Submerged Oil Cooling Cost Analysis Part One, The Cost of Water
Last week I went through some of the basics of what submerged oil cooling is and how it works. Today, I'll go over the costs relative to a somewhat basic open-loop water cooling system.
To start off, what do you need for an open-loop system? If you're not familiar with the term, an open-loop system is basically a custom system. It means you buy and setup your own blocks, radiator, tubing, pump, reservoir and radiator. It's a system you must maintain yourself, it's not maintenance free.
For this example I won't get too specific. The plan I originally had when I was planning to do a S.O.C system was for a NAS (Network Attached Storage). It was going to be a mini-ATX motherboard, and AMD processor, a Nvidia GPU, three HDDs, a couple sticks of RAM, and a power supply. Current exploration on oil cooling is geared towards the server side as a means of decreasing costs for cooling where they essentially rely on turning server rooms into freezers and where water cooling would be incredibly costly.
For the sake of argument we'll include some components that others would leave out. I include them because relative to dipping your system in a tub of oil, it is the only way to similarly replicate the cooling effect. The reason I include these and not the GPU is because there isn't a good comparison. As noted, only relatively high-end cards get blocks created for them. For this type of system, such a GPU is overkill. A NAS in your home would likely use an AMD APU, or any one of Intel's CPUs with embedded graphics, therefore leaving the cooling to that one component.
That being said, these components are relatively uncommon for water cooling systems. To start are the HDDs (at least three if you're talking a NAS) and the memory. There aren't many options for these particular components, but what choices there are will run you about $60 for each HDD and at least $50 for every two sticks. As I noted, most don't bother with liquid cooling these since the benefit is even more marginal here, particularly on the memory. But if you're into extreme overclocking, it might be worth it for overclocked memory or if you're concerned about running your HDD hard for long periods or not powering it down. Lastly I'm not counting the motherboard blocks. You can either go with "universal" blocks for the north bridge, south bridge, and MOSFET/Voltage Regulator at roughly$30 a pop, or a full coverage block at about $100. The problem is that there are only a handful of motherboards that have full blocks for them, and only one AMD board to boot.
So, the total for the non-included parts is about $330. That's not counting at least 12 fittings (two for each block) at $5 a pop, bringing your total here to $390. You could buy a very nice GPU for that kinda money.
Now, for a custom system you'll need a water block for the CPU. That will cost as little as $40 and as much as $300. You'll probably want to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 to $80 if you want to do better than just basic. You'll need a pump and a reservoir, which will run you at least $60 if you go for a bay reservoir with integrated pump. You'll need at least one radiator, preferably a dual 120mm fan radiator, which will set you back another $50-$60. You'll need tubing to connect it all, at least 2 feet, which will mean minimum $3. You'll need fittings for what is essentially a CPU only loop. That's 6 fittings for $30. Assuming you want some modicum of security that a leak won't ruin your system, a bottle of non-conductive coolant for about $15. Finally, you'll need a case to put everything in. Assuming some frugal skill to get a case that will fit all of this, a case will run about $50.
That brings this second batch of parts, arguably the main batch, to around $300. In all, to get the maximum water cooling capability for a system like the one I've described would be close to $700.
As you can see it doesn't make a lot of sense to do this on a low-end system unless you really need to. A low end system like the one I've laid out sill be fine on air cooling alone with only modest attention to layout and choice of fans. However, upgrading to a powerful system would mostly be a simple matter of parts selection on the PC hardware side. For a true high-end system there would be at least one GPU, meaning $100 for the block and $10 for the fittings. To manage all the heat from a high-end system, you'll need more radiators and/or large surface area on those radiators. That would mean at least one more dual 120mm radiator and an extra single 120mm radiator, if not upgrading all three radiators to 140mm compatible. The cost of the extra dual 120mm is the same $50 to $60, while the 120mm rad. is about $35. That adds another $195 to the previously quoted total for about $900 to completely water cool a true high-end system.
For the comparison that is to come later this week, I will use the $700 figure, as that represents a system that is more common to a system like I started this post with. Considering the cost of the PC components on a NAS relative to a high-end system, the $900 price tag comes at a much higher co-pay. A self-built NAS will cost around $500, a high-end system will cost nearly $1000 or more. Taking that into consideration you're looking at a total setup cost of between $1200 for a low-end NAS or perhaps even home theater PC, to $2000 for a high-end gaming rig.
