The biggest barrier to improving water-block performance in my mind is the base-plate thickness.
This is the one reason why almost every good block on the market performs about the same (within 2C) as another.
The copper is the primary source of thermal resistance. What you do on top of the base-plate thickness (channels, dimples, etc) has minimal effect if the copper base-plate is 3mm or more in thickness.
You want to optimise a design that works well with very thin base-plates (1mm or even less) if you want to have any hope of pushing the envelope.
It's still possible to do this properly with even rather mediocre pumps (at least 1gpm actual flow rate though).
|