How big is the watercooling scene these days?

[kronchev]

Well I can say I'm the big w/cer in my area. I know some people who have koolance :ugh: and stuff like that, but i'm the first DIYer probabily in a 30 mile radius, at least that I know of. I do know that at every lan party i go to I'm the only one with w/c. I'm getting my friends to do it...already I have two planning on doing it. My other friend is thinking about some kind of bigger cooling system...he has an industrial ac unit that hes selling for 40, but i dont have that money, so im trying to convince him to use it or for a friend to buy it. its coming up but its far from mainstream. people aka my parents still dont understand that "water in the case wont break the computer if it doesnt leave the hose which anyone with half a brain can prevent"

[talcum]

Originally Posted by HAL-9000

But that day is coming, unless we find a new technical foundation for chips beyond silicon. Boron doped type IIa diamond films via CVD process is looking promising. Perhaps that will work. Superconductors would be cool, literally though, they need LN2!

Nope, UNCD B doped diamond is a little better (and N doped is better than B doped), but the conductivity just isn't there with diamond for VLSI. Need to find different, better dopants. Still have issues with gate leakage current leading to high temps. The new tech needed is a better oxide insulating layer.

[satanicoo]

Originally Posted by DeadEye

They are now already heavily in evidence in the SFF and mobile marketplace. The shuttle SFF's are an example, it has the ICE system as they call it.

Yeah. Air-cooling can take it.

[trit187]

well if this thing starts to catch on it could be getting more popular... alot faster then i would have anticipated
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16244
and if we start seeing more of these the above might become even more popular
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16247

[8-Ball]

I was just going to post the same thing.

Beat me to it.

8-ball

[jaydee]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=16244

Now that is very interesting. If what they "claim" is true then all our systems suck ass as does every water block/system currently on the market compared to their results. Will like to see these claims validated.

[trit187]

jd- are you refering to their heat disapation claims, or their 5 year maintienance free claim?
but it is deffinatly nice (at least my opinion) to see a major company picking up on watercooling.

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by trit187

jd- are you refering to their heat disapation claims, or their 5 year maintienance free claim?
but it is deffinatly nice (at least my opinion) to see a major company picking up on watercooling.

Both actually but mainly the heat dissapation. Actually NEC came out with a water cooled PC last year. How popular was it? Do you see any for sale? No one wanted one or they just didn't work. I can't even find one for sale! http://iocombo.com/news/shownews.php...k&threadid=236

Here is a sarcastic article about the claimsto be the FIRST. http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9576

They also came out with a liquid cooled note book: http://www.nec.co.jp/press/en/0306/3001.html

Do you see those for sale?

Also IBM has been on it since 1996! Guess what? They didn't use water cooling. They came up with a better idea which all other companies will also do IMO. http://www.research.ibm.com/thinkres..._cooling.shtml

Go to your local computer store and look for liquid cooled desktops and laptops and see how many there are.

No one wants a water cooled PC except us enthusiests.

[HAL-9000]

Originally Posted by talcum

Nope, UNCD B doped diamond is a little better (and N doped is better than B doped), but the conductivity just isn't there with diamond for VLSI. Need to find different, better dopants. Still have issues with gate leakage current leading to high temps. The new tech needed is a better oxide insulating layer.

High temps are something that makes diamond so desirable. They don't melt until temps of around 2000C are reached. They also conduct heat better than anything else that I know of. I know Type I diamond's TC is around 1500W/Mk. But Type IIa boron diamond's is way higher still, like 2800W/Mk(boron doped semiconductor diamond). Thats 3.8 and 7 times the TC of copper. That is weird about pure diamond though, its such a good thermal conductor, but a electrical insulator at the same time. Usually those properties do not appear together in a single material. I've been reading about quantum lattice vibrations that explain the property, still strange and fascinating though.

Its because of those properties I think diamond will eventually supplant silicon as the semiconductor of choice in electronics. If it can be manufactured cheaply via CVD (whats UNCD?) with an appropriate charge carrier in the crystal (boron, nitrogen, whatever...and don't forget the P-type for it as well!), and manipulated on as fine a scale as silicon, Moore's Law could continue for some time if people are willing to put up with the higher power consumption. Here's a cool link to a company that could very well be the breakthrough outfit for the industry http://www.apollodiamond.com/ The guy who started this oufit is the guy who made his money through the discovery and patenting of gallium arsenide, which I am sure you know is critical to the modern semiconductor.

Also, how hard is it to manufacture nitrogen doped diamond compared to boron? Nitrogen is what makes natural diamond yellow, and a diamond's "clarity" is pretty much a reference to how nitrogen-free that particular crystal is. You seem to have access to more data than me on the subject, I am curious.