Aqua-Computer Silver Cuplex Water Block

[SNTmods]

There are a few pictures of this Sterling Silver water block available through a thread @ [H]ard Forum. I thought you folks might want to take a peak.

-Dan

[AngryAlpaca]

What a waste of STERLING silver on a bad design... It's really sad, if you ask me. If I could get over the bad design, I would probably think that it looks good.

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by AngryAlpaca

What a waste of STERLING silver on a bad design... It's really sad, if you ask me. If I could get over the bad design, I would probably think that it looks good.

I thought I was blunt sometimes. have to agree though. That design is ancient and far from optimal. If they are going to do silver blocks then at least make them worth their weight in silver.

[Groth]

Even more of a waste than the design is the use of sterling. At least pure silver has some thermal advantages, but alloying your silver into sterling (92.5% silver) throws much that away.

If the other 7.5% is copper, it will perform a bit better than pure copper, a bit worse than pure silver. If there's any tin or zinc in the mix, then it will be worse than copper.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Groth

Even more of a waste than the design is the use of sterling. At least pure silver has some thermal advantages, but alloying your silver into sterling (92.5% silver) throws much that away.

If the other 7.5% is copper, it will perform a bit better than pure copper, a bit worse than pure silver. If there's any tin or zinc in the mix, then it will be worse than copper.

Actually that's probably the main thing to consider. Sterling Silver doesn't offer real advantage over C101 copper for thermal conduction, they are both about the same. May as well do it in copper and make some cutlery out of the Sterling Silver instead.

Go pure or go home.

[Cathar]

LOL - I was reading further and noticed that they're charging $171US extra for the silver over the copper one. Crap! There's less silver by weight in one of these things than there is in a Cascade SS by the looks of the design, and I was able to import 99.998% pure silver into the country, and after all taxes, shipping charges, and other overheads, pass it on to people for $88 US.

Methinks that someone is out to make a tremendous amount of profit from what probably amounts to about $55US worth of Sterling Silver cost value.

Edit: Checking their web-site, 225g is the total block weight, including the top-plate, clamping bolts and barbs. The Cascade SS uses a 225g silver plate to start from.

[Groth]

Originally Posted by Cathar

Go pure or go home.

At college, I knew a couple of drug-fiends who felt the same way.

[pHaestus]

Now you've got me trying to remember if I had any college friends named groth

[Groth]

Originally Posted by pHaestus

Now you've got me trying to remember if I had any college friends named groth

My main nick in school was Lobotomy-Man. I'll never to able to run for political office (skeletons in my closet? Whose skeletons?).

[Pug]

Considering I (& AC) initially offered the first revision of this block to the general public about two years ago (when it wasn't quite so outdated a design and was the first true production silver waterblock) it's easy to knock.

As far as I know, there's a new micro-channel design on the way into the AC range which I'm sure will inevitably be offered in .925 Silver too.

/my €0.02

[Edit] found a year old thread with the original price difference quoted here - http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...14&postcount=7

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by Pug

Considering I (& AC) initially offered the first revision of this block to the general public about two years ago (when it wasn't quite so outdated a design and was the first true production silver waterblock) it's easy to knock.

As far as I know, there's a new micro-channel design on the way into the AC range which I'm sure will inevitably be offered in .925 Silver too.

/my €0.02

[Edit] found a year old thread with the original price difference quoted here - http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/sho...14&postcount=7

So.........?

[BillA]

yet STILL is Sterling ?
shows you can't learn

[|kbn|]

If this design is two years old then I dont see the point in this thread.. the deisgn looks like itd be better than all the other commercial blocks from the same time (maze2 etc....?).
Ive just looked up in a book, but doesnt have thermal conductivity but it says silver has 1/3'rd higher coefficient of heat transmission. Also Silver has about half the specific heat (heats up more per watt = more efficient heat transfer?). I assume both of these are good.
From heating up silver and copper I have noticed copper takes a a while for all the heat to spread throughout a peice of copper but in silver it is MUCH quicker.
I was fixing a leak in a small waterblock with a 30w soldering iron and copper was easyish to fix but the same shape peice of silver wouldnt, It was dissipating the heat too quick.
Im using 99.5% silver.
Cathar didnt you say your silver cascade gave temps around 2c lower? and a higher overclock? I would say that is more difference than the thermal conductivity values people keep quoting is equal to?

[Butcher]

Silver's thermal conductivity is 419 W/m-K when pure, sterling is slightly lower at 410 W/m-K, but still higher than copper - C110 is 388 W/m-K. That's not 1/3 higher by any means - you'd have to be looking at diamond to beat copper by that much.

However, if you're going to make a water block out of silver, you should go the whole hog and use pure - it's going to cost loads more so you'd want it as good as you could get it.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Butcher

Silver's thermal conductivity is 419 W/m-K when pure, sterling is slightly lower at 410 W/m-K, but still higher than copper - C110 is 388 W/m-K. That's not 1/3 higher by any means - you'd have to be looking at diamond to beat copper by that much.

