Forums first comp: CPUz Benchmark

[Storm-Chaser]

9 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

It your "heat exchanger" the silver/aluminum thing with white plastic caps on four top ports? Do you have a link to where you purchased that so I can examine it closer?

 

Its a pretty stout little exchanger. No aluminum, if you are wondering about the barbs. They are stainless steel. Keep in mind I didnt even pump water into the cold side, just total immersion. 

 

316L Stainless Steel Brazed Plate Heat Exchanger-PURE copper 4"x12" 1" MPT | eBay

 

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

3 minutes ago, Storm-Chaser said:

 

Its a pretty stout little exchanger. No aluminum, if you are wondering about the barbs. They are stainless steel. Keep in mind I didnt even pump water into the cold side, just total immersion. 

 

316L Stainless Steel Brazed Plate Heat Exchanger-PURE copper 4"x12" 1" MPT | eBay

 

 

 

Thank you. I'll have a closer look at that and explore the possibility of adding something like that in series between the chiller and computer on the cold side. Let the water go through the chiller first as it leaves the PC, get it as cold as the chiller can get it, then from the chiller through the exchanger submerged in methanol and dry ice to make it even colder and maybe take longer for the dry ice to evaporate.

 

I'm running automotive antifreeze pre-mix in my loop already, so I don't have to worry about pure distilled water freezing LOL.

 

For clarification, I need to ask what you meant by not pumping water through it. This took the place of your radiator if my understanding is correct. So you did have water circulating through the heat exchanger in order for the water to become chilled, correct? If not I'm not sure I understand how you used it.

[Storm-Chaser]

1 hour ago, Mr. Fox said:

For clarification, I need to ask what you meant by not pumping water through it. This took the place of your radiator if my understanding is correct. So you did have water circulating through the heat exchanger in order for the water to become chilled, correct? If not I'm not sure I understand how you used it.

Yes I was pumping hot coolant from the conventional loop straight through the heat exchanger. Not the best pics, but you should be able to get a better idea of my setup. 

And the cold side is not attached, because it seems to be pretty effective by simply dropping the entire heat exchanger into the bucket, fully filling the cold side (but no circulation) ... So I would describe this as a passive chiller...

 

In a perfect world you should run the "cold" side as well for best performance. And I may do that down the road.

 

 

The plate heat exchanger set up and ready to be dropped into the supercooled methanol. 

 

Amazingly enough, these plate heat exchangers flow better than most radiators. 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Storm-Chaser

[Mr. Fox]

26 minutes ago, Storm-Chaser said:

Yes I was pumping hot coolant from the conventional loop straight through the heat exchanger. Not the best pics, but you should be able to get a better idea of my setup. 

And the cold side is not attached, because it seems to be pretty effective by simply dropping the entire heat exchanger into the bucket, fully filling the cold side (but no circulation) ... So I would describe this as a passive chiller...

 

In a perfect world you should run the "cold" side as well for best performance. And I may do that down the road.

 

 

The plate heat exchanger set up and ready to be dropped into the supercooled methanol. 

 

Amazingly enough, these plate heat exchangers flow better than most radiators. 

 

 

That's prett sweet, bro. Running chilled water through the loop with that submerged in methanol/dry ice might deliver some temps that the chiller alone, or the heat exchanger alone, are incapable of. In fact, I would have to check and see how low the mix can go in the loop without freezing. And, I would probably need to take appropriate steps to protect against condensation in spite of the crazy low humidity here in the Southwestern Blast Furnace. I think that could easily drop temps below the dew point.

 

Did you find a place to buy 5 gallons of methanol for a reasonable price? Or, did you mix it with water? I might want to put that outside of my office window on the side of the house and run the lines through the window, LOL. With the heat here I wonder how fast it would evaporate? Probably would not last as long as your did in the winter. It is never cold here, even in the winter.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Mr. Fox

[ArchStanton]

1 minute ago, Mr. Fox said:

I would have to check and see how low the mix can go

If prestone 50/50, a little under minus thirty Fahrenheit I think (presumably at 1atm of pressure).

[Mr. Fox]

1 minute ago, ArchStanton said:

If prestone 50/50, a little under minus thirty Fahrenheit I think (presumably at 1atm of pressure).

It is the light blue Asian vehicle coolant. I got tired of the green color of Prestone and flushed it out when I moved all of my PC guts to the Level 20 XT. So, I will look on the jug or just get a cheap anti-freeze tester from AutoZone or O'Reilly's. 

[Storm-Chaser]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

That's prett sweet, bro. Running chilled water through the loop with that submerged in methanol/dry ice might deliver some temps that the chiller alone, or the heat exchanger alone, are incapable of.

Yeah, Im effectively chilling the chiller (not to mention its submerged so it's entire surface area is acting as a heat exchange as well, plus its 99% copper so it has good heat dissipation properties. Thats partly why I don't really have to run/circulate the cold loop. Even for 5.8 GHz runs.

