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jaydee · 09-03-2002, 02:34 PM

Ok I am going to jump in here and try to throw out some logical thoughts about using AL over Copper or Copper over AL.

First of all I have run high wattages and have seen others run high wattages on T-Birds and XP with great success on AL blocks. Now I am not going to tell my temps as some fools claim they are wrong but whatever. I don't care about that. I know I have done it and others that have personally seen me do it know it is possible. If I can get a 305mhz OC at 2.20Vcore on a T-Bird1400 with an AL block then it is more than capable of being used. BUT that was with the T-Bird core which is larger than the XP and the T-Bred. The point morphling1 brought up about AL not distributing the heat fast enough I don't quite buy (or maybe I do), my theory is AL doesn't absorb the heat fast enough. Which I guess maybe the same things in a different view and I will aggree. Especially with smaller core surface area's. BUT, when AMD comes out with the heat spreader this may all change again and AL may gain a little ground back in that area. I totally disagree that 1C will get you any more mhz as I have been OC'ing since 25mhz DX comps where out and 1C never made any difference. In fact 3C never made any difference. But 4C on up can and I have definatly noticed it in the Durons 600/700/800/850/900/950/1000 CPU's I have used and the T-Bird 1400 and the XP1600+ in the last few years. 4-5C seems to be the spot that I noticed you can gain some extra mhz. Of course it isn't enough to make any difference in anything exept stats junkies and mad onion wannabee's (not that there is anything wrong with that). I used to be a OC crazy fool to and wanted every last mhz I could pull out of the system. But then I got to thinking WTF am I really trying to gain here. 100mhz on a 1400mhz chip really doesn't do anything noticable. The faster CPU's get the less OC'ing is worth the effort IMO. But that is my thinking and people like morphling1 still like to do the heavy OC'ing which is just fine! I have tried to say that different designs will react different in Copper and AL and the temp swings will be higher or lower. No one ever reads that from me I guess and just continues with the "you are a idiot" BS and try to twist everything around. I have noticed that larger wider channles seem to have less of a temp swing from AL to Cu than smaller tighter channels do. And that would backup the theory that AL cannot transfer the heat fast enough as AL cannot take advantage of the smaller channles as the heat will not get that far, but Copper can take advantage of the smaller channels and spread the heat to those channels in time for the channles to be usefull. This is why I belive morphling1's multi channel spiral has such a huge temp swing from AL to Cu and my large wide channel e design has less of a temp swing. It just makes since and I think that cannot be argued or disagreed upon.

So if you are going to make a AL block make a large channel one with lots and lots of open area for water. I have a center inlet duel outlet design that would be the only one I would use that I would claim could perform well enough to go into the performance range of blocks up ther with Copper. My first test really impressed me and I have already redesigned it to make it more efficent. Being it has a big center inlet right over the core of the CPU the AL wouldn't really need to transfer the heat anywhere else but up and that is my theory is to why it works well. Not to mention you are dumping a LOT of water right over the core. That definatly helps. If I could make this block in copper it would even perform that much better but that is a lot of milling as there is a bunch of pins milled into it.

So now lets get into the price area. Lets say you are going with the standard .5" thick 2" wide 3" long base with a 1/4" top.
AL prices:
$5.62 a foot for .5"x2" material.
$2.75 a foot for .25"x2" material
------------------------------------
$8.37.
Now you can make 4 blocks per 1 foot of material at the given specs above. That6 comes out to $2.10 per block just for the base and the top unmilled.

Cu prices:
$18.55 a foot for .5"x2" material
$9.42 a foot for .25x2" material
---------------------
$27.97 per foot or $7.00 for one block for the base and the top unmilled.

Now that is for the block material, where the hard part comes in is the milling costs. As anyone with any milling experience know Copper is considerably harder to mill than AL and the tooling costs are about tripple because you can use standard HSS endmills for AL which are about $5 for a double sided one and you can make about 5 decent blocks with one double sided one. But with Copper you really should use the carbide endmills which run $25 for a cheap one sided one that you can get about 5 blocks out of one (depending on the complexity of the block ect..).

So lets break that down a bit more. $25 divided by 5= $5 a block. So take the $7 for material and add the $5 for tooling and get $12 for the milled (basic) block.

And take $5 and devide that by 5= $1 a block and add that to the $2.10 and get $3.10 for a milled block.

Now you have to add in the rest of the variable such as YOUR time, power consuption, machine wear, shipping for tooling and materials, the barbs, the mounting hardware, ect..

