Watercooling lead to cooler room temps?

[W1zzard]

in any form of heating you use(except piezoelectric whizz stuff, or magic) the ambient air(the room air in most cases) is where the heat of the computer is dissipated to. water cooling and air-cooling are two mere form of dissipation.

and it started out as such a nice physics post

edit: basically until you confused heating and cooling

 

[de.das.dude]

LOL sorry.

 

[Deleted member 74752]

Just for giggles.... http://www.overclockers.com/nuclear-tower-water-cooling/

 

[douglatins]

Water cooling with a decent loop cant take your components to close to ambient temps, so even if you have a 35C room, youll get 50C in components such as GPUs, that usually go for 80-90Cs

 

[de.das.dude]

he's talking about his room temp, of how hot hhis room will get. not cooling ones.

 

[keakar]

What is the point of Watercooling if it won't lower temps?

thats where most people get mixed up, watercooling is to keep your hardware cooler under high stress such as overclocking and it has little to no effect on room temps because the radiator dumps out all the heat that the fans would do normally if you werent watercooling.

what you can do is run the hoses out your window and hang your radiator or just a loop of hose outside to chill the coolant in your system. i have heard of some people running the hoses to the garage as well so the heat doesnt stay in the room with you but caution should be used it doesnt have to go up or down to the next level since most pumps cant push water that high without it killing them.

 

[CRYSIS1982]

The apartment I live in has no air conditioning.

We are heading into Winter but my bedroom still gets extremely hot when I'm in there using my computer.

It has been pretty cool outside recently but my room has still been getting up into the 80s at night when I'm playing games on the computer.

If I turn my computer off during the day when I'm at school or work the temps drop down to very comfortable levels so I know it is the heat from my computer causing it.

But once I get home and start the computer back up it only takes an hour or two before the temps are back up again and I'm sweating my balls off.

Plus I'd like to get my machine folding again(I fold for a different team though sorry I started folding for them before I came here).

This weekend the temps went back up again outside into the high 80s and my room today is near 100.

So that got me thinking.

If I threw together a watercooling loop for my CPU and GPU to lower their temperatures would that help lower my room temperature?

If the computer is running cooler then my room should be cooler too right?

Your math is flawed.

Say we are both running the same graphics card running the same clocks and voltage. Your one is using a standard heat-sink and fan set-up and my card is using a water cooled set up.

For argument sake, lets say your card is running a game at 50c but my card is running the same game at the same time at 35c. So this means the heat transferred from the GPU to the atmosphere (gaming room) using the water cooling is more efficient.

So the GPU is running cooler using water because the heat is being taken away faster than the air cooling solution. This means that 15 deg of that heat is still residing in the chip as your cooling solution is not efficient enough to take the heat away fast enough.

So in conclusion, my room will be hotter because the heat being transferred from my cards is being taken away faster and more efficiently but the GPU will run cooler because the heat is being taken away faster.

 

[blibba]

Your math is flawed.

Say we are both running the same graphics card running the same clocks and voltage. Your one is using a standard heat-sink and fan set-up and my card is using a water cooled set up.

For argument sake, lets say your card is running a game at 50c but my card is running the same game at the same time at 35c. So this means the heat transferred from the GPU to the atmosphere (gaming room) using the water cooling is more efficient.

So the GPU is running cooler using water because the heat is being taken away faster than the air cooling solution. This means that 15 deg of that heat is still residing in the chip as your cooling solution is not efficient enough to take the heat away fast enough.

So in conclusion, my room will be hotter because the heat being transferred from my cards is being taken away faster and more efficiently but the GPU will run cooler because the heat is being taken away faster.

But the heat capacity of the chip is so tiny that the difference over any period of time is likely to be trivial, and will be undone when your hotter chip eventually cools off when turned off. The main way I can imagine there being any difference is if the chip is actually more or less efficient at some given temperature.

TL;DR of this thread: conservation of energy.

 

[CRYSIS1982]

But the heat capacity of the chip is so tiny that the difference over any period of time is likely to be trivial, and will be undone when your hotter chip eventually cools off when turned off. The main way I can imagine there being any difference is if the chip is actually more or less efficient at some given temperature.

TL;DR of this thread: conservation of energy.

Ok.

