Thursday, August 11th 2011
AMD Contemplates Bundled Water-Cooling for Some FX-Series Processors
The certified fan-heatsink that comes with the CPU is perhaps the first thing enthusiasts get rid of, from their machines. The bundled heatsinks are almost never built in a way that allows you to squeeze the most out of your CPU. It looks like AMD is deciding whether to change this notion with some of its top-tier 8-core "Bulldozer" FX-series processors. The company reportedly plans to bundle self-contained liquid-based coolers with their processors.
Over the last couple of years, consumers have taken a liking for $100 self-contained CPU water coolers, kits that include the block with a motor, pre-fitted tubing to the radiator, which latches onto the common 120 mm rear fan hole of most cases. Bundling water coolers indicate two things: firstly, that the top-end FX-series chips will be hot, secondly, AMD is trying to woo enthusiasts. AMD could have asked its cooler OEMs to come up with a heavy tower-type fan-heatsink, but it chose water-cooling instead. So the move to pack water-cooling could either work for AMD's image (wooing enthusiasts), or against it (to convey that FX chips are so hot that nothing short of water-cooling is fit for them). Pictured below is a popular self-contained water-cooler by Corsair.
Source:
X-bit Labs
Over the last couple of years, consumers have taken a liking for $100 self-contained CPU water coolers, kits that include the block with a motor, pre-fitted tubing to the radiator, which latches onto the common 120 mm rear fan hole of most cases. Bundling water coolers indicate two things: firstly, that the top-end FX-series chips will be hot, secondly, AMD is trying to woo enthusiasts. AMD could have asked its cooler OEMs to come up with a heavy tower-type fan-heatsink, but it chose water-cooling instead. So the move to pack water-cooling could either work for AMD's image (wooing enthusiasts), or against it (to convey that FX chips are so hot that nothing short of water-cooling is fit for them). Pictured below is a popular self-contained water-cooler by Corsair.
100 Comments on AMD Contemplates Bundled Water-Cooling for Some FX-Series Processors
if you notice, the marking now is shiny and the rest is dull.
they should just reverse it.
a little dull marking on a shiny mirror surface is nothing.
and no writing on paper wont speed up production processes where the chip is identified by computers on what is written on it :p
free advise : grow up, the world is changing :D
So the pump impeller runs in the sink/block and has two hoses or copper tubes running into a 120mm radiator with a large fan and two rows in a single pass design. So 1/4" ID tubing would work, and a PWM driven motor would allow the board to change fan and pump RPM simultaneously for cooling on demand. A pull fan design would also help cool RAM, FETS and any bridge chips on the board. Having a cradle design for the motor and the fan suspended from the radiator and using copper tubes would mean no extra supports and any minor vibrations would be isolated.
I might have to design one myself if no one else will. There is that thermaltake guy around.......
It does two very simple things - it moves the heat somewhere else, and also spreads it out into (roughly) 700ml of water.
That's all. Nothing magic.
The very existance of watercooling by itself does nothing magical.
I'm repeating myself but I need to in order for people to understand it.
The advantages of watercooling are....
You can have a larger surface area of hot area to cool - using a radiator. Although you can do this with metal heatsinks the advantage water has is in the next sentence...
You can move the heat from inside the case to the outside edge easily. That way you can blow have cold air from outside the case go over the radiator, or you can have the air that's warmed slightly expelled straight out of the case.
You can combine the heat from multiple components and have them run through a single radiator/fan assembly. 2 120mm fans and a 120x2 radiator for example would do enough for most people, 120x3 is good and anything higher is a bit overkill.
The heat still needs to go into the room. You add pump noise and vibration. It's HUGELY more expensive.
I've been reading forums and reviews etc for around 10 years now, and I'm continually hit by the basic ignorance of people who believe that watercooling in itself is enough to bend the laws of physics.
I appreciate your condescending post though. Thanks.
Edit : Aha! My post followed yours. Sorry if it appeared I was replying to you, I was talking to the thread in general.
Thought the pump in that Xigmatek is what essentially and Eheim fish tank pump that’s design isn’t as robust for +60°C. You might have something in that the pump is in the radiator/fan module while just a water block on the CPU. Then the combined magnetic drive for a pump and fan has merit. Though the downside is the rpm of pump and fan are the same, so some big trade off of pump speed, size, dBa verse what the fan does relative to that same speed. Get what I’m saying… I would considery having both independent control of the pump and fan provides the best means of controling of water flow and air flow, as sometimes one over the other or both can provide optimum heat transfer, while not amplify the sound profile.
That is what I'm running, one ceramic bearing lubricated by the coolant and magnetically driven by the motor, so one o-ring on the impeller case.
They could design a impeller and housing to meet the coolant flow needs for whatever RPM the fan is designed for also, so one motor is a simpler solution, magnetic drive simplifies the sealing of the system, but it does pose the problem of if a impeller gets hung up how do you know its turning? But with water the thermal mass you have to heat and the lower shutoff threshold you could implement would mean that you could run it without any coolant flow.
If you are going to be one of those people buying the flagship eight-core FX series processors, you're probably not going to leave it at stock. You're likely a gamer or other enthusiast who will be looking to push the processor beyond it's stock speeds.
You're going to overclock, and thus you're going to replace the stock cooler anyway. No true enthusiast of any caliber uses stock cooling on an overclock.
To me, it simply looks to me like AMD is targeting what will probably be their largest customer base when these eight-core beasts hit the market. Customers who will be tossing the stock cooler anyway in favor of either a high-end air cooler, or liquid cooling such as they are talking about here.
Though high-end air coolers perform just as well as these stand-alone self contained liquid CPU cooling kits, they are also much larger. So to me, it makes sense to include them with the flagship processors in a kit. PIB I think they are calling it, Processor In a Box.
So chances are, there will be more than one version available. The PIB that will include whatever self-contained liquid cooling they decide to go with, and another that will contain a standard air-cooler for those people who will run at stock, or enthusiasts who already have aftermarket cooling they intend to use.
I for one do not need an included liquid cooler. The Thermaltake Frio I am running on my 1090T at 4.2GHz is more than enough to keep a Bulldozer FX cool based on the fact that this cooler, and many others like it, perform just as well as the self contained liquid coolers, such as the H60.
After all, as was noted earlier, haven't they been providing better and better stock air coolers? Why do you think they've done this? For yuks? Probably not.
There's also the fact that really pushing an oc requires a great deal of trial and error and therefore patience. Skill is also part of the equation, but if you're trying to overclock a brand new chip, even skill isn't the primary ingredient. That means that most people are going for the sweet spot - where you get a 15-30% oc without investing a few days in reboots. But it also means that you don't need a 3 rad loop or TEC chillers.
Rarely do you have an average gamer or non enthusiasts drop thousands or hundreds of dollars for a CPU or GPU and won't overclock.
That said, what about those of use that already have high end cooling? I am only for this if it is just an option, and there's a cheaper retail package (with associated retail warranty) that leaves this out.