*spin-off* Feasibility of Water Cooling Radiator Setups

[almighty]

There's no reason at all why they couldn't water cool everything.

There's small and thin designs out there that are both cheap and very robust.

For example..

Just look how thin that cooler is! And it HALF'S load temps on that GTX 580 while running much much quiter then the stock cooler.

You can get very thin and small radiators that would fit into a console sized box with no problems at all.

Imagine the benefits, Cool running and quiet which could also result in higher clocked parts.

 

[steampoweredgod]

There's no reason at all why they couldn't water cool everything.

There's small and thin designs out there that are both cheap and very robust.

For example..

Just look how thin that cooler is! And it HALF'S load temps on that GTX 580 while running much much quiter then the stock cooler.

You can get very thin and small radiators that would fit into a console sized box with no problems at all.

Imagine the benefits, Cool running and quiet which could also result in higher clocked parts.

I'm not sure the reservoir would keep water from escaping for the several years a console should last(It shouldn't require the user to refill it.). Maybe it can be done, or another fluid used, I'm not that experienced with water cooling.

In any case if we could deal with heat at the source, such as with the aforementioned molybdenum, both heat and energy constraints would be dealt with. Remember it is not just heat, but the energy wasted in generating that heat that constrains us, more energy means a heftier power supply.

 

[hoho]

There's no reason at all why they couldn't water cool everything.

Water doesn't improve cooling at all. It's just a different medium for transporting the heat to place where it's easier to get rid of. Heatpipes would likely do a significantly better job while being far cheaper, more reliable and taking MUCH less space.

 

[hoho]

I'll happily stick to my PC for another 5-6 years.

In 6 years it's still at least another 6-7 years until ps5 generation.

 

[Kaotik]

There's no reason at all why they couldn't water cool everything.

There's small and thin designs out there that are both cheap and very robust.

For example..

I wouldn't call adding ~$50 minimum to each gfx card price "cheap" really - not to mention that let's assume you watercool your CPU and 2 GPUs - you already need either 3 fanspots where to connect your fan-radiator-combos which take quite a bit of space, or a bigger radiator to which you connect them all, but I'm not sure how it would work with 3 separate pumps in the system, and making all the tube connections yourself to bigger radiator capable of handling all 3 means saying goodbye to warranty.

 

[almighty]

I'm not sure the reservoir would keep water from escaping for the several years a console should last(It shouldn't require the user to refill it.). Maybe it can be done, or another fluid used, I'm not that experienced with water cooling.

Should last fine, Had my loop built for years and never had an issue with it, Even when lugging my PC in and out of the car and transporting it.

Water doesn't improve cooling at all. It's just a different medium for transporting the heat to place where it's easier to get rid of. Heatpipes would likely do a significantly better job while being far cheaper, more reliable and taking MUCH less space.

You don't know a lot about water cooling do you? No matter how many heat pipes you stick on a core a water loop will ALWAYS provide much much better temperatures.

I wouldn't call adding ~$50 minimum to each gfx card price "cheap" really - not to mention that let's assume you watercool your CPU and 2 GPUs - you already need either 3 fanspots where to connect your fan-radiator-combos which take quite a bit of space, or a bigger radiator to which you connect them all, but I'm not sure how it would work with 3 separate pumps in the system, and making all the tube connections yourself to bigger radiator capable of handling all 3 means saying goodbye to warranty.

1 pump
1 water cooling block
1x double 80mm radiator

That will cool every component in a console ( GPU, CPU and RAM IC's )

Not expensive or complex at all.

 

[AlNom]

Not expensive or complex at all.

erm....

 

[almighty]

erm....

Dude it's not, You think of the size of the heat sinks in 360's and PS3's.

Then look at all the RROD's that were caused by insufficient cooling in 360..

Water cooling is now stupidly mainstream and a loop to handle the heat load the consoles would be dumping out would be cheap.

And water cooling in general is not complex.

The water loop in my PC is having to handle well over 600w of heat and it does so with ease and while being whisper quiet, Temperatures are awesome to boot!

 

[AlNom]

Right... exactly why water cooling is a standard with top of the line GPUs and CPUs. Very mainstream.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I'd expect just the water blocks and pump would cost more than the entire cooling solution on any current console. Making it maintenance free and packaging an installed water cooling system for transport, I imagine would add considerable costs above that.

 

[MfA]

You don't know a lot about water cooling do you? No matter how many heat pipes you stick on a core a water loop will ALWAYS provide much much better temperatures.

AFAIK for small cooling areas with relatively short heat pipes you're going to shave off a couple of degrees at best, mostly because the copper base can be thinner than a heatpipe, it's only when large cooling areas with low airflow and things like better location of the radiator (usually better located for watercooled PCs than tower heatsinks, but that's not relevant for consoles) come into play that you can find some significant gains.

 

[almighty]

Right guys, Going to fight my corner here!

Water cooled consoles have been done before, Water cooled Xbox 360's!!

Here's an example that uses 2 water blocks, One for the Xenon and one for Xenos.

Here's an example that uses a single block instead of 2... Here

Now in the picture with the 2 blocks you can easily integrate the pump into the one of the blocks just like all modern self contained water cooling kits on PC do.

