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Hot Electronics Use Immersion Liquid CoolingPosted by Amanda M. HartnettTuesday, November 11th, 2008 |
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We’ve all heard of using liquid cooling in electronics. Liquid cooling is a common external cooling solution for devices as varied as personal computers, servers, or gaming systems. Have you heard of internal liquid cooling though? If liquid cooling from a distance works well, wouldn’t liquid in direct contact with the heat-generating source be even better?
Hardcore computer thinks so.
The thought of a liquid solution running over my PC components and circuitry makes me cringe. In their newly released Hardcore reactor desktop computer, Hardcore Computer is producing this product.
The Hardcore Reactor includes a patented liquid cooling technology. It includes an engineered fluid pumped through an interior cavity which includes the heat-generating electronic components. Hardcore Computer claims that the dielectric liquid technology disperses an order of magnitude more heat than air.
I’m not sold on this product though.
Some questions raised in the BetaNews article about this product made me wonder how good this cooling solution is:
- Can the tower on this computer be turned over with the liquid inside? If not, how is the product shipped?
- Will repair of the components in this product be possible?
- The performance of the internal liquid cooling was compared with air, but how much better is it than external liquid cooling?
For the source of this news, go to BetaNews.com.
Aaron:
I can tell you from experience that it is in fact better than surface liquid cooling as long as provisions are made for radiating heat out of the immersion fluid. Something else to consider is that with the advent of solid state drives, it’s becoming easier than ever to do full immersion. As a tasty add-on, you can chill the fluid, and since there is no exposed fluid, condensation is not a problem, and you can run components under ambient temps. Click my link for picks on how I made my submerged case (WAY before these guys came along BTW, I have half a mind to challenge their patent..).
Amanda Hartnett:
Aaron,
Thanks for the comment. What you are saying definitely makes sense. The addition of the immersion fluid is step one but the rest of the system requires consideration as well. I’ll check out your link and see what more I can learn from you!!