Water cooling?

[sweenyjosh]

I am going to purchase a mac pro for my business after the next refresh or at least once there is a TB card available. I was wondering what people thought about the corsair h50 water cooing system. I was told by a friend that it will extend the life and performance of my CPU. I have never modified anything with a water system before but apparently this is the no mess version and very reliable. For an investment of 75$ it seems like a good idea.

Is there anyone out there who has done this? Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Transporteur]

Not necessary in a Mac Pro. The CPU cooling system is very efficient, therefore extremely silent.

The XEON CPUs are picked for longevity, don't worry about that. You will replace your workstation probably more than one time before the XEON CPU bites the dust.

 

[dime21]

I am going to purchase a mac pro for my business after the next refresh or at least once there is a TB card available. I was wondering what people thought about the corsair h50 water cooing system. I was told by a friend that it will extend the life and performance of my CPU. I have never modified anything with a water system before but apparently this is the no mess version and very reliable. For an investment of 75$ it seems like a good idea.

Is there anyone out there who has done this? Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

this corsair h50 will not do anything to affect the life or performance of your cpu. not to mention that it would likely void your Apple warranty.

the mac pro has extensive cooling already, and is near silent. you aren't going to gain anything by changing the cooling system. also, you'll take what is a clean cable-free design and turn it into a nightmare of wires and tubing.

sounds like an absolutely horrible idea.

 

[Umbongo]

I have never modified anything with a water system before but apparently this is the no mess version and very reliable. For an investment of 75$ it seems like a good idea.

If you are going to water cool a computer you need to be prepared to lose your CPUs, systemboard, graphics card and memory. As reliable as you may think the h50 is there are reports of them leaking, which in my book means they have no reliability because this isn't just down time it will affect.

 

[GLS]

While water cooling a computer is nifty (I've done it in the past) you have to answer this question:

Are you prepared to lose a Mac Pro from electrical damage due to water leakage?

 

[philipma1957]

If you use reverse osmosis then distill the water it will be more then 99.99 percent pure. In a pure state water will be none conductive. So you won't fry the computer. BTW water cooling is not needed in a MacPro .

 

[zephonic]

I thought the original G5's were water-cooled?

 

[Transporteur]

If you use reverse osmosis then distill the water it will be more then 99.99 percent pure. In a pure state water will be none conductive. So you won't fry the computer. BTW water cooling is not needed in a MacPro .

As soon as the water hits the cooling blocks and radiators (aluminium or copper piping for the radiators and copper for the blocks themselves) the water will be conductive again and damage to your equipment is inevitable.

However, I user water-cooling for about a decade now and never hand an incident. As long as you choose proper equipment, the chances of leakage are rather small.
I can't say anything about those pre-manufactured cooling systems (corsair H series), though.

 

[Consultant]

Not necessary in a Mac Pro. The CPU cooling system is very efficient, therefore extremely silent.

The XEON CPUs are picked for longevity, don't worry about that. You will replace your workstation probably more than one time before the XEON CPU bites the dust.

Not really, water cooling still needs fan to cool the heat pump. Most examples are way louder than a Mac Pro.

 

[Transporteur]

Not really, water cooling still needs fan to cool the heat pump. Most examples are way louder than a Mac Pro.

Wrong quote?

 

[Gav2k]

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I thought the original G5's were water-cooled?

They were and apple will still service them out of warranty for leaks etc.

As everyone has said mac pros do not need to be water-cooled.

 

[philipma1957]

As soon as the water hits the cooling blocks and radiators (aluminium or copper piping for the radiators and copper for the blocks themselves) the water will be conductive again and damage to your equipment is inevitable.

However, I user water-cooling for about a decade now and never hand an incident. As long as you choose proper equipment, the chances of leakage are rather small.
I can't say anything about those pre-manufactured cooling systems (corsair H series), though.