[Storm-Chaser]

11 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Did you find a place to buy 5 gallons of methanol for a reasonable price?

I just buy windshield washer fluid. Which is very cheap and good down to about -25*F.

It's about 40 percent methanol. 

 

[Storm-Chaser]

8 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Thank you. I'll have a closer look at that and explore the possibility of adding something like that in series between the chiller and computer on the cold side. Let the water go through the chiller first as it leaves the PC, get it as cold as the chiller can get it, then from the chiller through the exchanger submerged in methanol and dry ice to make it even colder and maybe take longer for the dry ice to evaporate.

You could also daisy chain a couple heat exchangers (each in their own 5 gal bucket) if you really want to pull out all the stops, so if I have my terminology down, like a cascading chiller. A chiller which is chilling a chiller which is chilling another chiller. lol

Not to mention you would be adding a good bit of volume to the loop with every plate heat exchanger you add. Not really going to break the bank either. Most cost would be going into buying more heat exchangers. I think I paid $75 for my plate heat exchanger on ebay. But its a 60 plate model, which is a beast. So you can get a away with quite a few less plates and more compact designs but I wasnt going to skimp out on this cooling system so I found the optimal heat exchanger for the price / number of actual plates. 

 

But really, I have not done much testing with the computer indoors. I put it outside on cold nights just like the chiller (see pic above). So I cant say how it would run with the computer inside not being cooled by ambient (outdoor) temps.

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Storm-Chaser

[Storm-Chaser]

11 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

For clarification, I need to ask what you meant by not pumping water through it. This took the place of your radiator if my understanding is correct. So you did have water circulating through the heat exchanger in order for the water to become chilled, correct? If not I'm not sure I understand how you used it.

 

So I wanted to speak to one more point regarding my radiator setup (and talk about my conventional loop as well). It's a bit over the top for this case (which was never designed to be provisioned with a liquid cooling system) but somehow I was able to get everything to fit without a whole lot of effort including 3 pumps. Regarding pumping water through the "hot" side of the conventional loop and then through the heat exchanger, I don't have to remove or bypass the radiators because the PC is outside in ambient outdoor temps right along with the heat exchanger, so the radiators can stay on without any performance penalty. I suppose that if I try DICE I will have to bypass them. The added benefit of having the computer outside is reduced risk of condensation. Then again you are in a desert climate so you may not be able to run the configuration exactly like I am able to.

 

I too am a believer in coolant volume being an important factor in achieving your benchmarking goals. A lot of people disregard this but like you said, it buys you time to tweak and tune to get a better result. I have two alphacool reservoirs in the 5.25 inch bays so that's about 1.5 quarts in total in reserve. 

 

This goes along with your idea. Except replace the stock air cooling heat exchanger with another liquid to liquid exchanger sitting in DICE (like you mentioned earlier) The other liquid to liquid heat exchanger could be used with conventional coolants, but again if you are going for broke you could ultimately set up both plate heat exchangers for DICE. That way you double down and can quite likely slay your competition. But I will be a close second! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Storm-Chaser

[Storm-Chaser]

Just now, Mr. Fox said:

With the heat here I wonder how fast it would evaporate? Probably would not last as long as your did in the winter. It is never cold here, even in the winter.

I had the methanol sitting in the 5 gal bucket for the past three weeks in ambient conditions in the house and noticed no sign of evaporation but perhaps in your scenario you might need to stock the shelves with washer fluid LOL (due to your climate)

Edited April 7, 2022 by Storm-Chaser

[ArchStanton]

9 hours ago, Storm-Chaser said:

I just buy windshield washer fluid. Which is very cheap and good down to about -25*F.

It's about 40 percent methanol. 

Swing by some time, we keep 99% methanol in bulk (we dilute it to make liquid tractor tire ballast).

 

Normally, any business that can supply bulk fuel or oil can also supply bulk methanol.  We currently pay $3.44/gallon.  Diluted to 25%, our cost is $0.86/gallon of liquid ballast.  If you required "lift-gate" service the price would likely go up (we unload with our own forklifts).

 

[Storm-Chaser]

18 minutes ago, ArchStanton said:

Swing by some time, we keep 99% methanol in bulk (we dilute it to make liquid tractor tire ballast).

 

Normally, any business that can supply bulk fuel or oil can also supply bulk methanol.  We currently pay $3.44/gallon.  Diluted to 25%, our cost is $0.86/gallon of liquid ballast.  If you required "lift-gate" service the price would likely go up (we unload with our own forklifts).

 

Thanks for the tip! Where are you located? Im in upstate NY.

