http://www.customcooledpc.com/cores/oilcoolerb.jpg
hard to make it out but that is a turbulator in that last pic inside the oil cooler.

Jaydee, don't make ur decision by logic, lets do it in mathmatics. Referring to this equation in this famous article: http://www.amdmb.com/article-display...D=105&PageID=3

lets fill the same equation with the parameter of a typical watercooling sys:

Delta T= Q *(L/K), L means the thickness of the tube, and K means the conductive coefficient of the material of the tube, copper is 401 and aluminum is 237 and brass is only 109;
given the Q is up to 150Watt and thickness is .5mm;

then Delta T will be .000187 for copper and .000316 for aluminum, and .000688 for brass,
And then we must divide our initial answer by the tube area, which is up to hundreds times comparing to the die area of the Athlon 0.000117 m^2(=117 mm^2), given the total tube area for a single HC(15*15*5cm) is at least 13(tubes' No.)*3.5cm(atual tubes' width not 5cm)*15cm(tubes' length), result of the tube area is .0682m^2, up to over 600 times of the die area of the Athlon, so check the Delta T now, .00274c for copper and .00463c for aluminum and .001c for brass.

all of above is only math calculating, we still need to count some other factors, such as the temp diff of the liquid inlet and outlet of the rad, but as we know from BillA's rad test and others' article like Joe Citarella of overclockers, the temp diff between in and outlet is minors. so basically we can safely drive a conclusion , brass tube will not be beaten by alot.
Forgive me if I miscalculate above.

Ok, so why wouldn't the tube material be important? Or were you just refering to what is already being used (aluminum/brass/copper). It maybe nit picking but if we want the best you have to use the best no?

One thing wrong with this calculation is it ignores the soldering of the tubes to the fins on brass/copper cores. I would assume the solder joint would act something like the TIM joint on CPU's making the heat transfer less efficent. It would seem to me the Aluminum cores may have a more efficent joint being it is an all aluminum and bonded joint (I think anyway).

Don't know if it is cheaper to make, but it is cheaper to buy. Recent model heater cores for GMC K series pickup trucks look attractive (8.25x7.9x1 @ $30) and have impressive price performance. But they are Alu.


Aaron Spink

What is concerned in my calculation above focus on the heat transfer through the tube to outside, just like the base of a aircool heatsink, yes like u said, the soldering or some other joint technology are absolutely important, but no matter which thchnology u choose the heat transfer through the base is the same, when ignoring the second path for heat loss.
Jaydee, I said that is not important only wanna prove brass is not a loser when acting as the tube in a rad comparing to copper and aluminum, even it has a 1/4 conductive K of copper, that is all. However there is still some space to choose another metal with a lower conductive K according to my calculation, of cource at first make sure all we talk about is the big or huge rad.

There is a big difference between the two I think everyone hasn't looked at. Aluminum will allow for greater surface area and is stronger than you could do with copper tubing. Aluminum allows for a thinner flat tube than copper which makes use of the available surface area better and increased turbulance inside the flat tube. The pic that JD posted of one cut in half will show this. The normal/old copper heater core tubes will not be as flat of a tube. Not to forget the weight between the two. Aluminum rad of the same size of the copper one will perform just the same as the copper and be lighter, cheaper. This is why auto manufactures tend to use Aluminum rads these days.
If you look at the pro-performance auto rad manufactures, The aluminum rads are bigger, thicker and have tons more surface area than the copper one of the same weight. They also cool alot better just based on that but you pay an arm and a leg for one.
But, we're talking about two different markets. I wouldn't want to buy an Aluminum rad for my pc and run 50/50 or more just for corrosion protection.

Me personally, would like to see a pc rad of copper based on Cathar's and a few other's post.

http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...light=radiator

I would go as far as saying introducing turbulance inside the copper tubing - although it's an expense of pressure drop.

More food for the gander.

http://www.thermal-management-testin...issipation.htm

.05 in.H2O is about as good as you will get with an axial fan - if your lucky.

the current mfgn method for both copper/brass and alu is furnace brazing
I have been led to understand (no data !) that the thermall resistance of the brazed joint is lower than the soldered one - a lot to due with thickness of the solder 'TIM'