I'm just an efficient guy I guess - I like to make everything efficient. But you're mis-interpreting me a bit on the rad thing. I don't want to make the rad perfect (or near perfect) - I want to make it more efficient so that a smaller rad, with fewer (quieter) fans can still dissipate as much heat. My idea to use a pelt between the water-flows to increase the efficiency of the rad is because I think it would be possible to use a fairly small rad and still accomplish the goal - perhaps even a decent sized heater-core with 2 120mm fans could accomplish the task.
In the (theoretically) very best computer cooling system, our water would be at ambient temp, and the CPU core would be significantly hotter. The rad would be 0% efficient. In a really poor cooling system the water would be hot, the CPU would be really hot, but the rad would be at least somewhat efficient. In eg. a car on a hot summer day your coolant may be near 100C (boiling) - now your rad is being efficient. A rad with a fan is capable of dissipating a TON of heat, if we can get it's delta temp compared to ambient up enough - but by doing so we tend to fry the CPU. Phase-change systems get around this by using the different states of the coolant to move heat, and keep the rad very hot (efficient) while the evaporator is very cold. Since I originally started planning my first water-cooling system my goal has been to try and make my rad at least semi-efficient without frying a CPU - one of these days I'll have a brain-fart and figure out a simple/elegant way to do it.
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