Instructor: In this lesson, we're going to talk
all about liquid cooling.
Now, liquid cooling is something that is very popular
with high end gaming PCs and other machines
that produce an excessive amount of heat.
Now, these are more complicated to install
than using simple active cooling with fans
and using passive cooling with heat sinks and thermal paste
but liquid cooling can dispense a lot more heat
with less power and less noise
which is why it's popular with a lot of gamers.
Now, when I talk about liquid cooling systems,
there's really two different types.
We have what's known as a closed loop system
and an open loop system.
First, let's talk about closed loop systems.
When you're dealing with a closed loop system,
these are very simple systems for liquid cooling,
because they're only going to be cooling a single component
such as your processor or your graphics card.
By doing this, it's essentially going to be
a self-contained system for that single component.
For example, if you're using a closed loop system
to cool your processor, there might be a heat sink
that has a radiator cooling tube
that's going through that heat sink.
And instead of using a fan to cool off the heat sink,
you're using that liquid inside the liquid cooling system
to take the heat away from the heat sink,
pump it out to a radiator
and then cool that in the radiator.
It works essentially like an air conditioning system does
in your house but for your processor.
Now, while closed loop systems are easier to install
and operate, they are not nearly as popular
as an open loop system.
Now an open loop system is a liquid cooling based system
that's going to have several different components
and be able to cool several components across your system
including your processor, your graphics card
and other components like that
all at the same time, using a single system.
When you're dealing with a liquid based cooling system,
this is any system that is pumping water
or liquid around the chassis to remove that heat.
And the reason that liquid cooling systems work so well
is because water and liquids are a more effective coolant
than air convection is.
And this means you can pump that water through this radiator
and through those heat sinks to be able to get more heat
into the liquid than you could by pushing air
over those heat sinks.
This allows you to cool down a system much quicker
and much more quietly.
Now, when you're dealing
with an open loop liquid based cooling system,
you're going to have several different components
including the water loop or tubing
that's going to allow the water and liquid
to move around the system, as well as a pump
that's going to help push that coolant, water,
or liquid around the system.
In addition to that, you're going to have a liquid reservoir
to hold all this liquid as it expands and contracts
inside of the system, because most liquids
will expand and contract as they heat up or cool down.
And then we're also going to have what's known
as a water block or water bracket.
These are going to be attached to each device
to help remove the heat by using convection
and putting the liquid against that different device.
For example, if you have a processor that is being attached
as part of this open loop system,
you're going to have this water block or bracket
on top of the processor
instead of using a traditional heat sink with thermal paste.
And then instead of putting air over it,
you're going to be pumping liquid in
and out of this water block
which is going to go across the top of the processor
and cool it down.
Finally, you need to have a radiator
that's a way to start cooling down this liquid or coolant
as it's coming away from the processor.
So as the processor heats up, that heat is being transferred
into this liquid, through the water block or bracket,
and then it's pumped over through the water loop
or tubing over to this radiator.
As it passes over the radiator,
that coolant is then going to be cooled down
as air passes over the radiator
and all of its thin and exposed surface area
much like a heat sink and that cools down the liquid,
and then that liquid is now cold and it goes back
towards the processor to remove more heat.
And this is how a basic open loop
liquid based cooling system works,
by having this water loop or tubing,
this pump to push the cooling around,
a reservoir to add more coolant,
and have a room for expansion and contraction,
and then having the water blocks that attaches
the coolant directly to the components to be cooled,
and finally, those radiators to remove the heat
from the coolant, since that coolant just got heated up
by touching all those different components.
And this happens again and again in a circle
over and over as we try to maintain a lower temperature
for all of our devices while they're operating.
Now, when you think about liquid cooling,
I want you to think about high performance systems.
Most of the time, this is going to be associated
with 3D gaming, CAD machines
or really high-end video editing machines.
In general, most of us are not going to be using liquid cooling
in our systems because it's more expensive
and it's harder to work with.
Active cooling using fans is a much easier way of doing it
and active cooling has been around for much longer.
Traditionally, we've been using fans and active cooling
as our method of cooling down computers
pretty much since the invention of personal computers
and liquid cooling is a newer variant
and it really is reserved for high end gaming machines
at this point in time.
Now, if you're working in a corporate environment,
you are likely not going to be using liquid cooling
for pretty much anything, but if you're working
on some custom PC for gamers or building one for yourself,
then you may want to use liquid cooling
in your particular build.