My two R9 280X DCU2 cards with the normal ASUS cooler were sitting at 79c (158c over two cards) while gaming. I now have a full custom loop and they are now running at 40c while gaming.
What you are saying is that loss of 39c (78c over two cards) just disappears.
This is not true. That heat is being taken away faster using the water cooling and radiators and being vented into my room.
The GPU is still putting out the same amount of heat in both setups (air, water). It is just being vented into my room faster.

What you say is true though, being that when they are not being used they will cool down and equal the room out. But air cooling does not evacuate from your case as well as water cooling. Most of the heat stays inside your case when you shut down your pc.

 

[Mussels]

like many others have said, air and water cooling dont 'remove' heat, they just relocate it.

watercooling would keep your PC cooler by dumping the same amount of heat into your room, faster - so in the short term it would actually heat your room up quicker, before averaging out to the same temps in the end.

Unless you're changing voltages and upping the actual amount of heat produced, it'll be the same amount of heat put into your room in the long run (technically, adding the power used by the water pumps and extra fans means that watercooling will produce slightly more heat)

you need to dump the heat out of your room somehow, exhaust fan, A/C unit, etc.

 

[blibba]

What you are saying is that loss of 39c just disappears.

Nope. Energy never disappears, and I never said that.

I feel like I made this clear first time round, but I'll try again. The water-cooling setup is capable of dissipating heat faster, meaning that it maintains a smaller temperature differential between the chip and the room. Once equilibrium temperature is reached, both setups are exhausting the same amount of heat into the room, presuming (naively?) that the chip has identical power consumption at the two different temperatures.

The fact that once this equilibrium has been achieved, one chip is hotter than the other, means that the colder one has exhausted more heat into the room so far. However, sooner or later, equality must be achieved - most likely while the PC is cooling when you turn it off. By the time both chips have cooled back to room temperature, both will have released an identical amount of heat into the room.

 

[CRYSIS1982]

Nope. Energy never disappears, and I never said that.

I feel like I made this clear first time round, but I'll try again. The water-cooling setup is capable of dissipating heat faster, meaning that it maintains a smaller temperature differential between the chip and the room. Once equilibrium temperature is reached, both setups are exhausting the same amount of heat into the room, presuming (naively?) that the chip has identical power consumption at the two different temperatures.

The fact that once this equilibrium has been achieved, one chip is hotter than the other, means that the colder one has exhausted more heat into the room so far. However, sooner or later, equality must be achieved - most likely while the PC is cooling when you turn it off. By the time both chips have cooled back to room temperature, both will have released an identical amount of heat into the room.

This is true, if being used in a sealed room with no ventilation. But anyone that uses a gaming computer in that sort of environment should be reprimanded.

But your not answering the question of will it provide cooler temps. I was looking at it in a real world scenario where there is airflow inside your house ie a window. where air can be taken out of the room your computer is in thus making the possibility or temperature equilibrium impossible.
Water cooling removes heat faster than air cooling, thus the room your computer is in will warm up faster and stay warmer than air cooling would.

 

[Mussels]

This is true, if being used in a sealed room with no ventilation. But anyone that uses a gaming computer in that sort of environment should be reprimanded.

But your not answering the question of will it provide cooler temps. I was looking at it in a real world scenario where there is airflow inside your house ie a window. where air can be taken out of the room your computer is in thus making the possibility or temperature equilibrium impossible.
Water cooling removes heat faster than air cooling, thus the room your computer is in will warm up faster and stay warmer than air cooling would.

the watercooling setup removes the heat from the PC faster, and dumps it into the room. the ROOM then needs its own cooling setup, be it an open window, an exhaust fan, or its own watercooling loop, with the rads outside the window (sometimes called an "air conditioner")

according to the OP, thats his real problem - the heat builds up in his room.

 

[blibba]

This is true, if being used in a sealed room with no ventilation. But anyone that uses a gaming computer in that sort of environment should be reprimanded.

But your not answering the question of will it provide cooler temps. I was looking at it in a real world scenario where there is airflow inside your house ie a window. where air can be taken out of the room your computer is in thus making the possibility or temperature equilibrium impossible.
Water cooling removes heat faster than air cooling, thus the room your computer is in will warm up faster and stay warmer than air cooling would.