C101 Copper is up around 398 W/m-K

These thermal conductivity figures do seem to vary a little bit depending on the source. Have seen Sterling Silver quoted as 400 W/m-K, hence the comment that C101 (not C110) and Sterling Silver are about equal.

|kbn| - The difference between C110 (regular Cascade copper grade) and fine-pure silver (Cascade SS) was around 0.5C (my best guess) on a hot CPU due to the silver alone, with about another 0.5C picked up due to some minor design changes between the copper and silver blocks. All up I measured a difference ranging between about 0.8C-1.2C, depending on the CPU load. Such a small difference is pushing my ability to have a firm faith in those numbers, although I'd be happy to have it independently tested.

Be very wary of people who claim huge advances in switching from copper to silver. At best it'll make about a 0.5C difference on the exact same design, and this is correlated in both theory and practise.

The increased overclock between the copper and silver versions is something that I am still exploring. I am hesitant to say what contributed to it (was it the silver?) since the two designs were slightly different.

[|kbn|]

That clears up some of my guesses.. and Ive just relised the answer to another question..
I was thinking silver was better maybe because it heats up quicker - I assumed it meant the heat was transfering quicker, but I didnt relate this to the fact the specific heat is about half, so obviously it would seem hotter, even though the same amount of heat might be there....
So I do think silvers better, and I will try to continue using it for a few diy blocks (I lack the equipment to cast the silver I have which is just lots of 2cm^3 cubes atm). Even if I bought it, itll still be cheaper than buying a commercail block! but I dont think itd be worth using commercailly on a large scale unless more testing shows its a lot better for other resons?'
Also how does one go about silver plating stuff? I know it has no thermal advantage to plate stuff but it looks nicer... /me goes to google..

[Butcher]

Specific heat capacity make no difference as it's not relevant in a steady state system (such as a water loop). It only makes a difference to warm up time at power on and cool off time at power off.

[Gooserider]

kbn| :Also how does one go about silver plating stuff? I know it has no thermal advantage to plate stuff but it looks nicer... /me goes to google..

Caswell Inc. sells all sorts of kits for plating stuff with different metals, powder coating, and other sorts of metal finishing gear. They seem focused towards the small scale / home user type operation, so should be reasonable to deal with. I've never done business with them, so I don't know how good their stuff is, but it's a place to start.

(this was a referral from a post in the RAM watercooling thread that's going on now....)
Gooserider

[Pug]

Originally Posted by unregistered

yet STILL is Sterling ?
shows you can't learn

... and your reply shows you still don't make sure you have all the facts before making assumptions. :shrug:
I thought you put me on your ignore list, anyway?

I've neither bought nor sold one of these in the first place, I simply put them up on my site to guage interest in them. I had none and didn't actively market them to get any.

I was merely pointing out the same thing as |kbn| did after you in that this thread has no real current value other than low-level free marketing of an old design (at seemingly inflated prices) for the original poster.

If you think I have anything to do with the production of these then you give me far more credit than you deserve.

Originally Posted by Cathar

Be very wary of people who claim huge advances in switching from copper to silver. At best it'll make about a 0.5C difference on the exact same design, and this is correlated in both theory and practise.

The only time I've heard this sort of claim is when it's attributed to your SS Cascade, funnily enough.
I personally think most people are paying extra for the exclusivity factor and teh obvious bling.

Cathar didnt you say your silver cascade gave temps around 2c lower? and a higher overclock? I would say that is more difference than the thermal conductivity values people keep quoting is equal to?

^^^not the first time I've heard that, for example. I didn't realise until now that you also made design changes to it, though. Thanks for the info.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Pug

The only time I've heard this sort of claim is when it's attributed to your SS Cascade, funnily enough.

I cannot be held accountable for what appears to be the result of an Internet equivalent of "Chinese Whispers". I've never held such claims up.

Originally Posted by Pug

I personally think most people are paying extra for the exclusivity factor and teh obvious bling.

Indeed. The level of interest in the SS surprised me, even after I had made it quite clear that the differences were very minor. Exclusivity is perhaps the best explanation as to why.

Still, I do wonder at the rationale for $171 worth of exclusivity for ~$55 worth of material for the block referred to in the opening post.

Originally Posted by Pug

I didn't realise until now that you also made design changes to it, though.

Again, I had made that quite clear many times, along with the 0.5-1.0C difference. I deemed the design changes fairly necessary, even if only for the ~10% higher thermal conductivity of the silver base over the copper version. Just like one wouldn't use the exact same design for aluminium to copper, copper to silver is just different enough to generate the need for tweaks.

The Internet works in funny ways.

[Pug]

True. I'm not holding you accountable, just addressing those claims you speak of.

The original price difference was never so great to my knowledge. I guess there have been extra "taxes" along the way and perhaps the base silver is also dearer in this neck of the woods than in yours.

Not enough info to call it really.
Kudos for keeping your own prices realistic but I'm sure you would have no real blame regarding what overseas distributors would want to charge after importing your blocks themselves (given that situation).

Peace out.

[BillA]

sorry Pug, I don't track posters
perhaps you wish to refresh my memory re your past ?

suggest you google "sterling thermal conductivity" if you do not yot understand why it is a poor choice

my only comment here