 

So if I/Mr fox can get the DICE system dialed in we will have to run close to 100% methanol to prevent the coolant from freezing. DICE has a temperature of -109*F, and for methanol the freezing point it's:

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Storm-Chaser

[ArchStanton]

1 minute ago, Storm-Chaser said:

Where are you located?

Just down the road in Paris, TN.  Where the Tennessee River crosses into Kentucky .

[Storm-Chaser]

2 minutes ago, ArchStanton said:

Just down the road in Paris, TN.  Where the Tennessee River crosses into Kentucky .

Okay great! Just gotta grab my jacket and Ill be right over 

[Storm-Chaser]

[J7SC_Orion]

4 hours ago, Storm-Chaser said:

 

So I wanted to speak to one more point regarding my radiator setup (and talk about my conventional loop as well). It's a bit over the top for this case (which was never designed to be provisioned with a liquid cooling system) but somehow I was able to get everything to fit without a whole lot of effort including 3 pumps. Regarding pumping water through the "hot" side of the conventional loop and then through the heat exchanger, I don't have to remove or bypass the radiators because the PC is outside in ambient outdoor temps right along with the heat exchanger, so the radiators can stay on without any performance penalty. I suppose that if I try DICE I will have to bypass them. The added benefit of having the computer outside is reduced risk of condensation. Then again you are in a desert climate so you may not be able to run the configuration exactly like I am able to.

 

I too am a believer in coolant volume being an important factor in achieving your benchmarking goals. A lot of people disregard this but like you said, it buys you time to tweak and tune to get a better result. I have two alphacool reservoirs in the 5.25 inch bays so that's about 1.5 quarts in total in reserve. 

 

This goes along with your idea. Except replace the stock air cooling heat exchanger with another liquid to liquid exchanger sitting in DICE (like you mentioned earlier) The other liquid to liquid heat exchanger could be used with conventional coolants, but again if you are going for broke you could ultimately set up both plate heat exchangers for DICE. That way you double down and can quite likely slay your competition. But I will be a close second! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...check out this 'new-fangled invention' 

 

[ArchStanton]

16 minutes ago, J7SC_Orion said:

new-fangled invention

Pssh, I've used "Scott Shop Towels" for decades.  Though I certainly also highly recommend them...

[J7SC_Orion]

4 minutes ago, ArchStanton said:

Pssh, I've used "Scott Shop Towels" for decades.  Though I certainly also highly recommend them...

 

...but blue shop towels are smooooth and velvety to the touch and they hold together much longer

 

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

2 hours ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

...check out this 'new-fangled invention' 

 

What is that? Do you have more info you can pass on?

[Mr. Fox]

6 hours ago, Storm-Chaser said:

I had the methanol sitting in the 5 gal bucket for the past three weeks in ambient conditions in the house and noticed no sign of evaporation but perhaps in your scenario you might need to stock the shelves with washer fluid LOL

I wonder if running methanol inside of the loop would chew up o-rings, tubing and pumps due to lack of lubrication and acting as a solvent on the materials? I'd hate to have to start replacing things because they got ruined by the methanol.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Mr. Fox

[J7SC_Orion]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

What is that? Do you have more info you can pass on?

 

...just a simple EK pot (w/ heating element for thawing) for DICE and LN2...this thing is the smaller of two I used way back when I did HWBot, but it is still pretty heavy (nickel-coated copper base).

[Mr. Fox]

6 minutes ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

...just a simple EK pot (w/ heating element for thawing) for DICE and LN2...this thing is the smaller of two I used way back when I did HWBot, but it is still pretty heavy (nickel-coated copper base).

Thanks. I did not recognize that the base was a CPU cold block. It looked like a stand-alone device in the photo.

[J7SC_Orion]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Thanks. I did not recognize that the base was a CPU cold block. It looked like a stand-alone device in the photo.

 

...yes, I was being a bit facetious re. 'new fangled', given the context... an easier way to get down to - 185 C more or less

[ArchStanton]

20 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

I wonder if running methanol inside of the loop would chew up o-rings, tubing and pumps due to lack of lubrication and acting as a solvent on the materials?

Another thing to keep in mind, very few (room temperature) liquids have the "heat energy transport" capacity of plain old water.  Methanol, in particular, is a significantly poorer coolant when comparing raw capacity for energy transport.  A given volume/s of a 50/50 mix of methanol and water will "haul away" less energy from your block than an equal volume/s of pure water.  I don't recall from school if this is all down to the specific heat of the two substances, or if other factors come into play as well (like "thermal conductivity")

 

 

This phenomenon is a pretty common "tradeoff" when deciding how strong to mix things like antifreeze.  Pure water cools the engine better (under "normal" operating conditions), but we need the added benefits of the additives in automotive antifreeze (freeze protection, boiling point elevation, corrosion inhibition, etc.)

 

Hope this is helpful as you fellas map out your "extreme" cooling strategies.