If system is fully sealed the corrosion process won't start .. Of course if it springs a leak corrosion will start . So you would have a few hours before the water becomes conductive. thus you would need a plexiglass panel to constantly observe the cooling.. If you happen to be sleeping and the leak goes on for 6 or 7 hours oh well.been there done that.

 

[Transporteur]

If system is fully sealed the corrosion process won't start .. Of course if it springs a leak corrosion will start . So you would have a few hours before the water becomes conductive. thus you would need a plexiglass panel to constantly observe the cooling.. If you happen to be sleeping and the leak goes on for 6 or 7 hours oh well.been there done that.

The bare metal will always release atoms (or electrons? some chemistry guys around here? ) to the water, which makes it conductive. Even the additives (that are supposed to stop corrosion) can't stop this.

But as I said, water leakage shouldn't be any problem with properly selected hardware.

 

[FluJunkie]

Utterly unnecessary, in my opinion. I frequently run my Mac Pro pretty hard, and the drives are noisier than anything else. The cooling in these machines is pretty top-notch.

And frankly, my beloved mechanical keyboard: http://store.razerzone.com/store/razerusa/en_US/pd/productID.211324200

Is louder than the rest of the system combined.

 

[Joshuarocks]

Water cooled G5's

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They were and apple will still service them out of warranty for leaks etc.

As everyone has said mac pros do not need to be water-cooled.

The following were water cooled G5's.

The Dual 2.5 from Early 2005(or was it 2004?), the Dual 2.7(Early 2005), and lastly the most reliable of the three: The Quad G5 or Late 2005.

 

[Riot Nrrrd]

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They were and Apple will still service them out of warranty for leaks etc.

As everyone has said Mac Pros do not need to be water-cooled.

Real-world experience; I still use a dual-2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 at work. Mine is water-cooled. It leaked once. I managed to get Apple to pay the shop for the repair, but not without a fight. (It was past AppleCare expiration)

I've had no problems since then, and luckily I caught it almost as soon as it happened (I run a Menu Bar item that shows the CPU temp and noticed it within minutes of it happening when the temperature started to rise) so I got lucky.

I'm very glad my 2010 Mac Pro at home doesn't use water cooling

 

[300D]

Water cooling the G5 was out of necessity, the G5 overclocked to and above 2.5ghz (IBM never made a chip officially higher than 2ghz) produces a LOT of heat. Thats why there was never a Powerbook G5.

Ripping out a perfectly functioning air cooling system just to put water in its place is just dumb.

 

[mjsmke]

Are most liquid cooled systems actually water (H2O)?

Mineral Oil doesnt conduct electricity so that may be safer. Or if Freon (also used in fridges) is used it would evaporate quickly in most ambient temperatures if there was a leak.

Corrosion probably wont be an issue with corrosion resistant alloys. As far as i know if the system is sealed and and uses water, it can still corrode with cheaper metals as water contains oxygen. Unless it uses distilled water which contains no oxygen.

 

[Pressure]

Are most liquid cooled systems actually water (H2O)?

Mineral Oil doesnt conduct electricity so that may be safer. Or if Freon (also used in fridges) is used it would evaporate quickly in most ambient temperatures if there was a leak.

Corrosion probably wont be an issue with corrosion resistant alloys. As far as i know if the system is sealed and and uses water, it can still corrode with cheaper metals as water contains oxygen. Unless it uses distilled water which contains no oxygen.

The problem with oil is that it is very bad at conducting heat.

Yeah, it is quite quick to absorb it but it is less than good to dissipate the heat, so the heat would build up in the system.

The water-cooling I have fiddled with is all based around distilled water and corrosion resistant additives.

In the early days I was using a VapoChill Phase Change cooler for the CPU and peltier cooling element with water-cooling for the GPU.

Fun times staring at the -30 degree Celcius processor temperature and very low GPU temperatures. Until I needed a serious machine for actual work

 

[CaoCao]

Are the Mac Pro CPU fans even loud when run all out?