Equilibrium is equally possible in a ventilated room - the ability of the room to exhaust heat does not vary according to the manner in which your computer setup exhausts heat.

You're confusing yourself by describing better heat dissipation as "faster". Yes, a more powerful cooling setup has this potential, but in reality, once equilibrium is reached, it only exhausts heat as fast as the chips emit heat.

At any given moment in time, the amount of heat that has been exhausted into your room is equal to the heat generated by the chip minus the heat currently contained in the setup itself (heatsinks+coolant+chip+everything else). WC probably does contain more heat in the setup itself than the air cooling setup, meaning that more of the heat will be emitted when the computer is turned off compared to air cooling. But the same amount of heat will still be released in total, and over a long session, the difference in what has been emitted so far at any given point in time will be trivial.

 

[CRYSIS1982]

the watercooling setup removes the heat from the PC faster, and dumps it into the room. the ROOM then needs its own cooling setup, be it an open window, an exhaust fan, or its own watercooling loop, with the rads outside the window (sometimes called an "air conditioner")

according to the OP, thats his real problem - the heat builds up in his room.

Exactly.

So what you are saying is water cooling will make it warmer FASTER because the heat is being transferred into his room at a higher rate than air cooling would. And since his room has no or little ventilation or cooling it would remain at that temp longer than air cooling because the heat in the room putting more stress on the components.

 

[micropage7]

umm, water cooling solution is moving the heat through the water and cooled by the fans
maybe if you use 20 fans it would move enough air in your room and make the temp lower too

why dont you buy usb fan?

 

[CRYSIS1982]

Equilibrium is equally possible in a ventilated room - the ability of the room to exhaust heat does not vary according to the manner in which your computer setup exhausts heat.

You're confusing yourself by describing better heat dissipation as "faster". Yes, a more powerful cooling setup has this potential, but in reality, once equilibrium is reached, it only exhausts heat as fast as the chips emit heat.

At any given moment in time, the amount of heat that has been exhausted into your room is equal to the heat generated by the chip minus the heat currently contained in the setup itself (heatsinks+coolant+chip+everything else). WC probably does contain more heat in the setup itself than the air cooling setup, meaning that more of the heat will be emitted when the computer is turned off compared to air cooling. But the same amount of heat will still be released in total, and over a long session, the difference in what has been emitted so far at any given point in time will be trivial.

That would only be true if the ventilation was constant.

Living in the UK you should understand that having a heater on in winter will warm up a room faster if the windows are closed. If your heat is escaping out the window there is no way that the temperature of your room will be higher than if you closed the window to keep the heat in.

Now replace the heater for a gaming computer. Equilibrium may be reached but at a lower room temperature.

 

[the54thvoid]

I can't believe nobody has commented that it's a resurrection of a nearly 4 year dead thread!

I feel there is an anomaly in the arguments. An air cooled chip will run at a higher temperature and thus the air expelled on a smaller cooling system (such as heatsink/fan) will 'feel' warmer. A liquid cooled set up will restrict the heat build up and dissipate it quickly, thus allowing the ambient temperature to normalise quicker and not reach excessive levels. The rapid heat build up and dissipation from a heatsink/fan set up will vent far hotter air.

I understand physics and equilibrium but the maximum temperature should not reach the same levels in a water set up, thus the ambients will cool faster. I know what I mean.

Besides, my monitor pumps out more heat than my actual PC does. Why worry.

 

[Mussels]

Besides, my monitor pumps out more heat than my actual PC does. Why worry.

unless you're running a plasma, i doubt that. what you may have meant was 'my monitor gets hotter than my PC', which is very different from heat output.



So many people here are confusing temperature and heat output.

if watercooling changed how much heat was output, air conditioners would be nothing but a superfast fan, and global warming would be a global freezing.

coolers MOVE air. nothing more. a device with inferior or no cooling may feel hotter, but blowing a fan over it or watercooling your HDTV to cool it down doesnt change its heat output one bit.

 

[Mussels]

Heres a great example that should sort this thread out:

Get two cups of coffee.

have one in front of a fan, one not.

see which one cools down first.

then see which one freezes to a block of ice first. what, neither did, because the passive and active cooling could both only cool them to ambient temperatures, and merely took different amounts of time to do it?