And you see those two 80mm fans? Drop a double 80mm radiator there and you then have a complete self contained loop that'll more then handle any heat that a console can generate and will not need the user to maintain it.

Pro's :

Quiet
Things run much cooler
Possibly to run parts at higher clocks
Would not have to increase the console case to accommodate it

Con's :

Cost

It can be done and in my eyes the benefits would more then out weigh the down falls.

 

[almighty]

Right... exactly why water cooling is a standard with top of the line GPUs and CPUs. Very mainstream.

Self contained water loops for noobs are growing very popular in PC's now. Intel even sells them for there 2011 socket CPU's.

I'd expect just the water blocks and pump would cost more than the entire cooling solution on any current console. Making it maintenance free and packaging an installed water cooling system for transport, I imagine would add considerable costs above that.

More expensive yes, But not as much as one would think.

AFAIK for small cooling areas with relatively short heat pipes you're going to shave off a couple of degrees at best, mostly because the copper base can be thinner than a heatpipe, it's only when large cooling areas with low airflow and things like better location of the radiator (usually better located for watercooled PCs than tower heatsinks, but that's not relevant for consoles) come into play that you can find some significant gains.

They'll at least half, The water in the loop only goes up in temperature a couple of degree's during operation. Heat sinks on the other hand can get very hot!

Loop length and flow rate don't make a fat lot of difference when it comes to water cooling.

 

[steampoweredgod]

Right guys, Going to fight my corner here!

Water cooled consoles have been done before, Water cooled Xbox 360's!!

Here's an example that uses 2 water blocks, One for the Xenon and one for Xenos.

Here's an example that uses a single block instead of 2... Here

Now in the picture with the 2 blocks you can easily integrate the pump into the one of the blocks just like all modern self contained water cooling kits on PC do.

And you see those two 80mm fans? Drop a double 80mm radiator there and you then have a complete self contained loop that'll more then handle any heat that a console can generate and will not need the user to maintain it.

Pro's :

Quiet
Things run much cooler
Possibly to run parts at higher clocks
Would not have to increase the console case to accommodate it

Con's :

Cost

It can be done and in my eyes the benefits would more then out weigh the down falls.

IIRC one of the main reasons clocks have hit a ceiling even with ever smaller proceses is inactive transistor leakage, even with shutting down parts of the processor the inactive transistors in the active parts of the processor will leak. A 100,000 fold reduction in such leakage should pretty much do away with this problem.

IT would seem such would allow for far higher clocks, far less heat and far less energy consumed.

 

[AlphaWolf]

More expensive yes, But not as much as one would think.

How much do you think is acceptable? You are likely talking about billions of dollars over the life of the console. 66 million x $25 = 1.65billion dollars. And I expect that $25 is a very low estimate.

 

[MfA]

You are proving the wrong thing ... that it works in small areas is a given.

You have to prove that watercooling is either much more performant (which AFAICS is impossible, reviews which compare small radiator closed system watercoolers against modern tower coolers just don't show large differences at the same noise levels) or significantly cheaper.

 

[almighty]

How much do you think is acceptable? You are likely talking about billions of dollars over the life of the console. 66 million x $25 = 1.65billion dollars. And I expect that $25 is a pretty low estimate.

Who says you have to use them for the machines life time?

As the machines mature and they move to smaller processes you could then move over to air cooling.

Think about it, If Microsoft had water cooled the first batch of 360's then RROD's caused by heat warping the mainboard would never of happened. Then when they die shrunk everything they could of moved to air cooling.

 

[almighty]

You are proving the wrong thing ... that it works in small areas is a given.

You have to prove that watercooling is either much more performant (which AFAICS is impossible, reviews which compare small radiator closed system watercoolers against modern tower coolers just don't show large differences at the same noise levels) or significantly cheaper.

Water cooling loops can fit inside a small console box, A modern tower cooler can't.

A water cooling loop that would fit into a console box would drastically out-perform any air cooler you could put in there.

 

[MfA]

Water cooling loops can fit inside a small console box, A modern tower cooler can't.

The radiators in say Corsair's closed systems can hardly be called thin ...

Fact is a water cooling loop that would fit into a console box would drastically out-perform any air cooler you could put in there.

You're not going to sell anyone on that without measurements to back it up. If I compare reviews of say a Corsair H70/80 to a modern 120mm tower heatsink of similar size I'm seeing fiction in what you call facts.

PS. you would be better off arguing water cooling is cheaper ... I think that's quite plausible.

 

[almighty]

The radiators in say Corsair's closed systems can hardly be called thin ...

You're not going to sell anyone on that without measurements to back it up. If I compare reviews of say a Corsair H70/80 to a modern 120mm tower heatsink of similar size I'm seeing fiction in what you call facts.

PS. you would be better off arguing water cooling is cheaper ... I think that's quite plausible.

You wouldn't use a 120mm radiator though would you?

A double 80mm radiator would be smaller and easily handle the heat load.

And a tower cooler that will offer the same performance as a water loop would.

A. Be just as big as the radiator if not bigger.
B. Require more air flow and thus generate more noise.