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Water Cooled G4 MDD

Gymnut

Gymnut

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 18, 2003
1,887
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Not sure if this has been posted before but for those who have not seen this from xlr8yourmac.com, there is development for a water cooling kit for the G4 MDD. While this article was posted in April, it is interesting to see whether it is closer to reality or been scrapped. Anyone familiar as to what if any speed gains one might achieve by installing a water cooling kit? I know heat buildup is a problem but is a water cooling kit merely for show and less noise or does it actually have some real world use.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/watercooled_MDD_G4/watercooled_mdd_g4.html
 
Re: Water Cooled G4 MDD

Originally posted by Gymnut
Not sure if this has been posted before but for those who have not seen this from xlr8yourmac.com, there is development for a water cooling kit for the G4 MDD. While this article was posted in April, it is interesting to see whether it is closer to reality or been scrapped. Anyone familiar as to what if any speed gains one might achieve by installing a water cooling kit? I know heat buildup is a problem but is a water cooling kit merely for show and less noise or does it actually have some real world use.

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/watercooled_MDD_G4/watercooled_mdd_g4.html
Click to expand...


Watercooling has nothing to do with performance unless you plan on overclocking you machine in which case it does provide better cooling. What it does do though is allow you to run your machine much much quieter in most cases.

Last I knew this kit was available but they didn't have one for a dual cpu model. Also I requested info on an external kit as I have both my optical bays filled. At the time they had no plans for either. Too bad really.
 
alternative cooling, such as mini air-conditioning and watercooling (they're about the same thing, minus a blower), is used almost exclusively in overclocking. as was said there's no performance boost, and it's just a noise thing, people don't usually go to the trouble for the sake of noise-- plus, some of these cooling setups can be noiser than normal fans. overclocking's main restriction, besides chip instabilty, is heat, so if you find an effective way of removing it, you can go higher.

i remember seeing a cluster of experimental PPC prototype machines on loan from IBM in an unnamed government research lab, this was a few years ago. They had cracked the cases off of 'em and wound up with aquarium air pumps blowing on the processors, just to keep them from melting. it was pretty weird... i think they were getting ready to put in a large-scale water cooling system.

of course, liquid is better at removing heat, since it's much denser molecularly... more molecular interaction means more heat exchange. Since mineral oil doesn't conduct electricity, you can just submerge your motherboard in it, if you don't mind having a tub of oil sitting there with wires snaking out... you don't even have to move the oil around, convection keeps it that much cooler than big fans would.

pnw
 
Does anyone of you know why raising the core voltage of a CPU helps in overclocking ?? I understand the multiplication thing, but, I often see that someone was only able to overclock his CPU when he raised the voltage to 1.9, or 2 V , etc... I plan to, maybe, overclocck my dual 1.25 to 1.33, or maybe more... so i'm interested to know more about that and watercooling too !!
thanks
 
I'm pretty sure you need to increase the voltage because as you overclock and the processor gets faster, it needs more power to remain stable.
 
keeping a machine cool only means it will run at its full potential so you're not really making it faster, just letting it be all it can be :) a hot cpu won't perform at 100%

I have discovered the wonders of silver thermal paste. I swear by it!
 
Originally posted by BIGgui_X_
Does anyone of you know why raising the core voltage of a CPU helps in overclocking ?? I understand the multiplication thing, but, I often see that someone was only able to overclock his CPU when he raised the voltage to 1.9, or 2 V , etc... I plan to, maybe, overclocck my dual 1.25 to 1.33, or maybe more... so i'm interested to know more about that and watercooling too !!
thanks
Click to expand...

As you clock it faster and faster the resistance in the circuits becomes a larger and larger problem. So you increase the voltage thus overcoming the resistance.

This will work in some cases but you also need to increase your cooling due to the extra heat brought on not only by the chip running at the higher frequency but also the higher voltage.

This can also lead to the premature death of the chip due to material transfer at the atomic level. If you don't know about this then you aren't ready to be doing this type of overclocking and need to read into it more.
 
FWIW, I water cool my main PC because the fans required to keep it cool were too damn loud. I keep the others PCs off when not in use. My two macs are relatively silent, so they are a non issue. But I don't have a windtunnel mac ;)
 
Originally posted by slowtreme
FWIW, I water cool my main PC because the fans required to keep it cool were too damn loud. I keep the others PCs off when not in use. My two macs are relatively silent, so they are a non issue. But I don't have a windtunnel mac ;)
Click to expand...

For anyone that uses a PC regularly the noise out put of the wind tunnel Macs are greatly over stated.
 
Originally posted by MacBandit
For anyone that uses a PC regularly the noise out put of the wind tunnel Macs are greatly over stated.
Click to expand...
Well the point that I didnt make very well was: Although I watercool my PC, it is only to reduce sound. I do not overclock it at all. I do use a Quicksilver Mac at work and it is louder that the (desktop) PCs next to it, but in a busy office enviorment it all blends. In my home I want my computers quiet.
 
Originally posted by slowtreme
Well the point that I didnt make very well was: Although I watercool my PC, it is only to reduce sound. I do not overclock it at all. I do use a Quicksilver Mac at work and it is louder that the (desktop) PCs next to it, but in a busy office enviorment it all blends. In my home I want my computers quiet.
Click to expand...

I agree completely. Water cooling is a very affective way to quiet a PC or Mac.

In my experience top of the line PCs those running high end graphics cards with large power supplies fast hard drives and a high end processor are every bit as noisy as the newer PowerMacs.
 
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