 

[the54thvoid]

Heres a great example that should sort this thread out:

Get two cups of coffee.

have one in front of a fan, one not.

see which one cools down first.

then see which one freezes to a block of ice first. what, neither did, because the passive and active cooling could both only cool them to ambient temperatures, and merely took different amounts of time to do it?

Yes, my monitor feels hotter than my PC. Simple everyday misuse of English.

However, what needs to be sorted is this...

A small die of metal radiates 'heat' which will cause a temperature rise. Air is less efficient than water at cooling objects, so the initial heat output is going to be higher (and remain high) on an air cooled system. That higher heat output will cause an increase in ambient air quite quickly. Water is an excellent 'heat' absorber, specifically because it reduces particle motion, it slows molecular movement and it retains it too.
So, the initial 'heat' output does not get as high and will be kept maintained in the water tempertature. This more efficient absorption of heat energy and slower release to the environment will keep the room cooler as the air within that room will cool faster as the normal processes of equilibrium will maintain temps with the 'external' world.
The point of the topic is will watercooling lead to cooler room temps and the answer is yes.

Heat from die -> absorbed by water faster -> dispersed by fans at a lower heat output -> temperature of 'dispersed' heat energy is lower (compared to air cooling) -> ambient physical surfaces and natural air convention will absorb the 'heat' faster due to a lower temperature level and therefore a lower equilibrium will be reached. In the air cooler example, the dispersed 'heat' will have a far higher temperature, thus taking longer for the ambient processes to 'cool' through equilibrium.

The whole point is water cooling prevents the die from 'heating' up as much, thus preventing a state whereby equilibrium will lead to a higher ambient. It's all relevant to real world physical processes that remove heat from the air. Also important is that a hotter chip becomes less efficient so works harder (produces more heat), therefore water cooling prevents the inefficiencies of a hotter chip from causing greater heat output.

In a vacuum sealed room with no heat absorbing surfaces, yes, the temp will become the same eventually but no such room exists in real life computing scenarios.

 

[Mussels]

no, your own wording is confusing you.

its MOVED faster, into the water loop. but unless that heat LEAVES the loop and goes back into the air, the loop temperatures would climb higher and higher - which would make it worse than aircooling.


you cant 'store' heat and have it magically go away. you're mistaking the fact that watercooling takes longer to heat up as some kind of magic system that makes it disappear. it has to leave the watercooling loop back into the ambient air as well, the heat transfer is merely spread out - the exact same amount of heat is produced, and the exact same amount is spread into the room - its merely spread out over a larger AREA.

Boil a kettle and stick your hand in it, its hot. pour it into a swimming pool (larger cooler) and despite the same amount of *heat output*, it 'feels colder'


its like you're complaining the trees are blocking your view of the forest.

light a candle. the flame is hot. put a frying pan over it, and the average temperature of the pan will be lower than the candle, despite the same heat output. same heat produced, same heat ends up in the room - just the pan spread that heat over a larger area, lowering the average.

 

[nunomoreira10]

Lol guys, heat diferent than temperature.
if your computer consumes 200Wh and it takes 2000Wh to heat your room 1º, it would take 10h for it to happen independently of the temperature.

its a quantity problem, quantity of energy, temperature is just a quality not quantity.

 

[the54thvoid]

no, your own wording is confusing you.

its MOVED faster, into the water loop. but unless that heat LEAVES the loop and goes back into the air, the loop temperatures would climb higher and higher - which would make it worse than aircooling.


you cant 'store' heat and have it magically go away. you're mistaking the fact that watercooling takes longer to heat up as some kind of magic system that makes it disappear. it has to leave the watercooling loop back into the ambient air as well, the heat transfer is merely spread out - the exact same amount of heat is produced, and the exact same amount is spread into the room - its merely spread out over a larger AREA.

Boil a kettle and stick your hand in it, its hot. pour it into a swimming pool (larger cooler) and despite the same amount of *heat output*, it 'feels colder'


its like you're complaining the trees are blocking your view of the forest.

light a candle. the flame is hot. put a frying pan over it, and the average temperature of the pan will be lower than the candle, despite the same heat output. same heat produced, same heat ends up in the room - just the pan spread that heat over a larger area, lowering the average.

