Liquid Cooling

[Labdabeta]

Hello,

I am about to move to a new home (with better internet) and I was thinking of buying a liquid cooling system so I can overclock my CPU and GPU(AMD FX-6100 Hex-Core and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti respectiveley). I just do not really understand how liquid cooling works. There is a canada computers nearby (canadacomputers.com) where I can buy liquid cooling setups and my Coolermaster Silensio case has ports for liquid cooling. I am wondering where it gets the liquid. Is the liquid water? I have a large aquarium, can I use its water? How can I tell how fast I can safely clock my CPU/GPU with liquid cooling? How exactly do you do it safely (I have overclocked my CPU before, I just want to ensure I did it right).

Anyways, any info will be helpful.

Thanks.

[Octet]

Liquid cooling is simple and efficient (if done correctly).

To answer your questions, the liquid in a closed system is normally water as it is cheap and easily replaced. By a closed system I am referring to a pump, a "jacket" and pipes. If you where to have an open system you would use a non conductive fluid (normally an oil such as Baby Oil as it is cheap and readily available). The difference between a closed and open system is that an open system is comprised of a tank where the computer components sit in a bath of the liquid compared to a system which is dry.

If you where to use an open system such as in an aquarium you can NOT use water, as it conducts electricity. As an alternative, it needs to be a non conductive liquid. You can buy specialist stuff but it can be expensive, so many use baby oil or similar. One word of advice with an open system is that they can be very messy, if you need to change a component it can be a real pain.

Just to give you some info on a closed system, then it essentially uses a jacket (a bit like a heat sink) which sits on the components. Within this you have a small tank of water which is pumped through a pipe leading to the jacket. As the water enters the heat sink/jacket it draws the heat away.

In terms of overclocking, the essentials are making sure it is stable and making sure the temperature remains at a safe level. Providing you don't get any unexpected results, and the temperature is stable and isn't sky rocketing then you are fine. You do need to remember however, that as you use more intensive programes it shall increase the temperature, so what might be okish at idle might be very hot when maxing out a game.

Good luck and make sure your seals are tight! The last thing you want is a reservoir leaking and sending fluid everywhere.

[Rik_]

A liquid cooling system should have distilled or purified water in it or algae and lime scale can build up in it and cause blockages in it so using your aquarium would be a very bad idea indeed.

As for overclocking, my advice is "if you can't afford to replace it, don't overclock it".
Having said that, the overclocking limit can only really be found via experimentation unless you can find someone with an absolutely identical setup to yours that has posted their settings.