Since87:
You are right; the baseplate and water outlet temps are mostly for the tester's internal checking and peace of mind and they aren't carried forward in any calculations. But here is how I am using them:
I find the baseplate temp useful as I compare to Bill's previous data (I am using a block that he also tested so the hole is in an identical spot). With my CPU I just don't know the power applied and so I am using the delta t die to water, delta t die to baseplate, and delta t water out to in all together to see if I can things to correlate. I guess this isn't explicitly needed when everyone is using die simulators, but then again if every unit is insulated differently...I also use the baseplate temp to track my reproducibility at waterblock mounting/paste application. YMMV I guess on the usefulness of it.
I look at the water inlet and outlet as important from a heat balance standpoint. If your die simulator is "leaking" then you can pick that up with these measurements pretty easily. If you don't do a check like that then you are going to have some pretty widely varying C/W values among different benches even with good thermal monitoring. This is probably why heatsink testing from commercial sources reports such widely varying C/W values.
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