Hmm as good as this sounds I like to make my PC look good with the UV coolant that you can get with water cooling. Yeah there may be risks which can cause a lot of money if it ends up happening but effectively I think that oil cooling for the top end of high performance over clocking will change how the PC looks entirely. I think we will have to just wait and see what is released to see if it is for the best or just not needed.
Actually distilled water doesn't conduct electricity so that statements wrong.
Seeing this story doing the rounds right now and frankly it's driving me nuts; oil cooling is nothing new. I'm not sure what's supposed to newsworthy, immersion cooling has been done, cooling with oils has been done. Cray 2 was immersion cooled in Fluorinert back in 1985 and transformers have been surrounded in oil for decades. Is it just the fact that a major company has put a computer specifically in mineral oil?? Puget and Hardcore PC had oil cooled systems back in 2008, and you can still buy up-to-date Reactors:
http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/desktops/index.html
Water-cooling can be quite costly, however, requiring special heat-exchange blocks and a network of tubes. If water leaks, it can damage components as it conducts electricity.
I don't want to sound like an idiot but the last time I checked water didn't conduct electricity.
Caveman
I don't want to sound like an idiot but the last time I checked water didn't conduct electricity.
Even if it's distilled, due to the different dielectric constant water WILL frazzle components at high frequency.
i thought that oil was great at first, but it retained the heat and eventually got extremely hot, so it would still require a pump and radiator?
JCBeastie
it's driving me nuts; oil cooling is nothing new.
Arr yes but because Intel have now jumped on the bang wagon it must their discovery!
I'd really rather not trust distilled water to be free of random ions, or to remain free of pollutants when you need to have some holes in your case for ports. The newsworthy part here is that a very big company has immersed a machine for a year then checked for damage and found none, there were all these old rumours going around back in the day that the oil ate away at the rubber on caps, the thermal paste and just about everything else, this should put those to bed. Having tried oil cooling I can tell you that the three downsides are fans below 80mm tend to split into pieces due to the sheer stress of trying to shove oil around (I used quite high viscosity mineral oil, 10W40), the smell, and the glue on stickers does indeed tend to get eaten away. Otherwise it was a pretty darned good system while I used it, turning the machine on from cold and beginning a stress test was always fun because the CPU temperature would jump from 20 to 25 then steadily rise up to 50 over the course of a few hours :D
Well the issue with water is that distilled water is fine but if it leaks and hits something like dust which is always in the system then it becomes conductive again.
Its a good idea that they are pushing this, hopefully its not half arsed. Thankfully my waterloop hasnt caused me any issues even with a few leaks never taken out a component :).
As soon as deionised water comes into contact with the system (i.e. it leaks), it's going to absorb crap that'll increase its conductivity. The only real point to using it in a W/C system is that your waterblocks and heat exchangers won't corrode.
Intel got a beast in the making? Wondering why they are bothering…….
They use mineral oil, not cooking oil. Cooking oil would rot, and that is not good for a pc.
this has been done by several people on youtube. its messy when its cleaning time.
agello24
this has been done by several people on youtube. its messy when its cleaning time.
But with a sealed system there's far less need for cleaning. No dust getting sucked in/blown around. Only problem is swapping components in and out.
Biscuit
i thought that oil was great at first, but it retained the heat and eventually got extremely hot, so it would still require a pump and radiator?
Guess it depends on your usage scenario. If you use PC x hours a day or go into low-power mode etc, perhaps just an enclosure with good conductivity is enough.
I would be interested to know for sure how the heat really escapes. I mean in a car the oil is pumped around and cooled right? Surely the concept is barely different in principle.
Biscuit
I would be interested to know for sure how the heat really escapes. I mean in a car the oil is pumped around and cooled right? Surely the concept is barely different in principle.
Probably pumped to some kind of heat exchanger eg radiator, just like water cooled. Would the metal case do the job? Possibly…but surface area be a bit lacking for high heat - so I imagine as the earlier links in the thread, a radiator.
already seen it in action. the pc looked like an aquarium. good stuff!
It seems to work quite well from what I've seen but it is a bummer when you want to change components orswap things around. It isn't easy to completely clean off the system parts.
What, no silicon chips jokes
Been done so many times. Why are they acting like it's new?
Besides, oil submersed computers are messy. I mean really… how many times do you need to reset CMOS when overclocking.
Krusher33
Been done so many times. Why are they acting like it's new?
Besides, oil submersed computers are messy. I mean really… how many times do you need to reset CMOS when overclocking.
But that's home users, it seems Intel are talking about data centre use. Acceptance in this scenario takes more than just people at home modding it together, takes a lot of testing to prove its worth and reliability.
Be a teency bit of a hassle when you want to open your case to do anything
How about filling a WC loop with oil? I wonder if it would be better than a normal coolant.
I would think you would need a more powerfull pump due to the higher viscosity
ehhhhhhh
How about filling a WC loop with oil? I wonder if it would be better than a normal coolant.
Spank
I would think you would need a more powerfull pump due to the higher viscosity
yup - one of the articles linked early on describes just that.
Imagine how messy upgrade time would be though unless… you used crisp 'n dry :p