[DVL73]

Originally Posted by Joe

increased MTBF on a vid card or CPU just from cooling? Whens the last time you had a video card, or CPU just die cause they wore out?

Heat does degrade and I think in a measurable way too, apart from the fact that I really don't have the definitive formula right now. Heat will kill your CPU or GPU eventually and the more heat, the quicker.

In some general perspective, it should be our objective that we run our systems at the lowest "possible" temperatures and it doesn't matter if we OC or not. I'm really not sure about the definitive "proof" how the CPU/GPU MTBF life coincides with the practical life, influenced by the temps ... but we do make an impact on that. Maybe additional question is what is our tolerance on how hot our components run.

Many moons ago, I killed one Radeon 9700 card because of the heat and one ancient P4 CPU. It was OC-ed, yes, and my air cooling couldn't cope. Actually it was coping on the edge. Each of the component died after approx month of usage. After WC upgrade, I OC-ed a LOT and didn't have any single failure - ever. I don't have the great airflow in my case (and didn't want fans and nosie) and WC helped a great deal as all other air cooling solutions are really more dependable on the case ambient air then WC itself.

Originally Posted by Joe

A good CPU fan and sink will last maintenance free for many years... and if it does fail... you replace it with another 10$ fan.

Correct and I can't argue with that (and make sure that fan has ball bearings and even better that rotor is sealed inside of the casing) ... but what we are doing in this forum section then?

Originally Posted by Joe

Almost every CPU/Motherboard has thermal shutdown thresholds, and protection in the CPU's against firey death if a fan fails on a HSF.

But ... this is not air cooling advantage, if I understood you correctly.

Originally Posted by Joe

Pretty much the only place I could see H2O cooling increasing MTBF would be on HD's. The cooler you can keep a hot drive ( a 15K SCSI for example) the better spindle life you will get.

There you go ... and HD is important device, isn't it


Honestly Joe, maybe we are getting more and more practical. When practical solutions and thoughts are in the zenith, magic is gone for good and this is maybe answer to your question. What's wrong with the little bit of magic nowadays, even if it's not practical or little bit DéjÃ* vu ?