I'm not confused at all.

you cant 'store' heat and have it magically go away

I never said it did magically go away. My point is very simple. Water in the loop stores heat, it removes heat from the component. A heatsink/fan without water disperses heat into the room at a higher temp, without as much storage as a water loop. The fact that water stores heat better means that it releases it at a slower rate into the room. I explicitly mentioned the factors of ambient processes such as air convection and physical surfaces in the effect of removing heat from the room.
The heatsink/fan combo pushes air out of the PC system and directly into the room at 'X' temperature. The water loop pushes out air at '<X' temperature. That's a fact, the water is storing heat energy that the heatsink/fan combo cannot. The capacity of a system/environment to absorb and deal with 'heat' has to factor in time. If I try to transfer heat energy to a surface at 'X' degrees, that surface will warm up (as long as it is colder than the heat being input). That surface has a specific latent heat capacity(?) that will absorb heat at 'Y' rate. If I try to transfer heat at '<X' degrees to the same surface it will be able to transfer that heat energy at '>Y' rate.

We're not talking candles and frying pans here. We're talking about heat transfer through different mediums and the fact that water in the loop stores the heat longer means the ambient surfaces in the room have a better capacity to absorb that heat. You cant look at the heat as a closed system of just the PC.

Now to clarify, once the PC is switched off, the heatsink/fan combo will cool faster than the loop will, so in that essence the loop will continue to 'heat' the room as it releases it's energy but the ambient will have been at a lower average temp than the heatsink/fan combo during use.

But if we do want analogies, if i switch on my oven hob now and don't put a pan of water on it, the room will heat up very quickly. It will make my cooking experience less pleasant. If I put a pan of water on it, the room will not heat up as quickly because the heat transfer will be into the water, not the air. Obviously, when the hob is switched off it will cool at a faster rate than the pan of water, which will remain warm for some time but the peak temperature of the room and the experience of 'warmth' will have been greater without the pan of water. In other words the room in air heat storage will reach 'X' degrees but will return to ambient in 'Y' minutes. In the pan of water example, the room will reach '<X' degrees but take '>Y' to return to ambient.

 

[nunomoreira10]

I'm not confused at all.



I never said it did magically go away. My point is very simple. Water in the loop stores heat, it removes heat from the component. A heatsink/fan without water disperses heat into the room at a higher temp, without as much storage as a water loop. The fact that water stores heat better means that it releases it at a slower rate into the room. I explicitly mentioned the factors of ambient processes such as air convection and physical surfaces in the effect of removing heat from the room.
The heatsink/fan combo pushes air out of the PC system and directly into the room at 'X' temperature. The water loop pushes out air at '<X' temperature. That's a fact, the water is storing heat energy that the heatsink/fan combo cannot. The capacity of a system/environment to absorb and deal with 'heat' has to factor in time. If I try to transfer heat energy to a surface at 'X' degrees, that surface will warm up (as long as it is colder than the heat being input). That surface has a specific latent heat capacity(?) that will absorb heat at 'Y' rate. If I try to transfer heat at '<X' degrees to the same surface it will be able to transfer that heat energy at '>Y' rate.

We're not talking candles and frying pans here. We're talking about heat transfer through different mediums and the fact that water in the loop stores the heat longer means the ambient surfaces in the room have a better capacity to absorb that heat. You cant look at the heat as a closed system of just the PC.

Now to clarify, once the PC is switched off, the heatsink/fan combo will cool faster than the loop will, so in that essence the loop will continue to 'heat' the room as it releases it's energy but the ambient will have been at a lower average temp than the heatsink/fan combo during use.

But if we do want analogies, if i switch on my oven hob now and don't put a pan of water on it, the room will heat up very quickly. It will make my cooking experience less pleasant. If I put a pan of water on it, the room will not heat up as quickly because the heat transfer will be into the water, not the air. Obviously, when the hob is switched off it will cool at a faster rate than the pan of water, which will remain warm for some time but the peak temperature of the room and the experience of 'warmth' will have been greater without the pan of water. In other words the room in air heat storage will reach 'X' degrees but will return to ambient in 'Y' minutes. In the pan of water example, the room will reach '<X' degrees but take '>Y' to return to ambient.

That buffer efect your talking about its just until the watter "boils", after that its all the same, its about a 10min difference that on a 2h gaming session is insignificant but yeah you can say that you cooler for 10 more minutes lol.