Alright jaydee,
Let me ask you this. What do you suppose happens since CPUs continue to decrease in size? Heatsinks can only spread a over a limited area, known to me as the heat bloom. This is why all the good WBs have such thin bases, right? Even with new heatsink technologies, copper has an upper limit on the amount of heat that it can pass at ambient temps. So either we move to different materials for heatsinks, which surpass the saturation limit of copper at ambient, we supercool the copper, increasing the amount of thermal differential, or we move the heat away from the source, allowing it to be dissipated over a far larger area at ambient temps, like a radiator. Before I start sounding like a college professor, I'll say I don't like lecturing, since by your other posts you have been around the waterblock several times.
I reject your conclusion that phase-change systems will be de rigueur anytime soon. They still have too many issues, such as the possibility of leaks(easily solved), component failure, and condensation(easily fixed). The possibility of component failure is far too great, though. Compressors will become quieter, but they may stop working, or jam, and oops, bye-bye CPU. Before phase-change can be mass-marketed, it must be silent, like heatpipes. If joe customer has the choice between a supercooled PC and the same one that is silent, he's going to take the quiet one. I would in his place, and I've seen enough other people do the same thing. By the way, I run a Xeon DP system that happens to be watercooled right now, but am waiting for Cathar to try fitting a couple of his beautiful Cascades to Xeon mounts. So I am partial to WC, as it has not let me down yet. Yes, any active component can break, and as Murphy's Law tells us, the possibility of a piece breaking is inversely proportional to it's importance.
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