So basically you got a $8.90 difference just for the material and the milling. The mounting hardware depending on what you want to use can be from $2.50 from standard bolts, nuts, washers, springs on up to whatever.

People may think wow only $8.90 difference, but you have to consider the wear on the mill and it takes about 2-3 times longer to mill a block in Copper than AL. That adds up big time in equipment wear and the power bill.

Also one other MAJOR cost to AL is you have to get it anodized!!! This is not cheap and definatly closes the gap of the $8.90 difference. This alone may make Copper the better choice even price wise when making blokcs to sell.

Also note these are just basic numbers they will be more complicated!!!

So in the end with having to anodize AL the price difference in making a Copper over AL really is not that far apart!!! So in conclusion if you have a mill that can handle copper with no problem then do them in Copper!

I argue that AL is worthy and I belive it is as I seen it do incredible things, but on a manufacturing/marketing level I would have to lean towards Copper for performance blocks.

The only reason I really use AL only is because my mill cannot handle extended running times as it has a non cooled high tourque DC motor that gets real hot after about 30mins. 30mins is not long enough to mill a good copper block. Unfortunatly I cannot find a better motor as the way it is mounted just will not fit a normal AC motor as they are to wide. Also I Find AL to work just fine and if I can get a 305mhz OC with it I see no reason to change, at least not yet.

I was once going to attempt to sell blocks and have been crunching numbers the last few weeks ,while I had nothing better to do in the hotel room on the road trips for work, and decfided to drop the idea all together. It just isn't worth it to me. I would make about $5 profit a block (providing they sold) and that is not worth it, not even close. That means I would be making about $2.50 an hour. To hell with that! I make $17.50 an hour at work. So in short I am not going to bother with it. Just isn't worth it, not to mention all the other BS you have to put up with with these accuracy fools (not to say that they are real fools BTW as they are not) who have nothing better to do than worry about how far off you are on you results. Just isn't worth the hastle even if they find it to perform well.

Another idea I though about was selling DIY water block making kits. You would basically supply everything (monting hardware, bottom, top, barbs, ect...) but you would would not mill the block. All you would do is drill the mounting holes and you would let the customer put his own design in the block. You could sell them in both AL and Copper. Not sure if they would sell but who knows!

But don't listen to my Pansy Ass! I know nothing!

