Cooling How small can a liquid cooling radiator be?

[pavel]

I want to put liquid cooling into a DAN style case.

It is well known that there is no trick to do anything about radiator performance other than either increasing its size or increasing pressure drop.

When we talk about 4 to 6 litre cases, there is very little one can do about the size, it is limited by width of the case.

Thus I began thinking, what if I can get custom made radiators with really dense, thin fins, and simply live with the fact that I will need to use more noisy blowers instead of fans, and care about sealing.

Did anybody have previous experience with anything similar?

 

[jpmomo]

I am working on another build that requires a 1U (40mm) radiator. The trick is to find fans that have enough static pressure but do not sound like jet engines. I am replacing the 3 very loud fans with 6 noctua 40mm fans and will see if that is sufficient. See below for reference. The radiator is sitting on top of an hdplex 160ac:


jp

 

[For_Science]

In the Ncase M1, I found that even with a 360 mm Radiator equivalent, the system was only marginally between than Air-cooled GPU and a 240 mm AIO in terms of thermal performance. At some point you are probably better off just with normal air cooling if you have to compromise so much in terms of pump performance and fan noise. I think for a recent high end system (8700K + 1080TI, for example) 360 mm of 30 mm thick radiator is pretty much the minimum I would consider for a watercooled system, which happens to be the max that you can fit into Ncase M1 with a bit of creativity.

 

[jpmomo]

I just got the rest of the noctuas and am pretty happy with the performance so far. virtually silent and keeping the xeon 8160 sp relatively cool with temps 40c at idle and <55c at load (proprietary load tests not prime95.) The same company also makes a 1U aio for other sockets and is pretty cheap. The stock fans are loud but you can swap them with the noctuas and get rid of most of the noise. I am using a customized L8 for the xeon chip. see below for the other sockets:

https://www.dynatron.co/product-page/l3

 

[Midiamp]

I just got the rest of the noctuas and am pretty happy with the performance so far. virtually silent and keeping the xeon 8160 sp relatively cool with temps 40c at idle and <55c at load (proprietary load tests not prime95.) The same company also makes a 1U aio for other sockets and is pretty cheap. The stock fans are loud but you can swap them with the noctuas and get rid of most of the noise. I am using a customized L8 for the xeon chip. see below for the other sockets:

https://www.dynatron.co/product-page/l3

Holy mother that's one small AIO. Thanks a lot for the reference, I might not use it but nice to know the size of AIO really does goes extra small.

At Duty Cycle 20%: 30.30 dBA
At Duty Cycle 50%: 43.65 dBA
At Duty Cycle 100%: 52.80 dBA

But that noise though... *shudder*... I sells cloud hosting on our datacenter, can't even stand being close to our rack for more than a minute, the high pitched fan physically hurts my ear.

 

[jpmomo]

Yes, the stock fans are noisy but that can be rectified with the fan swap as shown below:

That will bring the noise (or lack thereof) down to a respectable 14.9dba at full load!

 

[For_Science]

Yes, the stock fans are noisy but that can be rectified with the fan swap as shown below:

That will bring the noise (or lack thereof) down to a respectable 14.9dba at full load!

Isn't 14.9 dBA the maximum noise of one of these fans in an unobstructed environment? Since you have 6 of these against a radiator, I would assume it will be significantly louder than 14.9 dBA.

 

[jpmomo]

perhaps, but I was doing a relative comparison to the 52.8dba of the stock fans. With the noctuas, you can't hear them, with the stock fans, you certainly can! I was just surprised that they managed to keep the temps under control as the noctuas have very weak static pressure. Sometimes it seems more like magic than science

 

[Biowarejak]

You can get a 40mm radiator from Alphacool, I'm using a dual 50mm Rad in my S4M-C build.

 

[pavel]

In the Ncase M1, I found that even with a 360 mm Radiator equivalent, the system was only marginally between than Air-cooled GPU and a 240 mm AIO in terms of thermal performance. At some point you are probably better off just with normal air cooling if you have to compromise so much in terms of pump performance and fan noise. I think for a recent high end system (8700K + 1080TI, for example) 360 mm of 30 mm thick radiator is pretty much the minimum I would consider for a watercooled system, which happens to be the max that you can fit into Ncase M1 with a bit of creativity.

That is very clear to me. What I aim to build is a workstation class machine in a DAN style case.

The issue here is much more about power density, than anything else. The 8700 + 1080/2070 will be the baseline, and as a distant stretch I plan doing something like a compact 4x GPU box. That will surely necessitate to build it with liquid cooling in mind. The 1 GPU + 1 CPU system is planned as a more easily marketable proof of concept for everything I plan to implement in a bigger system.

I believe, my best option up to now is to get a long cross-flow squirrel-cage blower, either colinear to the case, or parallel, depending on heat load. That should be a better at utilising space than a flat blower perpendicular to the case, even with a smaller diameter.

I know how terrible cross flow blowers are, but somehow my calculations went in their favour. The cheapest option thought is still to try to squeeze U1 water cooling radiator into it.

 

[For_Science]

That is very clear to me. What I aim to build is a workstation class machine in a DAN style case.

The issue here is much more about power density, than anything else. The 8700 + 1080/2070 will be the baseline, and as a distant stretch I plan doing something like a compact 4x GPU box. That will surely necessitate to build it with liquid cooling in mind. The 1 GPU + 1 CPU system is planned as a more easily marketable proof of concept for everything I plan to implement in a bigger system.

I believe, my best option up to now is to get a long cross-flow squirrel-cage blower, either colinear to the case, or parallel, depending on heat load. That should be a better at utilising space than a flat blower perpendicular to the case, even with a smaller diameter.

I know how terrible cross flow blowers are, but somehow my calculations went in their favour. The cheapest option thought is still to try to squeeze U1 water cooling radiator into it.

But at least for the 1U solution presented above, while it is 1U high, it is very long (120 mm in push/pull). I seriously doubt its capability of keeping a system cool, and it most probably won't fit into the A4 SFX anyway. If you're ready to settle for an external solution, you might as well use quick disconnects and a chiller, or a more standard pump/radiator combo like the Eiswand or a custom solution using a MORA3.

My answer is on the basis that I have no idea how cross-flow squirrel-cage blowers are or how they work. A quick googling makes me think they are big, and therefore then an aquarium chiller would be more hassle free?

 

[jpmomo]

You can get a 40mm radiator from Alphacool, I'm using a dual 50mm Rad in my S4M-C build.

I went through your build thread and am very impressed. Part of the issue that I am having with my 1U AIO setup is the 90 degree bend that is needed at a few points to get this to fit better. Can you give me some details on the alphacool setup including which reservoir you used and if any of the parts details for your setup?

 

[Biowarejak]

I went through your build thread and am very impressed. Part of the issue that I am having with my 1U AIO setup is the 90 degree bend that is needed at a few points to get this to fit better. Can you give me some details on the alphacool setup including which reservoir you used and if any of the parts details for your setup?

Certainly. I actually opted not to use a reservoir and seeing as I went for hardline tubing I spent a significant sum on fittings. That enabled me to do some complex routing. The Kelvin T12 is at the heart of the loop, cooling the CPU and pumping the fluid. I used the secondary inlet as the fill port and attached a quick-disconnect bit to it for an easy fill-up. If you want the part and cost breakdown, I do believe I summed it up in a pcpartpicker list within that thread