Water-Cooled Microprocessors: The Next Big Thing in Chip Cooling

Watercooling was the rule for decades.

Watercooling has come to PCs already, just do a quick search on NewEgg or where ever.

Where has this person been?

Water cooling has intrinsic limitations and problems. the main one being that water and electronics don't play well together. If you have a good grasp of computer hardware, it's possible to put together a reliable and very fast system, but this isn't something an average user would want to attempt, nor have any major OEMs wanted to take on the challenge. Actually, the liquid metal coolers have shown more success with OEMs.

Good grief, what next? PCs with giant chrome radiator grills?

Copper tuxchick, copper. :) Haven't you seen the latest heatsink/coolers?

Monsters like this: http://www.crazypc.com/products/50985.html And this: http://www.crazypc.com/products/50073.html are now common.

Heh heh.

I still remember watching from the control room of a very large datacenter some twenty years ago when a man walked in, pulled up a couple of floor tiles and went to work.

In very short order, alarms began going off. He had shut off the water to do some plumbing work, but had neglected to tell the operators. The machine was running when he started work! took out about a quarter mil of TCMs.

Discussions followed.

jimf:

I like that 2nd one. It just needs sparks travelling up and down the towers and somebody to yell, "It's ALIVE!"

Actually, I appreciate anything that reduces the decibel level. The first thing I did when upgrading my son's computer years ago was to take out the 5,000 rpm screamer fan, put in a Zalman heat sink (heaviest that would fit within the CPU manufacturer's specs) and add a 120 mm fan. Only the LEDs let you know its running now.

grouch,

I'm just not sure how much of this is functional and how much is for show. Those are, by no means, the fanciest.

> I appreciate anything that reduces the decibel level.

yeah, me too. I have a few fans running, but, also have industrial sound deadening material strategically placed.

The latest mainframes use air cooled cmos chips.

The pc's are running hotter than the mainframes now!