09-03-2002, 02:34 PM	#63
jaydee Put up or Shut Up Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Spokane WA Posts: 6,506	Ok I am going to jump in here and try to throw out some logical thoughts about using AL over Copper or Copper over AL. First of all I have run high wattages and have seen others run high wattages on T-Birds and XP with great success on AL blocks. Now I am not going to tell my temps as some fools claim they are wrong but whatever. I don't care about that. I know I have done it and others that have personally seen me do it know it is possible. If I can get a 305mhz OC at 2.20Vcore on a T-Bird1400 with an AL block then it is more than capable of being used. BUT that was with the T-Bird core which is larger than the XP and the T-Bred. The point morphling1 brought up about AL not distributing the heat fast enough I don't quite buy (or maybe I do), my theory is AL doesn't absorb the heat fast enough. Which I guess maybe the same things in a different view and I will aggree. Especially with smaller core surface area's. BUT, when AMD comes out with the heat spreader this may all change again and AL may gain a little ground back in that area. I totally disagree that 1C will get you any more mhz as I have been OC'ing since 25mhz DX comps where out and 1C never made any difference. In fact 3C never made any difference. But 4C on up can and I have definatly noticed it in the Durons 600/700/800/850/900/950/1000 CPU's I have used and the T-Bird 1400 and the XP1600+ in the last few years. 4-5C seems to be the spot that I noticed you can gain some extra mhz. Of course it isn't enough to make any difference in anything exept stats junkies and mad onion wannabee's (not that there is anything wrong with that). I used to be a OC crazy fool to and wanted every last mhz I could pull out of the system. But then I got to thinking WTF am I really trying to gain here. 100mhz on a 1400mhz chip really doesn't do anything noticable. The faster CPU's get the less OC'ing is worth the effort IMO. But that is my thinking and people like morphling1 still like to do the heavy OC'ing which is just fine! I have tried to say that different designs will react different in Copper and AL and the temp swings will be higher or lower. No one ever reads that from me I guess and just continues with the "you are a idiot" BS and try to twist everything around. I have noticed that larger wider channles seem to have less of a temp swing from AL to Cu than smaller tighter channels do. And that would backup the theory that AL cannot transfer the heat fast enough as AL cannot take advantage of the smaller channles as the heat will not get that far, but Copper can take advantage of the smaller channels and spread the heat to those channels in time for the channles to be usefull. This is why I belive morphling1's multi channel spiral has such a huge temp swing from AL to Cu and my large wide channel e design has less of a temp swing. It just makes since and I think that cannot be argued or disagreed upon. So if you are going to make a AL block make a large channel one with lots and lots of open area for water. I have a center inlet duel outlet design that would be the only one I would use that I would claim could perform well enough to go into the performance range of blocks up ther with Copper. My first test really impressed me and I have already redesigned it to make it more efficent. Being it has a big center inlet right over the core of the CPU the AL wouldn't really need to transfer the heat anywhere else but up and that is my theory is to why it works well. Not to mention you are dumping a LOT of water right over the core. That definatly helps. If I could make this block in copper it would even perform that much better but that is a lot of milling as there is a bunch of pins milled into it. So now lets get into the price area. Lets say you are going with the standard .5" thick 2" wide 3" long base with a 1/4" top. AL prices: $5.62 a foot for .5"x2" material. $2.75 a foot for .25"x2" material ------------------------------------ $8.37. Now you can make 4 blocks per 1 foot of material at the given specs above. That6 comes out to $2.10 per block just for the base and the top unmilled. Cu prices: $18.55 a foot for .5"x2" material $9.42 a foot for .25x2" material --------------------- $27.97 per foot or $7.00 for one block for the base and the top unmilled. Now that is for the block material, where the hard part comes in is the milling costs. As anyone with any milling experience know Copper is considerably harder to mill than AL and the tooling costs are about tripple because you can use standard HSS endmills for AL which are about $5 for a double sided one and you can make about 5 decent blocks with one double sided one. But with Copper you really should use the carbide endmills which run $25 for a cheap one sided one that you can get about 5 blocks out of one (depending on the complexity of the block ect..). So lets break that down a bit more. $25 divided by 5= $5 a block. So take the $7 for material and add the $5 for tooling and get $12 for the milled (basic) block. And take $5 and devide that by 5= $1 a block and add that to the $2.10 and get $3.10 for a milled block. Now you have to add in the rest of the variable such as YOUR time, power consuption, machine wear, shipping for tooling and materials, the barbs, the mounting hardware, ect.. So basically you got a $8.90 difference just for the material and the milling. The mounting hardware depending on what you want to use can be from $2.50 from standard bolts, nuts, washers, springs on up to whatever. People may think wow only $8.90 difference, but you have to consider the wear on the mill and it takes about 2-3 times longer to mill a block in Copper than AL. That adds up big time in equipment wear and the power bill. Also one other MAJOR cost to AL is you have to get it anodized!!! This is not cheap and definatly closes the gap of the $8.90 difference. This alone may make Copper the better choice even price wise when making blokcs to sell. Also note these are just basic numbers they will be more complicated!!! So in the end with having to anodize AL the price difference in making a Copper over AL really is not that far apart!!! So in conclusion if you have a mill that can handle copper with no problem then do them in Copper! I argue that AL is worthy and I belive it is as I seen it do incredible things, but on a manufacturing/marketing level I would have to lean towards Copper for performance blocks. The only reason I really use AL only is because my mill cannot handle extended running times as it has a non cooled high tourque DC motor that gets real hot after about 30mins. 30mins is not long enough to mill a good copper block. Unfortunatly I cannot find a better motor as the way it is mounted just will not fit a normal AC motor as they are to wide. Also I Find AL to work just fine and if I can get a 305mhz OC with it I see no reason to change, at least not yet. I was once going to attempt to sell blocks and have been crunching numbers the last few weeks ,while I had nothing better to do in the hotel room on the road trips for work, and decfided to drop the idea all together. It just isn't worth it to me. I would make about $5 profit a block (providing they sold) and that is not worth it, not even close. That means I would be making about $2.50 an hour. To hell with that! I make $17.50 an hour at work. So in short I am not going to bother with it. Just isn't worth it, not to mention all the other BS you have to put up with with these accuracy fools (not to say that they are real fools BTW as they are not) who have nothing better to do than worry about how far off you are on you results. Just isn't worth the hastle even if they find it to perform well. Another idea I though about was selling DIY water block making kits. You would basically supply everything (monting hardware, bottom, top, barbs, ect...) but you would would not mill the block. All you would do is drill the mounting holes and you would let the customer put his own design in the block. You could sell them in both AL and Copper. Not sure if they would sell but who knows! But don't listen to my Pansy Ass! I know nothing! Last edited by jaydee116; 09-03-2002 at 04:19 PM.