Why do people pay so much extra for liquid-cooled computers when fans seem to do the same thing?
In: 3
How effective a cooling system is comes down to a few factors, those being heat transfer and thermal mass.
Liquid cooling improves both of these in a few ways, I’ll go through the process step by step:
First, heat needs to be taken from the processor into the cooler, by constantly moving liquid past the CPU it maintains a constant difference in temperature that helps a lot.
Next, thermal mass; this is how well the cooler can handle spikes in heat output, because water has a very high thermal mass it takes more to energy to overload it.
Finally, we want to move that heat to the air, this is mostly down to surface area and by pumping the liquid you can get many times the surface area over even the most effective tower coolers.
TL:DR, combination of cycling material, thermal mass, and surface area.
How effective a cooling system is comes down to a few factors, those being heat transfer and thermal mass.
Liquid cooling improves both of these in a few ways, I’ll go through the process step by step:
First, heat needs to be taken from the processor into the cooler, by constantly moving liquid past the CPU it maintains a constant difference in temperature that helps a lot.
Next, thermal mass; this is how well the cooler can handle spikes in heat output, because water has a very high thermal mass it takes more to energy to overload it.
Finally, we want to move that heat to the air, this is mostly down to surface area and by pumping the liquid you can get many times the surface area over even the most effective tower coolers.
TL:DR, combination of cycling material, thermal mass, and surface area.
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1. Flexing. It’s fancy, it’s expensive, and PC building is a hobby for a lot of people, not just the act of buying any old tool. Kinda like people who tinker with custom cars.
2. Larger maximum heat transfer. At the end of the day, both air and watercooling will have to mash air through a radiator to get rid of heat. However an air cooler has to be right on top of the CPU, so it has to fit between the case sides, the RAM and the gigantic GPU. A watercooler can have a half-meter (well, 480mm) radiator spanning the entire top or front because it is not limited by rigid, short copper heat pipes for transferring heat from the CPU to the radiator fins.
3. Flexible placement. It kinda ties into the previous point and only really comes into play with Mini ITX and other small for factor PCs, but [you are *not* fitting a 120mm tower cooler into this flat fuck](https://youtu.be/0vIL0MG-NwY). You can however finagle a 120mm water cooler and a very small form factor GPU in there.
1. Flexing. It’s fancy, it’s expensive, and PC building is a hobby for a lot of people, not just the act of buying any old tool. Kinda like people who tinker with custom cars.
2. Larger maximum heat transfer. At the end of the day, both air and watercooling will have to mash air through a radiator to get rid of heat. However an air cooler has to be right on top of the CPU, so it has to fit between the case sides, the RAM and the gigantic GPU. A watercooler can have a half-meter (well, 480mm) radiator spanning the entire top or front because it is not limited by rigid, short copper heat pipes for transferring heat from the CPU to the radiator fins.
3. Flexible placement. It kinda ties into the previous point and only really comes into play with Mini ITX and other small for factor PCs, but [you are *not* fitting a 120mm tower cooler into this flat fuck](https://youtu.be/0vIL0MG-NwY). You can however finagle a 120mm water cooler and a very small form factor GPU in there.
Aesthetics, mostly.
None of the other posters are really *wrong* about the other reasons. Liquid cooling is better at removing heat quickly. Shifting heat dissipation to radiators does allow you to run more fans at lower speeds (and thus, lower noise) for the same performance. And if you really want to overclock your PC to extreme levels, liquid cooling will allow you to do that.
But for the most part it, in terms of real-world application, it comes down to aesthetics. Liquid cooling your PC, especially if you do your own bending, allows you more freedom to differentiate your PC from others. You can work your pipes into fun designs, fill them with fluorescent coolants, and really dress up your PC in ways that standard air coolers just can’t accommodate.
Many of the hardware-focused sites and streamers have done extensive testing on the effectiveness of liquid cooling, and while liquid cooling *does* give an advantage to performance it’s not a huge edge. For the vast majority of real-world applications – including high-end gaming and design work – fan-cooling your PC is more than sufficient. It’s really only if you’re pushing performance for the sake of pushing performance that liquid cooling is needed.
And I say that as someone who does have a liquid-cooled PC, is gearing up to spend more money on redoing my liquid-cooled PC, and who will liquid-cool my next PC. It’s not necessary, but it’s fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Aesthetics, mostly.
None of the other posters are really *wrong* about the other reasons. Liquid cooling is better at removing heat quickly. Shifting heat dissipation to radiators does allow you to run more fans at lower speeds (and thus, lower noise) for the same performance. And if you really want to overclock your PC to extreme levels, liquid cooling will allow you to do that.
But for the most part it, in terms of real-world application, it comes down to aesthetics. Liquid cooling your PC, especially if you do your own bending, allows you more freedom to differentiate your PC from others. You can work your pipes into fun designs, fill them with fluorescent coolants, and really dress up your PC in ways that standard air coolers just can’t accommodate.
Many of the hardware-focused sites and streamers have done extensive testing on the effectiveness of liquid cooling, and while liquid cooling *does* give an advantage to performance it’s not a huge edge. For the vast majority of real-world applications – including high-end gaming and design work – fan-cooling your PC is more than sufficient. It’s really only if you’re pushing performance for the sake of pushing performance that liquid cooling is needed.
And I say that as someone who does have a liquid-cooled PC, is gearing up to spend more money on redoing my liquid-cooled PC, and who will liquid-cool my next PC. It’s not necessary, but it’s fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.
The real answer is that fans were not very profitable parts for a while until companies like Corsair made a killing on all-in-one liquid coolers. They saw significant development, despite some patent obstacles, which made them leapfrog air cooling for a good bit. They had more room to seem “premium” and every computer needed one, but only one. Why sell a $15 cooler for $25 when you can sell a $50 cooler for $100?
In 2023, air coolers are basically neck and neck with liquid cooling in almost all scenarios, barring outliers.
Also of note, cooling is facing new challenges every year. With AMD in the lead, cooling small chiplets with a small surface area became more important, and although wattage is plateauing a bit (unless you use Intel where it has quadrupled) it is still higher than it used to be.
The one unique advantage that industrial water cooling has over air is a much better ability to transport heat, even if you aren’t doing that much different volume. You can pump water outside of your “system” to be expended in other ways. For instance, heating the building! Moving air long distances like that is inefficient.
The real answer is that fans were not very profitable parts for a while until companies like Corsair made a killing on all-in-one liquid coolers. They saw significant development, despite some patent obstacles, which made them leapfrog air cooling for a good bit. They had more room to seem “premium” and every computer needed one, but only one. Why sell a $15 cooler for $25 when you can sell a $50 cooler for $100?
In 2023, air coolers are basically neck and neck with liquid cooling in almost all scenarios, barring outliers.
Also of note, cooling is facing new challenges every year. With AMD in the lead, cooling small chiplets with a small surface area became more important, and although wattage is plateauing a bit (unless you use Intel where it has quadrupled) it is still higher than it used to be.
The one unique advantage that industrial water cooling has over air is a much better ability to transport heat, even if you aren’t doing that much different volume. You can pump water outside of your “system” to be expended in other ways. For instance, heating the building! Moving air long distances like that is inefficient.
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