Tomorrow we'll look specifically at the stuff you need for oil and do the comparison. For a reference on the pricing and a look at the variety of water cooling parts, FrozenCPU.com is a good place to start. You can explore the net for other good places.
To start off, what do you need for an open-loop system? If you're not familiar with the term, an open-loop system is basically a custom system. It means you buy and setup your own blocks, radiator, tubing, pump, reservoir and radiator. It's a system you must maintain yourself, it's not maintenance free.
For this example I won't get too specific. The plan I originally had when I was planning to do a S.O.C system was for a NAS (Network Attached Storage). It was going to be a mini-ATX motherboard, and AMD processor, a Nvidia GPU, three HDDs, a couple sticks of RAM, and a power supply. Current exploration on oil cooling is geared towards the server side as a means of decreasing costs for cooling where they essentially rely on turning server rooms into freezers and where water cooling would be incredibly costly.
For the sake of argument we'll include some components that others would leave out. I include them because relative to dipping your system in a tub of oil, it is the only way to similarly replicate the cooling effect. The reason I include these and not the GPU is because there isn't a good comparison. As noted, only relatively high-end cards get blocks created for them. For this type of system, such a GPU is overkill. A NAS in your home would likely use an AMD APU, or any one of Intel's CPUs with embedded graphics, therefore leaving the cooling to that one component.
That being said, these components are relatively uncommon for water cooling systems. To start are the HDDs (at least three if you're talking a NAS) and the memory. There aren't many options for these particular components, but what choices there are will run you about $60 for each HDD and at least $50 for every two sticks. As I noted, most don't bother with liquid cooling these since the benefit is even more marginal here, particularly on the memory. But if you're into extreme overclocking, it might be worth it for overclocked memory or if you're concerned about running your HDD hard for long periods or not powering it down. Lastly I'm not counting the motherboard blocks. You can either go with "universal" blocks for the north bridge, south bridge, and MOSFET/Voltage Regulator at roughly$30 a pop, or a full coverage block at about $100. The problem is that there are only a handful of motherboards that have full blocks for them, and only one AMD board to boot.
So, the total for the non-included parts is about $330. That's not counting at least 12 fittings (two for each block) at $5 a pop, bringing your total here to $390. You could buy a very nice GPU for that kinda money.
Now, for a custom system you'll need a water block for the CPU. That will cost as little as $40 and as much as $300. You'll probably want to spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 to $80 if you want to do better than just basic. You'll need a pump and a reservoir, which will run you at least $60 if you go for a bay reservoir with integrated pump. You'll need at least one radiator, preferably a dual 120mm fan radiator, which will set you back another $50-$60. You'll need tubing to connect it all, at least 2 feet, which will mean minimum $3. You'll need fittings for what is essentially a CPU only loop. That's 6 fittings for $30. Assuming you want some modicum of security that a leak won't ruin your system, a bottle of non-conductive coolant for about $15. Finally, you'll need a case to put everything in. Assuming some frugal skill to get a case that will fit all of this, a case will run about $50.
That brings this second batch of parts, arguably the main batch, to around $300. In all, to get the maximum water cooling capability for a system like the one I've described would be close to $700.
As you can see it doesn't make a lot of sense to do this on a low-end system unless you really need to. A low end system like the one I've laid out sill be fine on air cooling alone with only modest attention to layout and choice of fans. However, upgrading to a powerful system would mostly be a simple matter of parts selection on the PC hardware side. For a true high-end system there would be at least one GPU, meaning $100 for the block and $10 for the fittings. To manage all the heat from a high-end system, you'll need more radiators and/or large surface area on those radiators. That would mean at least one more dual 120mm radiator and an extra single 120mm radiator, if not upgrading all three radiators to 140mm compatible. The cost of the extra dual 120mm is the same $50 to $60, while the 120mm rad. is about $35. That adds another $195 to the previously quoted total for about $900 to completely water cool a true high-end system.
For the comparison that is to come later this week, I will use the $700 figure, as that represents a system that is more common to a system like I started this post with. Considering the cost of the PC components on a NAS relative to a high-end system, the $900 price tag comes at a much higher co-pay. A self-built NAS will cost around $500, a high-end system will cost nearly $1000 or more. Taking that into consideration you're looking at a total setup cost of between $1200 for a low-end NAS or perhaps even home theater PC, to $2000 for a high-end gaming rig.
Tomorrow we'll look specifically at the stuff you need for oil and do the comparison. For a reference on the pricing and a look at the variety of water cooling parts, FrozenCPU.com is a good place to start. You can explore the net for other good places.
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