Water Cooling Question

[t3h0wn4g3]

This might seem like over kill, but would adding a small loop to a water cooling rig that only goes through a radiator to cool the liquid not help provide a better cooled system? The pump would take water from the reservoir, then go in through the pump, then to the radiator, and then back to the reservoir. This would cause the reservoir to have two more connections for this purpose, but cooling liquid that is just sitting doing nothing seems a little bit more logical. This should also help the main radiator in the cooling of the liquid to an even cooler temperature.

If this has been tried and doesn't do much for the cooling process, I'd like to see the numbers and pictures of the loop, to see how close it would be in terms of temperature differences.

 

[NicePants42]

If you've got a loop, and are thinking of adding a second pump and radiator, the best way (performance-wise) to do it is to add everything in series. This will allow you to leverage the additional head pressure of the second pump across the entire loop and will make your loop redundant in case of pump failure. The increased flow rate (from adding a second pump) will increase the cooling performance of all waterblocks and radiators in the loop.

That said, I may be able to offer better advice if I knew what you were cooling and what you were cooling it with.

 

[t3h0wn4g3]

I'm not cooling anything yet. I'm more exhausting ideas of a custom setup for cooler cooling before I go with the typical setup of water cooling. This is the idea, but it takes a little bit of imagination on viewing what it will look like. I'm going to be hand drawing the setup up in a few days. Then I'll most likely CAD the drawing to get a better 3D view of it.

This is for a dual graphics system or something that needs more than 2 loops of water cooling; this could be dropped down to 2 loops for 1 GPU and 1 CPU, but then it would kind of be a waste of the reservoir. Basically, create a reservoir that is a box, but each corner is in a spout like form, that goes to 4 connectors. Corner 1 goes to a rather hefty pump that pumps liquid through a big cool radiator that goes up to the CPU block. Corner 2 goes to a medium sized pump that goes to a medium cooled radiator then up to the first GPU. The 3rd corner does the exact same thing as the 2nd corner. The 4th corner goes to a small pump that goes to a small cool radiator that just goes right back to the reservoir.

On the top side of the radiator, which would contain 5 connectors, 4 are return lines for the 4 loops, in a cross X type setup going back into the reservoir. Main 2 going this / way and the other 2 going this \ way. The 5th connector is for a line that would hold spare coolant, just for the purpose of vaporization of the primary liquid, and would only work on the idea of gravitational pressure. Meaning, putting only enough liquid in the spare reservoir to not have to pump the liquid through. This spare reservoir would be mounted on the top side of the case, while the rest of the stuff will be mounted on the bottom.

 

[NicePants42]

I'll he honest, what you're describing sounds like a huge waste (performance-wise) to me. However, if you're going for aesthetics, it could be pretty neat.

This is for a dual graphics system or something that needs more than 2 loops of water cooling;

Nothing needs more than one loop. Period. My old system had dual loops (1 for CPU, 1 for GPU) but I changed to one loop for the reasons stated in my first reply.

this could be dropped down to 2 loops for 1 GPU and 1 CPU, but then it would kind of be a waste of the reservoir.

If you're worrying about wasting a reservoir, you are more concerned with looks than performance. Have you looked at many custom builds?

Basically, create a reservoir that is a box, but each corner is in a spout like form, that goes to 4 connectors. Corner 1 goes to a rather hefty pump that pumps liquid through a big cool radiator that goes up to the CPU block. Corner 2 goes to a medium sized pump that goes to a medium cooled radiator then up to the first GPU. The 3rd corner does the exact same thing as the 2nd corner. The 4th corner goes to a small pump that goes to a small cool radiator that just goes right back to the reservoir.

On the top side of the radiator, which would contain 5 connectors, 4 are return lines for the 4 loops, in a cross X type setup going back into the reservoir. Main 2 going this / way and the other 2 going this \ way. The 5th connector is for a line that would hold spare coolant, just for the purpose of vaporization of the primary liquid, and would only work on the idea of gravitational pressure. Meaning, putting only enough liquid in the spare reservoir to not have to pump the liquid through. This spare reservoir would be mounted on the top side of the case, while the rest of the stuff will be mounted on the bottom.

That's a lot of tubing you're going to have, and a lot of components to fit into whatever case you use. Performance-wise, I wouldn't touch that, but it might look pretty good.

Check out the Parallel HEX mod. It's got the same level of complexity you're describign, but handles it slightly differently.

 

[t3h0wn4g3]

That is basically what I'm talking about, but each one will run on its own loop with its own pump and radiator. The build will be custom and I am going to be building a complete storage case that will be attached to the bottom of a Thermaltake Armor Case. I might be inclined to make this attached to the top of the case.

The reason each loop has its own block, pump, and radiator is for better cooling on top of the single loop of cooling. It might hurt if it was all crammed into a small case, but I'm not looking to shove it into a small case. I'm going to expand the case to make this all fit nice and neatly under the main case, which will still have air cooling for the RAM and North bridge passive coolers.

The only issue I can see that would hurt performance wise would be heat build up in the cooling case. That would make the water actually warmer over periods of time instead of cooler, but like I said, I'm going to make it prime for water cooling and space is really no issue when making the coolant case.

I'm still tossing ideas around in my head before I try to mock any test case up, but I'm open to suggestions and examples of other systems, like the Parallel HEX system.

 

[NicePants42]

The reason each loop has its own block, pump, and radiator is for better cooling on top of the single loop of cooling. It might hurt if it was all crammed into a small case, but I'm not looking to shove it into a small case. I'm going to expand the case to make this all fit nice and neatly under the main case, which will still have air cooling for the RAM and North bridge passive coolers.

Better cooling is not necessarily achieved with separate loops. Water blocks and radiators perform better with greater flow - examples can be found on Swiftech's website, where they publish test data indicating the performance increases you can expect with greater flow rate. As long as you have enough radiator capacity in your loop, it doesn't matter how many things you are trying to cool - more flow = more performance.

I'm not saying your idea won't work, but by splitting things up you could be wasting pump power. If all of the loops are going to share a common reservoir, you're essentially cooling all the components with the same loop anyway, so why you would want to decrease efficiency (flow) through some of the blocks and not have any kind of redundancy is beyond me. If you're going to spend time building a custom case, and money buying loads of pumps and radiators, IMHO you should try to get the most out of it.

If you want everything to be water cooled, I can understand having 2 loops: One for the important stuff (CPU and GPUs) and another for the rest of your junk (RAM, NB, HDDs, etc.) But even then, in order to deliver the best cooling to the CPU and GPUs, you'd want to keep the liquids separate. Sharing a reservoir would just dump more heat into the important loop.

One other suggestion: get a large case. If you're considering buying 3 or 4 pumps and 3 or 4 radiators and who knows how many waterblocks to cool God-knows-what, I suggest not using some sub-$100 TT case. Take a look at Lian-Li, particularly the G70 or V2000 series.