Dual Opteron Sub Zero Cooling???
 

Hey everyone,
I was hoping someone here could help me out. I'm building a new dual opteron rig and wanted to get some extreme cooling. Currently I have a dual Athlon setup water-cooled with Swiftech components, but it still isn't cold enough. I'd like to get the Opterons below 0.

Any suggestions would be helpfull and appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Bill


--Edit--
The more I think about it, I am planning to use both the dual Athlon and dual Opteron boxes simultaniously (one as a server and the other as a client), both will be in Yeong Yang cube server cases, anyone have any thoughts on converting a third case to be used to house a cooling system for both computers??? I was thinking about maybe even using a water chiller (or dual MCW-CHILLs, one for each computer) with a third loop providing cooling for both of the chillers. Money really isn't an issue, but I definately want the setup to look good and perform outstanding. Any suggestions???

No offense but cooling an opteron even close to ambient is a waste.

Sure if you have money to burn and you just like messing with phase change stuff go ahead. But you arent going to gain anything from it. No rock hard data has come out but more than likely AMD is going to keep the trend of not making any enthusiast type board layouts, IE no OCing. Bumping the FSB from 200 to whopping 218 isnt limited by cooling.

If you want to water cool Opterons do it to make it quiet. Low flow, quiet pump, thin rad etc...

Well, I don't really care about overclocking the opterons, basically want to just go as cold as possible just because I can.... I just want to build some kind of cooling system to get all 4 cpus (2 Athlon & 2 Opteron) down as low as possible.

Thanks again,
Bill

Easiest and cheapest way is to get a sizable AC unit (1/2hp maybe?), dunk the evaporator in a pretty big reservoir, maybe a good size Igloo cooler and insulate the crap out of everything. Easier and cheaper than direct die, though potentially not as good, but most likely still subzero. But then again, 4 overclocked processors is a lot of heat, especially AMD64's. It's definitely worth a shot. I need to upgrade my entire system before I build my chiller though.

Check out Xtremesystems. There are some refrigeration engineers that will sell you systems capable of hitting about -100C. Only $1000 or so per processor.

Thanks all for the replys. Here is where I am at right now, I need to come up with a design for a cooling system which can handle about 350W of CPU heat (4 AMD CPUs) and bring the temps down to atleast ambient or slightly sub-ambient (approx 25c), and the cooling system (minus the pumps) has to fit in a space no bigger than 15.5"x12"x5.5"

Any ideas???

Bill

If you find it then patent it and put it into production as you will be rich. :) Only chance I see is a small phase change system. Good luck.

not gonna happen in a box that small

Just out of curiosity, what kind of performace could I expect from a 10"x6"(approx) heatercore connected to a 1.26gal RES with 2 Swiftech MCP650 pumps and Swiftech waterblocks?? Obviously not sub-ambient, but would it provide sufficient cooling for all four processors?

Bill

I dont see any reason why this couldnt be done with chilled water, the only questions are how much are you willing to spend in material costs and electricity costs... peltiers to remove that much heat are going to use quite a lot of power.

Cost isn't the issue, size is. The only chiller that I think would remotely fit would be the MCW-CHILL, but the only problem there is would it be able to handle the amount of heat being generated by all 4 CPUs??

--Edit--
After thinking about this abit more, what about connecting an MCW-CHILL to the res to cool the water in there?? I have attached an image so that you guys can see what i'm thinking. Everything in Black is the main WC loop for the two computers, and the stuff in Red is the WC loops for the chiller..
http://home.earthlink.net/~mandraw/wc-design2.jpg

How much space do you have to play with? What about making your own chiller out of bar stock, making #rotor blocks, for which you only need a drill press? The concept I was playing around with was to remove 500ish watts of heat, from Dual Opterons and Dual SLI Geforce 6800 Ultras, but was canned as I decided I'd rather go on vacation than do sub ambient cooling on that scale :)

Space is the ultimate problem, the res and chiller would have to fit in a space approx 13" x 8" x 17" out of which the res will take up 13"x8"x6" leaving only 13"x8"x11"

Bill

I dont think that is too small, although I do question the need for such a large res, especially if it is going to have to be insulated. My plans called for the chiller itself (excluding pumps, barbs, PSU for TECs and radiators) to be approximately 5"x4"x12" insulated.

