Thread: Pump question
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Unread 09-06-2001, 02:59 AM   #14
LiquidCool
Cooling Savant
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Central Florida
Posts: 231
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Remember air cooling and watercooling are the EXACT same thing, just using a different medium to cool. Here is a good comparison...

You have a regular heatsink with, as an example, a 20cfm fan. This can remove a certain amount of heat to keep your processor at a given temp.

Now you take this same heatsink and put a 100CFM fan on it. What happens? You get cooler temps as more air is being pushed over the heatsinks fins.

Now take this same heatsink and put a HUGE 500CFM fan on it? What happens? Nothing. Why? Because there is not enough surface area for a fan this large to affect it.

Now take the 100cfm fan and put it on a larger heatsink. Temps are lower than when using the smaller heatsink. Why? More surface area!

What does all this mean? Yes you will get a point of diminishing returns. BUT, if a system is designed right (with more surface area) then more flow will have a larger impact on performance. What we need is waterblocks with a larger surface area and also radiators with a larger internal surface area.
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