[tomthedrummer1992]

Hi guys,

I'm a little confused by this water cooling stuff.

http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Li.../cl-w0175.asp#

Looking at the one above, what is the purpose of the big fan with water going to it? Also, does it only cool the CPU; what about the GFX card?


Tom

[alex]

Originally Posted by tomthedrummer1992

Hi guys,

I'm a little confused by this water cooling stuff.

http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Li.../cl-w0175.asp#

Looking at the one above, what is the purpose of the big fan with water going to it? Also, does it only cool the CPU; what about the GFX card?


Tom

Hi Tom.

The fan is attached to a radiator (the box behind it) the coolant flows from the cpu into the radiator, the heat taken from the cpu is still resident in the coolant at this point and the radiator absorbs this heat. The fan is there get rid of the build up of heat in the radiator.

Because the cooling system is in a loop (as you can see in the pic) if the fan wasn't there the radiator would, over a few coolant cycles, not be able to get rid of the heat in the coolant. The coolant would then be at a higher temperature each time it reached the cpu. This would mean that the coolant would be less and less effective at cooling the cpu, meaning the cpu's temperature would build.

You would need at least a triple fan radiator for a cpu and a graphics card because the coolant loop not only has to get rid of the heat from the cpu but also the gpu (graphics processing unit). One 120mm radiator wouldn't have sufficient cooling prowess and would just lead to a build up of heat in the coolant, leading to the same problem stated above.