Submerged Oil Cooling
As I mentioned yesterday water cooling was the succession to air cooling. Oil cooling is the next evolution.
Well, technically speaking, liquid nitrogen is the next evolution beyond water cooling. It's a very dangerous proposition, however. You can easily lose a finger or an entire hand if you're not careful enough. More likely, however, is that you'll destroy your hardware. Add on to that the cost of supplies and equipment, and the fact that ultimately you can't really use the PC for much when doing LN cooling (the whole part about destroying your PC hardware) it's so niche to be considered merely the pastime of experimenters and the most hardcore of overclockers.
As I noted before, water cooling was mostly born for two purposes. To stabilize low operating temperatures on connected components, and to minimize noise produced by the PC. LN can achieve even lower temps, but the cost is much higher than the already high cost of water cooling, and can be significantly noisier. That makes it a not so great advancement.
Thus came submerged oil cooling. The concept is exactly as it sounds - your entire set of PC components, or most at least, sit in a tank of oil. Don't believe me? Head over to YouTube and search "oil cooled PC" or "fish tank PC".
The first question many reflexively ask is why. This is simply about coverage. Submerging your motherboard with everything connected to it, including the CPU, GPU, any and all storage devices, you can have your cooling medium touch all of your heat generating components. No need for water blocks or heatsinks. Because the theory holds that the oil will absorb and therefore move heat better than air, heatsinks would be counterproductive.
The second question is why oil. The reason is very simple - transfers. Namely heat and electricity. Water cooling doesn't really use water. Most of the all-in-one systems use a sort of coolant, not entirely unlike what cars use. In fact there was a time when it was almost exactly the same as antifreeze used in cars. Nevertheless most systems, and as is recommended for any beginner, use some type of non-conductive coolant, which is usually still mostly water, but has additives for color and improved heat transfer and to not conduct electricity.
It's mainly that last part that you use oil and not water. Water will conduct electricity. Even non-conductive coolant over time will cease to be non-conductive, or in other words start being conductive. If you're going to dip your electronics in it, you want to be fairly certain that it will remain non-conductive for some time, not wake up one morning and find that everything shorted itself. That's what oil gives you.
So, the third question is what kind of oil. Technically you can use most any oil that you might want. For aesthetics, however, you want a clear oil. Furthermore you probably don't want to use cooking oil otherwise you'll have a perpetual stench of a fast food restaurant in your home. Motor oil, aside from being dark, tends to have a strong odor too, so you don't really want to use that either. That almost immediately narrows your options to mineral oil and baby oil.
Next question; does it work? Simple answer, yes. How? Come back tomorrow for that answer.
Well, technically speaking, liquid nitrogen is the next evolution beyond water cooling. It's a very dangerous proposition, however. You can easily lose a finger or an entire hand if you're not careful enough. More likely, however, is that you'll destroy your hardware. Add on to that the cost of supplies and equipment, and the fact that ultimately you can't really use the PC for much when doing LN cooling (the whole part about destroying your PC hardware) it's so niche to be considered merely the pastime of experimenters and the most hardcore of overclockers.
As I noted before, water cooling was mostly born for two purposes. To stabilize low operating temperatures on connected components, and to minimize noise produced by the PC. LN can achieve even lower temps, but the cost is much higher than the already high cost of water cooling, and can be significantly noisier. That makes it a not so great advancement.
Thus came submerged oil cooling. The concept is exactly as it sounds - your entire set of PC components, or most at least, sit in a tank of oil. Don't believe me? Head over to YouTube and search "oil cooled PC" or "fish tank PC".
The first question many reflexively ask is why. This is simply about coverage. Submerging your motherboard with everything connected to it, including the CPU, GPU, any and all storage devices, you can have your cooling medium touch all of your heat generating components. No need for water blocks or heatsinks. Because the theory holds that the oil will absorb and therefore move heat better than air, heatsinks would be counterproductive.
The second question is why oil. The reason is very simple - transfers. Namely heat and electricity. Water cooling doesn't really use water. Most of the all-in-one systems use a sort of coolant, not entirely unlike what cars use. In fact there was a time when it was almost exactly the same as antifreeze used in cars. Nevertheless most systems, and as is recommended for any beginner, use some type of non-conductive coolant, which is usually still mostly water, but has additives for color and improved heat transfer and to not conduct electricity.
It's mainly that last part that you use oil and not water. Water will conduct electricity. Even non-conductive coolant over time will cease to be non-conductive, or in other words start being conductive. If you're going to dip your electronics in it, you want to be fairly certain that it will remain non-conductive for some time, not wake up one morning and find that everything shorted itself. That's what oil gives you.
So, the third question is what kind of oil. Technically you can use most any oil that you might want. For aesthetics, however, you want a clear oil. Furthermore you probably don't want to use cooking oil otherwise you'll have a perpetual stench of a fast food restaurant in your home. Motor oil, aside from being dark, tends to have a strong odor too, so you don't really want to use that either. That almost immediately narrows your options to mineral oil and baby oil.
Next question; does it work? Simple answer, yes. How? Come back tomorrow for that answer.
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