Will watercooling ever become 'mainstream'?

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Daywalker
Hopefully technology advances will be made that allow new processors to operate using less power, thus less heat.

What about the history of the cpu would give you such hope?

There is a major technical barrier to increasing cpu power coming in the next 5 years in the form of heat.

I very seriously doubt you'll see Dell or Gateway going the watercooling route.....You have too much faith in your fellow man

No, my point was they will HAVE TO use water cooling. They won't have a choice because there won't be any other way to cool the cpu. There has been a roughly continuous increase in power consumption and accompanying required heat dissipation for the past 20 years. We're about to hit a point where air cooling simply won't be enough.. The laws of physics will break the law of Moore unless there is a revolutionary change in processor design soon.

[kusojiji]

When you say "mainstream," do you mean come as standard equipment in computers that are already put together like Dells and HPs?

I don't think that will happen for a while. I do agree that more and more manufacturers will begin to sell watercooled equipment such as the gainward video cards and more and more "boxed, self contained" watercooling systems will appear (corsair, koolance, etc.)

Watercooled systems are a high risk option and all manufacturers defray fault. Big companies like Dell, HP, Micron, etc., will not place themselves at such high risk in a mainstream system.

[Dan@354-Pines]

Watercooled systems, as in commercial systems are already available in some countries. PC Pro in the UK ran labs on one system over a year ago, though it did not rate particularly well in performance terms, it was indeed very quiet and in truth was essentially a corporate desktop rather than a home user product. It did indeed incur a hefty £100+ price premium, but interestingly enough employed a design that has subsequently been seen in a similar guise amongst those companies (e.g. Hush, Tranquil and Zalman) looking to use passive heatsinks where possible, by integrating parts of the case etc. into the heat dissipation mechanism. In this instance there was no radiator as one would expect, due to the desktop form factor. Instead, thesides of the case incorporated fins that constituted a radiator by letting air outside the PC absorb the heat. This of course assumes ambient temperature are lower than those inside the case and also explains the relatively poor performance.

I think firstly, passive designs will increasingly develop with fan assistance ...such as those concepts currently being driven by the likes of Zalman and Tranquil. Then, contained water-based systems may arrive if progress is not made toward reducing CPU and as pointed out, GPU temps'. These will also almost certainly result in 'closed systems' from the OEM's whereby simply opening them up will invalidate the warranty, kinda like if you play about inside your toaster or Microwave in the areas where it says do not touch, danger of death type thing. That would enable them to keep the idiots out.

This is of course assuming that the desire for sheer GHZ continues. After all, even the dumb masses will start to llearn eventually that speed isn't everything to most people. The technology being developed by Via and Intel currently to reduce the required form factor of systems at the expense of top-end power also will hold increasing consumer appeal. When you can get X-box type performance for gaming and / or respectable media handling by these hi-fi seperates sized passively-cooled Via Epia type systems, people will want them no doubt and why not? Wireless networking, wireless keyboards, mice/Remotes, wireless game pads and increasing penetration of digital tv and other media all lend itself to these types of convergence enabling systems.

[TimisoaraKill]

Watercooling will never be a standard , is just to complicated and risky for the normal user .
I think that the next stage cooling will be some low tension Peltier who will keep the CPU to 25-30/c max cooled in top with a low cfm fan , ...the heatsinks/fan combo will die in future , that s for sure .

[Daywalker]

Originally posted by russ_watters
What about the history of the cpu would give you such hope?

There is a major technical barrier to increasing cpu power coming in the next 5 years in the form of heat.

My Dell Axim is more powerul than the first computers and does not require a 50 degree air conditioned room to operate. I agree that the current design of CPUs are limited by heat, but a new design could change all of that.

[Dan@354-Pines]

the next stage cooling will be some low tension Peltier

I don't see peltiers as being any more likely to be honest. In the current age I'd view these as even more niche market and increasingly rare. 5 or so years ago, peltiers were commonplace from enthusiast suppliers but nowadays they are very rare outside of the most 'hardcore' overclocking orientated stores and even then there are not that many around with sufficient power to be used in conjunction with heatsink / Fan combinations ...most people I know using them are doing so with water cooling, and I'm sure there may be one or two using them in phase cooling systems. They also still pose heavy risks if tampered with or things go awry and don't offer the type of apparent complexity as water cooling which in itself could lead to new revenue streams from OEM vendors if they can convince people that they need to engage in to after market care ...like cars need servicing, gas boilers etc.

It is (admittedly) unlikely, but as the need to upgrade diminishes more and more (which tbh it is for the 'average' user) these OEM companies are going to have to find new revenue streams from somewhere. The likes of Dell are dissappointingly slow (at least publicly) in promoting and innovating in convergence technologies, whilst their professed interest in consumer electronics just isn't going to be a viable prospect. The likes of Dell cannot compete with Nokia in mobile telephony, they cannot compete with Sony or their ilk in television, dvd or hi-fi.

Unless they can innovate and find the way to establish that missing link between the PC and the living room they will have problems if they can't find other revenue streams within their own market. As far as living room entertainment, these OEM's have nothing to compete with the likes of Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, and in case of Dell, the likes of their dependency on Intel goes a long way to explain this.

Maybe with Ati in Intel's court there will be an nForce type Intel solution that can go someway toward addressing this, but until then the closest Intel type machines will be getting to convergence is through video-card required SFF's. That would be one hurdle down, then just like AMD heat and noise would be the next needing to fall.

[raider1v1]

NO NO NO NO NO

you guys are missing it all!!

you know the sharper image ionic breeze. thats what everyy computer needs!! that way there s no dust in your room and its silent

lol