After looking close to all of this and going over it multiple times I come to a conclusion. With 1/4", 3/8", 7/16" and 1/2" ID tubing, the flow rate is pretty close to each other until you get into some ungodly amount of flow from a huge pump. The thing that caught my attention was the pressure drop. Between 3/8", 7/16" and 1/2" the pressure drop was there but not to negligable to be concerned about. Velocity increased for each one with 1/4" being the highest. This leads me to think the reason 3/8" isn't terribly worse than 1/2" because of the increase in velocity - Velocity makes up the difference. Here's what really caught my interest. Going to 1/4" velocity increased more than double, reynolds increased dramatically but the pressure drop was just to much to even consider using 1/4" tubing. So much it can't overcome the increased boundary layer effect with heavy cpu loads we see. The reason why the noticable high temps on 100% cpu loads.
My conclusion is; flow rate isn't everything if you havn't got the muscle (pressure) to do anything with the flow rate. Which has me questioning why the Euro guys even bother to consider 1/4" ID even in a low flow situation.
Am I going in the right direction with this? Any corrections or arguments?
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