Well, at this point I'm not sure if this thread is even in the right place anymore. I would prefer not to insulate the RES, the reason I am thinking about implementing a chiller was basically to just help out the radiator dissipate the massive amount of heat being generated by all 4 CPUs. My current w/c setup has temps of around 40c, so even if I swap out the radiator for a lerger one more than likely it won't be able to handle the heat generated by 2 additional processors (especially Opterons), I have pretty much given up on the idea of going sub 0, now I'd be happy with just getting as close to ambient as possible.

Also, I was hoping that with such a large res (approx 2gal) the increased volume of water would help improve performance.

Bill

A larger res will mean that it takes longer to reach equilibrium, but if the system is left on for any significant period of time, a 2 gallon res won't give you better temps than a 2 ounce one. Adding a chiller will INCREASE the amount of heat the radiator has to deal with (my design called for a pair of Thermochill HE120.3 radiators) but will decrease the temperature of the processor loop.

I took a look at Thermochills website and the HE 120.2 would fit in the amount of space I have for a RAD and says it can dissipate up to 400W of heat with a 10c differential, so with that in mind would it be possible to assume that a setup with no chiller and the HE 120.2 would be able to sufficiently cool all 350W +/- of heat generated by all 4 CPUs within 10c of the ambient temp??? And, if so, wouldn't one of those small aquarium type chillers placed in the RES be good for at least 3-5c of additional cooling??? The chiller I have in mind is the IceProbe, supposedly it can cool 10 gal to 6-8f below ambient (of course that is in a tank where the water isn't circulating through waterblocks and a rad), but I would think it would have some performace increase on a 2gal RES with temps 10-20c above ambient. Just a thought...

Bill

Perhaps check this article http://www.overclockers.com/articles778/index.asp by BillA - I believe he has said since that there are some flaws with the numbers, but its the best thing out there.

You can get a copper core 92 honda civic radiator, core size is about 13" x 13" That will cool everything you want and cost about 60$.

Just an idea though.

Here is an update on where I'm currently at...

As for my setup, I think I came up with a compromise. Sub-Zero and Sub-Ambient temps are out. I decided to purchase a third YY cube to house the cooling system for both computers which will consist of 2 loops (1 per PC) with an MCP650 Swifty blocks and 2 Thermochill 120.2 Rads (1 per loop) connected to a single 1 gal Res which will have an aquarium IceProbe in it.

The third case with the cooling system will also have its own power supply for the pumps, chiller, and rad fans. I came up with a wiring scheme using some relays and diodes to allow the thrid PS to be turned on by either one of the main PSUs, it also applies power to each loop independantly, so if only 1 of the computers is on only it's w/c loop will have flow.

Construction will start in the next week or so. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so it will most likely be awhile before the project is complete, but I will keep you guys updated with pics of my progress throughout the build.

Oh, one last asthetic question... Since all 3 YY cubes will have windows in the side, should I paint the inside of the cases, or leave them bare metal???

Bill

Note: I attached an image of the w/c systems design for you guys...

If that iceprobe chiller is that pos thats sold on ebay a lot, why bother? Probably wont do anything especially setup in a resevoir. Its a 50watt tech cooled by a 60mm fan. Id be surprised if it did anything except eat power.
Even if it dropped your water temp a full 1c, again, whats the point? Its not going to improve the MTBF of your procs or something. You are just adding more heat to the environment. Its designed to take a 10 gallon tank down 4c when the only heatsource to the tank is a 50watt lightbulb... Its really not going to make a impact on a half a gallon loop thats absorbing some 200-300watts of heat.

As for the two loops, if the two computers and the cooling system will all be forced to be next to one another you might as well put everythign in series and get one big pump rather than two mcp650s. Will get the same performance and easier to route.